Dudley Bristol ( Dudley Moore), was a celebrated New York composer and nightclub pianist whose professional life was much more successful than his personal life, for one simple reason-he was incapable of making personal commitments. In this low-key comedy, he was faced with trying to raise his trouble-prone, 14 year old son Fred( Harley Cross), after his ex-wife Lorraine( Joanna Cassidy), had given up. Fred, who had an attitude problem and had spent more then his share of time in juvenile court grudgingly agreed to the arrangement, while Dudley, who didn't have a clue about parenting, tried to establish a viable relationship with the boy. Others seen regularly were Harold ( Joel Brooks), the owner of Liaisons, the supper club at which Dudley performed; Paul ( Max Wright), Dudley's business manager and best friend; and Marta ( Lupe Ontiveros), the Hispanic maid who spoke no English, but could at least talk to Fred who, for all his other shortcomings, spoke fluent Spanish.
A Review from USA TODAY
TV PREVIEW/BY MATT ROUSH
Disastrous 'Dudley' lands with a thud
Is Dudley Moore kidding when he opens his dreadful new sitcom by nightclub-crooning the Gershwin ditty Nice Work If You Can Get It?
As a career move, this lies somewhere between Arthur 2: On the Rocks and making a USA Network movie. I kept expecting the energizer bunny to bop across the screen, letting us all know it's just a put-on.
Dudley is at home behind a cabaret piano as Dudley Bristol, but at home he's just a dud. He looks exhausted as he tries to keep afloat his trademark throwaway charm, a thin conceit on which to build a career. He isn't helped by horrendous writing that relies on burrito jokes involving a Latino housekeeper who speaks no English.
If you can believe him as a dapper gadfly whose love life is the stuff of TV scandal and whose career makes Liz Smith filler, then maybe you'll swallow the series' tired concept. Dudley's a dad, and his sullen head-banger teen-age son -call him Thug-ley ( Harley Cross)-is thrust upon him by his ex ( adrift Joanna Cassidy).
Dispirited and joyless, this domestic bomb would be a total loss if not for game support by Max Wright ( ALF), reviving his jittery milquetoast act as Dudley's manager. Otherwise, another Gershwin tune better sums up this mess: Lets Call the Whole Thing Off.
An Article from USA TODAY
Published on April 16, 1993
Dudley hopes to do right by CBS sitcom
By Peter Johnson
USA TODAY
NEW YORK-Ten years ago, many people thought Dudley Moore was a drunk.
" I remember walking into a hotel lobby and a woman came up to me , smiled and said, " I'm staying here with an Alcoholics Anonymous group."
The reason, of course, was his portayal as a lovable boozer in 1981's Arthur, even though Moore says he's just a social drinker.
In the past few years in his native England, where he plugs a supermarket chain on TV, he's widely known by kids as the guy who is constantly looking for-but never finding-free range chickens. The supermarket naturally sells 'em.
Friday at 8:30 ET/PT on CBS, Moore once again has a chance to appeal to a mass audience in Dudley.
He plays Dudley Bristol, a celebrated cabaret pianist and one of New York's most eligitable bachelors whose teenage son returns suddenly to live with him, just as Dudley's former wife decides to live in a nearby apartment.
It being a sitcom, they both drive him nuts.
Why a sitcom at this point in his career?
For starters, Moore says, no film offers have appealed to him and , in short, the work isn't too hard. CBS has ordered 6 episodes, with two backups.
" I don't have to pull myself around in a caricatured sort of way. I think he's a very regular sort of guy, which I am, actually."
A concert musician, Moore says he'll just tease us with parts of tunes. " I like the idea of me being a pianist because it's one of the few things I can do."
Dudley Moore's Obituary From CNN
Actor Dudley Moore dies at 66
Announced his diagnosis of PSP in 1999
March 28, 2002 Posted: 8:09 AM EST (1309 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- British comedian and actor Dudley Moore has died at age 66 at his home in the United States after a long illness.
Moore, was best known for his comic performance as a drunk millionaire in the 1981 film "Arthur" and his role as a composer grappling with a midlife crisis in the 1979 hit "10."
He died in New Jersey of pneumonia as a complication of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), his publicist said.
Michelle Bega said the actor died at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) on Wednesday. Funeral arrangements are pending and a memorial service is planned, she said.
Progressive supranuclear palsy attacks brain cells and impairs mental and motor functions.
He was "Dud" to many British fans, who knew Dudley Moore's work and comedy better from his early "Dud and Pete" partnership with Peter Cook than from the films that would introduce him to American audiences.
EXTRA INFORMATION
From "Beyond the Fringe" in 1964 on TV to what was probably his most famous effort, "Arthur" in 1981, Dudley Moore's career was rich, varied and busy.
Moore was last seen in public in Britain in November when he travelled to London to receive a honor from Queen Elizabeth II.
The frail-looking star of "10" and "Arthur" remained seated in a wheelchair as he received his CBE (Commander of the British Empire) from Prince Charles.
Moore's illness robbed him of his speech and rendered him virtually immobile.
Announcing his illness in 1999, he said: "I understand that one person in 100,000 suffers from the disease and I am also aware that there are 100,000 members of my union, the Screen Actors Guild, who are working every day.
"I think, therefore, it is in some way considerate of me that I have taken on the disease for myself, thus protecting the remaining 99,999 members from this fate."
But in a later interview for the BBC he was less casual. He said, "It's totally mysterious the way this illness attacks and eats you up, and then spits you out.
"There's always this feeling of 'Why did it hit me?' and I cannot make peace with it because I know I am going to die from it.
"Yes I feel angry, that's true -- to be reduced to this insignificant version of myself is overpowering."
'Wonderful chap'
One of the first tributes was paid by British film director Michael Winner who said Moore will be best remembered around the world for "10" and "Arthur" and in the United Kingdom for his partnership with Peter Cook.
Winner told Sky News that the partnership "changed the whole attitude to comedy in Great Britain. He was the lovable one of the two, he was the funny one and the sweet one but with immense skill as well.
"He was not unlike the character he played in some of his films on occasion. But he was just a wonderful chap. I shall miss him very much."
Chat show host Michael Parkinson, who interviewed Moore a number of times, paid tribute to "a bloody good comedian and a lovely man."
"He said he and Cook were "a great comedy duo" but said Moore also had "a little boy lost quality."
"He was the most charming of men and delightful company, a superb musician, a bloody good comedian and a lovely man."
Tony, Grammy, Globes
At the time he was honored in November at Buckingham -- his last public appearance -- Moore had lost his ability to speak.
In a career spanning more than 30 years, Moore won Tony awards, a Grammy, two Golden Globes, as well as an Oscar nomination.
He set up the Dudley Moore Research Fund, dedicated to finding a cure for PSP and the charity Music for All Seasons, which takes live music into hospitals, homes for the elderly and prisons.
Moore was a musical prodigy as a child and won a music scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, to study the organ.
He left university an accomplished jazz pianist and performed widely before finding fame with "Beyond The Fringe," a comedy revue with Cook, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett.
His collaboration with Cook on the legendary TV shows "Not Only -- But Also" and "Derek and Clive" paved the way for Moore's Hollywood career as an unlikely romantic leads.
He married four times -- to actresses Suzy Kendall, Tuesday Weld, Brogan Lane and Nicole Rothschild -- and had two sons.
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