Inside Actor Dudley Moore's Lonely Final Days, After Being Diagnosed With a Rare Brain Disease
Inside Actor Dudley Moore's Lonely Final Days, After Being Diagnosed With a Rare Brain Disease
Gillian TellingMon, March 30, 2026 at 6:36 PM UTC
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Actor and comedian Dudley Moore, circa 1981Credit: TV Times via Getty -
Dudley Moore was once the toast of Tinseltown, winning Tonys and other accolades for films like Arthur
He began having issues with his speech and mobility and memory in the mid-'90s, and was eventually diagnosed with an incurable, Parkinson's-like brain disease
His health declined, and he spent his final days near the Kessler Institute in New Jersey, where he died in 2002 at the age of 66
More than a decade after the 1981 release of his hit film Arthur — which earned Dudley Moore an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a drunken millionaire — Barbra Streisand was forced to fire the British actor, then 59, from her film The Mirror Has Two Faces when he couldn't remember his lines.
Moore went to the doctor to seek testing for memory loss, speech and balance problems, and he was told that he'd likely had a series of small strokes. Two years later, a hole was discovered in his heart. Moore hoped that after surgery to repair his heart, his mobility and speech issues would also improve, PEOPLE reported in 1999.
The following year, a neuro-ophthalmologist cited sluggish eye movement to diagnose him with progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP, a Parkinson's-related disease that targets the brain and eventually leads to paralysis.
Moore publicly announced his diagnosis on September 29, 1998, finding the strength for a joke:
"One person in 100,000 suffers from this 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 this disease for myself, thus protecting the remaining 99,999 SAG members from this fate."
WALTER MATTHAU, LIZA MINNELLI, DUDLEY MOORE AND RICHARD PRYOR at the THE 55TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS - Broadcast Coverage - Airdate: April 11, 1983Credit: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
For a 1999 PEOPLE feature, Moore's friends and doctors opened up about how the actor was dealing with the diagnosis. As his mobility issues worsened, he moved to New Jersey to seek treatment at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in East Orange, where Christopher Reeve received treatment following his paralyzing 1995 accident.
Dudley Moore as Arthur in the 1981 filmCredit: Snap/Shutterstock
While at the institute, doctors told PEOPLE that Moore, an accomplished concert pianist, was a courageous and upbeat patient and still played the piano as best he could, although he could no longer walk without support.
"There's a slowness in getting words out," Kessler neuropsychologist Thomas Galski said. Of PSP, Galski noted, "It also affects a person's vision. One may have trouble focusing. The muscles in the throat can be so affected that in advanced cases one could easily choke and die."
Moore was also receiving counseling to help him adjust to his illness, but the doctors said their patient has taught them a few things about character. "His sense of humor makes our job a little easier," Galski marveled. "I've never seen Dudley upset."
In 2002, four years after the diagnosis, the quick-witted British comic actor died in New Jersey of pneumonia, a complication of the disease, at 66.
By the time of his death, Moore had lost the ability to speak and was almost immobile, PEOPLE reported at the time. He made his final public appearance in November 2001, when he was named a Commander of the British Empire.
“He said he was waiting to die,” Moore’s estranged wife, Nicole Rothschild, remembered in an interview with Extra in June 1998 after he was diagnosed. "He said there was really nothing left for him here.”
Despite a career that included numerous awards for his performances on both stage and screen, Dudley Moore’s popularity was more enduring in England than in America.
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His final onscreen film role was 1996's The Disappearance of Kevin Johnson, in which he played himself. He lent his voice to 1998's animated The Mighty Kong, voicing the titular character alongside Jodi Benson.
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“Only the British media persist in treating Moore as a superstar: the local lad who made good,” said Britain’s The Independent newspaper in 1994. “Like Peter Sellers before him, he is a highly gifted British export who left a creative British career behind for fleeting fame, some riches, but sadly, little fulfillment in America.”
From an early age, Moore dealt with other physical and psychological limitations.
Born with a club foot, he underwent eight years of surgeries in his childhood to correct the deformity. While recovering, he was often left alone in hospitals alongside dying soldiers. He later told Barbra Paskin in his 1997 authorized biography that the situation led to him developing an often overwhelming fear of abandonment.
As a result of his left leg being more than an inch shorter than his right, his schoolmates nicknamed him “Hopalong.”
“I felt unworthy of anything,” he once told Time magazine after he'd found fame as an actor, PEOPLE previously reported. “A little runt with a twisted foot.”
Moore relocated to the United States after falling in love with American actress Tuesday Weld, whom he married in 1975. She became his second wife, after British actress Suzy Kendall.
The actor went on to marry Brogan Lane in 1988 and wed Rothschild in 1994. He also had a long relationship with actress Susan Anton.
His relationship with his two sons, Patrick (with Weld) and Nicholas (with Rothschild), was strained. In 2005, Patrick, now 49, gave an interview The Telegraph, saying that their father didn't want them around as he was battling PSP.
Patrick and his brother were the primary beneficiaries of an estimated $6.5 million, The Telegraph reported.
British Actor and Musician Dudley Moore, CBE Outside Buckingham Palace after receiving the CBE. 11/16/2001Credit: Avalon/Getty
Although he later died estranged from loved ones, Moore once professed to being a big believer in love. "I can't think of any reason to be alive except to have a relationship with somebody," he once told PEOPLE.
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