abcnews.go.com/sections/entertainment/DailyNews/moore020327.html
In the last years of his life, he was in great pain, gradually losing control of his body until even simple movements, like swallowing, became difficult. Still, in his debilitated state, he used his celebrity to shed light on PSP and the estimated 20,000 Americans who struggle with the illness. The role showed Moore's potential as a comic with pathos. Sadly, Moore said that many friends and fans mistook him for his Arthur character when his illness first caused his speech to slur. He was born in East London with a clubfoot that stunted his growth. He went on to study music at Oxford, where he met his future partner Peter Cook, along with other performers with whom he formed Beyond the Fringe, a comedy troupe best described as a precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus. One of Moore's celebrated contributions to the show was his impersonation of the pianist Dame Myra Hess, playing a bombastic version of "Colonel Bogey's March" that he couldn't seem to end. Moore wrote, starred and composed the score for his next film, 30 Is a Dangerous Age, in 1968. In the mid-1970s, he met director Blake Edwards in a therapy group and soon landed the part in Edwards' 1979 film 10, which marked the debut of a dreadlocked Bo Derek. The movie made Moore a major star, and he followed it up with the hit Arthur in 1981. He appeared in a string of comedies, including Unfaithfully Now, Micki + Maude and Arthur 2: On the Rocks. Moore married Suzy Kendall in 1958, Tuesday Weld in 1975, Brogan Lane in 1988 and Nicole Rothschild in 1994. He had a son, Patrick, by his second marriage and a son, Nicholas, by his fourth. He starred in two short-lived sitcoms in the early 1990s -- Dudley and Daddy's Girls -- but his workload steadily decreased as he began having trouble with basic tasks. Losing the ability to remember his lines, he lost work and rumors spread that he had a drinking problem. In 1995, Barbra Streisand fired him from the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces. Losing the ability to take care of himself, he moved into a friend's home in New Jersey, close to his doctors and a rehabilitation center, the Kessler Institute. When asked what he missed most as PSP ravaged his body, Moore told Walters, "I miss playing the piano.
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