This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011)

Dudley Moore
Moore at the 43rd Emmy Awards, 25 August 1991
Born	Dudley Stuart John Moore (1935-04-19)19 April 1935 London, UK
Died	27 March 2002(2002-03-27) (aged 66) Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S.
Cause of death	Pneumonia
Occupation	Actor, comedian, musician
Years active	1961–2002
Spouse	Suzy Kendall (1968–72) Tuesday Weld (1975–80) Brogan Lane (1988–91) Nicole Rothschild (1994–98)

Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE (19 April 1935 – 27 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.

Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television double-act he formed with Peter Cook.

His fame as a comedy film actor was later heightened by success in hit Hollywood films such as 10 with Bo Derek and Arthur in the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively. He received an Oscar nomination for the latter role. He was frequently referred to in the media as "Cuddly Dudley" or "The Sex Thimble", a reference to his short stature and reputation as a "ladies' man".

Early life[link]

Moore was born in Charing Cross Hospital, London, the son of Ada Francis (née Hughes), a secretary, and John Moore, a railway electrician. He was brought up in Dagenham, Essex. He was notably short: 5 ft 2.5 in (1.588 m) and was born with club feet that required extensive hospital treatment and which, coupled with his diminutive stature, made him the butt of jokes from other children. His right foot responded well to corrective treatment and had straightened itself by the time he was six, but his left foot became permanently twisted and consequently his left leg below the knee was withered. Seeking refuge from his problems, he became a choirboy at the age of six and took up piano and violin. He rapidly developed into a highly talented pianist and organist and was playing the pipe organ at church weddings by the age of 14. He attended Dagenham County High School (now The Sydney Russell School) where he received musical tuition from a dedicated teacher, Peter Cork. Cork became a friend and confidant to Moore, corresponding with him until 1994.

Moore's musical talent won him an organ scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. While studying music and composition there, he also performed with Alan Bennett in the Oxford Revue. Bennett then recommended him to the producer putting together Beyond the Fringe, a comedy revue, where he was to first meet Peter Cook. Beyond the Fringe was at the forefront of the 1960s satire boom and after success in Britain it transferred to the United States, where it was also a hit.

During his university years, Moore took a great interest in jazz and soon became an accomplished jazz pianist and composer. He began working with such leading musicians as John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. In 1960, he left Dankworth's band to work on Beyond the Fringe. During the 1960s he formed the Dudley Moore Trio (with drummer Chris Karan and bassists Pete McGurk and later Peter Morgan). Moore's admitted principal musical influences were Oscar Peterson and Errol Garner. In an interview he recalled the day he finally mastered Garner's unique left-hand strum and was so excited that he walked around for several days with his left hand constantly playing that cadence. His early recordings included "My Blue Heaven", "Lysie Does It", "Poova Nova", "Take Your Time", "Indiana", "Sooz Blooz", "Baubles, Bangles & Beads", "Sad One for George" and "Autumn Leaves". The trio performed regularly on British television, made numerous recordings and had a long-running residency at Peter Cook's London nightclub, The Establishment.

Moore composed the soundtracks for the films Bedazzled, Inadmissible Evidence, Staircase and Six Weeks, among others.

Career[link]

Partnership with Peter Cook[link]

Moore (right) with Peter Cook in 1974

After following the Establishment to New York City, Moore returned to the UK and was offered his own series on the BBC, Not Only... But Also (1965). It was commissioned specifically as a vehicle for Moore, but when he invited Peter Cook on as a guest, their comedy partnership was so notable that it became a permanent fixture of the series. Cook and Moore are most remembered for their sketches as two working-class men, Pete and Dud, in macs and cloth caps, commenting on politics and the arts, but they fashioned a series of one-off characters, usually with Moore in the role of interviewer to one of Cook's upper-class eccentrics. The pair developed an unorthodox method for scripting the material by using a tape recorder to tape an ad libbed routine that they would then have transcribed and edited. This would not leave enough time to fully rehearse the script so they often had a set of cue cards. Moore was famous for "corpsing" — the programmes often went on live, and Cook would deliberately make him laugh in order to get an even bigger reaction from the studio audience. Regrettably, many of the videotapes and film reels of these seminal TV shows were later erased by the BBC (an affliction which wiped out large portions of other British television productions as well, such as Doctor Who), although some of the soundtracks (which were issued on record) have survived. Moore and Cook co-starred in the film Bedazzled (1967) with Eleanor Bron, and also had tours called Behind the Fridge and Good Evening.

In 2009 it came to light that at the time three separate British police forces had wanted them to be prosecuted under obscenity laws for their comedy recordings made during the late 1970s under the pseudonyms Derek and Clive. Shortly following the last of these, Derek and Clive – Ad Nauseam, Moore made a break with Cook, whose alcoholism was affecting his work, to concentrate on his film career. When Moore began to manifest the symptoms of the disease that eventually killed him (progressive supranuclear palsy), it was at first suspected that he too had a drinking problem. Two of Moore's early starring roles were the titular drunken playboy Arthur and the heavy drinker George Webber in 10. Dudley Moore also plays a short role in the 1995 feature CASPER.

Later career[link]

In the late 1970s, Moore moved to Hollywood, where he appeared in Foul Play (1978) with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. The following year saw his break-out role in Blake Edwards's 10, which he followed up with the movie Wholly Moses! The latter was not a major success.

Moore played Watson to Cook's Holmes in 1978's Hound of the Baskervilles. Moore was noteworthy as a comic foil to Sir Henry and played three other roles: one in drag and one as a one-legged man. Moore also played the piano for the entire score and appears at the start and end of the film as a flamboyant and mischievous pianist. Moore also scored the film.

In 1981, Moore appeared as the lead in the comedy Arthur, an even bigger hit than 10, which also starred Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud. It was both commercially and critically successful; Moore received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor whilst Gielgud won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Arthur's stern but compassionate manservant. Moore lost to Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond). He did, however, win a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. In 1984, Moore had another hit, starring in the Blake Edwards directed Micki + Maude, co-starring Amy Irving. This won him another Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy.

His subsequent films, including Arthur 2: On the Rocks, a sequel to the original, and an animated adaptation of King Kong, were inconsistent in terms of both critical and commercial reception; Moore eventually disowned the former. In later years, Cook would wind up Moore by claiming he preferred Arthur 2: On the Rocks to Arthur.

In addition to acting, Moore continued to work as a composer and pianist, writing scores for a number of films and giving piano concerts, which were highlighted by his popular parodies of classical favourites. In addition, Moore collaborated with the conductor Sir Georg Solti to create a 1991 television series, Orchestra!, which was designed to introduce audiences to the symphony orchestra. He later worked with the American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on a similar television series from 1993, Concerto!, likewise designed to introduce audiences to classical music concertos. He also appeared as Ko-Ko in a Jonathan Miller production of The Mikado in Los Angeles in March 1988.

In 1987, Moore was interviewed for the New York Times by the music critic Rena Fruchter, herself an accomplished pianist. They became close friends. At that time Moore's film career was already on the wane. He was having trouble remembering his lines, a problem he had never previously encountered (for this reason he was fired from Barbra Streisand's film The Mirror Has Two Faces).^[1] He opted to concentrate on the piano, and enlisted Fruchter as an artistic partner. They performed as a duo in the U.S. and Australia. However, his disease soon started to make itself apparent there as well, as his fingers would not always do what he wanted them to do. Symptoms such as slurred speech and loss of balance were misinterpreted by the public and the media as a sign of drunkenness. Moore himself was at a loss to explain this. He moved into Fruchter's family home in New Jersey and stayed there for five years, but this, however, placed a great strain both on her marriage and her friendship with Moore, and she later set him up in the house next door.

Moore was deeply affected by the death of Peter Cook in 1995, and for weeks would regularly telephone Cook's home in London just to get the telephone answering machine and hear his friend's voice. Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London and at the time many people who knew him noted that Moore was behaving strangely and attributed it to grief or drinking. In November 1995, Moore teamed up with friend and humorist Martin Lewis in organising a two-day salute to Cook in Los Angeles that Moore co-hosted with Lewis.

Moore is the main subject of the play Pete and Dud: Come Again, by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde. Set in a chat-show studio in the 1980s, it focuses on Moore's comic and personal relationship with Peter Cook and how their careers took off after the split of the partnership.

Entrepreneur[link]

Moore co-owned a fashionable restaurant in Venice, California (1980s–2000). The restaurant was named 72 Market Street Oyster Bar and Grill. Moore played piano in the restaurant whenever he dropped by the premises.

Personal life[link]

Moore was married and divorced four times: to actresses Suzy Kendall, Tuesday Weld (by whom he had a son, Patrick, in 1976), Brogan Lane and Nicole Rothschild (one son, Nicholas, born in 1995).

He maintained good relationships with Kendall particularly, and also Weld and Lane. However, he expressly forbade Rothschild to attend his funeral. At the time his illness became apparent, he was going through a difficult divorce from Rothschild, despite sharing a house in Los Angeles with her and her previous husband.

Moore dated and was a favourite of some of Hollywood's most attractive women, including Susan Anton. In 1994, Moore was arrested after Rothschild claimed he had beaten her before that year's Oscars; she later withdrew her charges.

Illness and death[link]

In September 1997 Moore underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in London, and subsequently suffered four minor strokes.

In June 1998, Nicole Rothschild was reported to have told an American television show that Moore was "waiting to die" due to a serious illness, but these reports were denied by Suzy Kendall.^[2]

On 30 September 1999, Moore announced that he was suffering from the terminal degenerative brain disorder progressive supranuclear palsy, some of whose early symptoms were so similar to intoxication that he had been accused of being drunk, and that the illness had been diagnosed earlier in the year.^[3]

He died on 27 March 2002, as a result of pneumonia, secondary to immobility caused by the palsy, in Plainfield, New Jersey. Rena Fruchter was holding his hand when he died, and she reported his final words were, "I can hear the music all around me." Moore was interred in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Fruchter later wrote a memoir of their relationship (Dudley Moore, Ebury Press, 2004).

In December 2004, the Channel 4 television station in the United Kingdom broadcast Not Only But Always, a TV movie dramatising the relationship between Moore and Cook, although the principal focus of the production was on Cook. Around the same time the relationship between the two was also the subject of a stage play called Pete and Dud: Come Again.

Honours and awards[link]

In June 2001, Moore was appointed a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE). Despite his deteriorating condition, he attended the ceremony, mute and wheelchair-bound, at Buckingham Palace to collect his honour.^[1]

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

UK chart singles[link]

• "Goodbye-ee" (1965), Peter Cook and Dudley Moore
• "The L.S. Bumble Bee" (1967), Peter Cook and Dudley Moore
• "Song for Suzy" (1972), Dudley Moore Trio – upbeat jazz.

Jazz discography[link]

• From Beyond The Fringe (Atlantic Standard 2 017, 1966)
• The Dudley Moore Trio (Decca Records (LK UK) / London Records (US) PS558) 1969
• Dudley Moore plays The Theme From Beyond The Fringe and All That Jazz – Atlantic 1403 (1962)
• The World of Dudley Moore – Decca SPA 106
• The Other Side Of Dudley Moore - Decca LK 4732
• Genuine Dud – Decca LK 4788
• The Music of Dudley Moore – EMI Australia (Cube Records) TOOFA.14-1/2
• Dudley Down Under – Cube ICS 13
• Dudley Moore at the Wavendon Festival – Black Lion Records BLP 12151
• Smilin' Through – Cleo Laine & Dudley Moore – Finesse Records FW 38091
• Dudley Dell – Parlophone 45R 4772
• Strictly For The Birds – Cleo Laine & Dudley Moore – CBS A 2947
• The Theme From "Beyond The Fringe" & All That Jazz – Collectibles COL 6625
• Live From an Aircraft Hangar – Martine Avenue Productions MAPI 8486
• Songs Without Words – GRP/BMG LC 6713
• The First Orchestrations – Dudley Moore & Richard Rodney Bennett – Played by John Bassett and his Band – Harkit Records HRKCD 8054
• Jazz Jubilee – Martine Avenue Productions MAPI 1521

References[link]

Notes

Further reading

• Dudley Moore (1966). Originals. Arranged as Piano Solos Transcribed from the Decca L.P. 'The Other Side of Dudley Moore'. Essex Music.
• From Fringe to Flying Circus – 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960–1980' – Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980
• Alexander Games (1999). Pete & Dud: An Illustrated Biography. Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-99642-7. 
• Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (2003). Dud and Pete The Dagenham Dialogues. Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-77347-0. 
• Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde (2006). Pete and Dud: Come Again. Methuen Drama. ISBN 0-413-77602-6. 
• Dudley Moore, Rena Fruchter, Ebury Press, 2004.
• Fallen Stars, Julian Upton, Headpress, 2004.

External links[link]

Biography portal

• "The Films of Dudley Moore", film clip compilation, 5 minutes

accessdate=2 September 2010}}

• Dudley Moore at the Internet Movie Database
• Obituary at CNN.com
• Radio 4 programme "Affectionately Dudley", 2006

Coordinates: 52°30′43″N 2°05′45″W / 52.5119°N 2.0957°W / 52.5119; -2.0957

Dudley
Dudley Town Centre, looking towards the Market Place.
Dudley  Dudley shown within the West Midlands
Population	194,919 (2001 Census)
OS grid reference	SO9390
- London	130.5 m
Metropolitan borough	Dudley
Metropolitan county	West Midlands
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	DUDLEY
Postcode district	DY1, DY2
Dialling code	01384, 0121, 01902
Police	West Midlands
Fire	West Midlands
Ambulance	West Midlands
EU Parliament	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Dudley North
	Dudley South
List of places: UK • England • West Midlands

Dudley (ⁱ/ˈdʌdli/ DUD-lee) is a large town in the West Midlands county of England, and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. At the 2001 census (according to the Office of National Statistics), the Dudley Urban Sub Area had a population of 194,919,^[1] making it the one of the largest settlements in England, the second largest town in the United Kingdom behind Reading,^[2] and the largest settlement in the UK without its own university.^[3]

Dudley is part of the West Midlands conurbation, and is located south of the city of Wolverhampton. It is the largest town in the Black Country region of England, and for many years the town (but not the castle, which was classed as part of Staffordshire^[4]) formed part of an exclave of the county of Worcestershire.^[5] Despite the more recent changes in county borders, the town still remains part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester.

Dudley unsuccessfully bid to receive city status in 2012, losing out to Chelmsford, Perth and St. Asaph.^[6]

History[link]

Dudley has a history dating back to Anglo-Saxon times,^[7] its name deriving from the Old English 'Duddan Leah' (meaning Dudda's clearing) and one of its churches being named in honour of the Anglo-Saxon King and Saint, Edmund. Dudley Castle has stood on a hill overlooking the town since the time of the Norman Conquest,^[8] and is mentioned in the Domesday Book.^[9] The present castle building dates from the 13th century, and provided the centre around which the town grew. Dating from the 12th century are the ruins of St. James Priory, set within the Priory Park.^[10]

Dudley Castle

The town was a major market town during the Middle Ages, selling not only agricultural produce but also iron goods at a national level.^[11] Working iron and mining for coal was in practice as early as the 13th century, and by the 18th century the town had become a significant industrial hub.

During the English Civil War Dudley served as a Royalist stronghold, with the castle besieged by the Parliamentarians and later partly demolished on the orders of the Government after the Royalist surrender.^[12]

The town's population grew dramatically during the 18th and 19th centuries because of the increase in industry, and it became a central part of the Black Country. The main industries in Dudley included coal and limestone mining.^[13] Other industries included iron, steel, engineering, metallurgy, glass cutting, textiles and leatherworking. Of historical significance, the first Newcomen steam engine was installed at the Conygree coalworks a mile east of Dudley Castle in 1712.^[14]

During this time living conditions were incredibly poor, with Dudley being named 'the most unhealthy place in the country',^[15] which led to the installation of clean water supplies and sewage systems, and later the extensive development of council housing during the early 20th century to relocate the occupants of local slum housing.

In World War II, Dudley was bombed on several occasions, with a number of fatalities, though nowhere near as severely as its near neighbour Birmingham.

Empty building of the former Hippodrome Theatre

The town centre was developed substantially in the early 20th century, with the construction of many entertainment venues including a theatre and cinemas, with two indoor shopping centres being added later in the century. In more recent years, however, the declining industry in the area has given rise to high unemployment, resulting in the closure of many town businesses. The development of the nearby Merry Hill Shopping Centre between 1985 and 1990 also saw the loss of most of the town centre's leading name stores, which relocated to take advantage of the tax incentives offered by Merry Hill's status as an Enterprise Zone.

In more recent years the town has declined further still, with the financial crisis and recession resulting in even more of the retail units in the town centre becoming vacant. The Woolworths store on Market Place closed in December 2008 when the company went bankrupt,^[16] and Beatties closed its store - the last department store in the town - in January 2010,^[17] after more than 40 years due to falling trade.

Civic history[link]

By the end of the 13th century Dudley had become a manorial borough and, from the 16th century until 1853, was governed by the Court Leet of the Lords of Dudley. After this time the Town Commissioners were superseded by the Board of Health, before the town was eventually incorporated into a municipal borough in 1865. It became a County Borough in 1888 under the Local Government Act, consisting of the wards of St. Thomas, the Castle, Netherton, St. Edmund, St. James, St. John and Woodside.^[18]

Dudley's Council House in Priory Road was opened in 1935 by King George V, and was financed by the then Earl of Dudley, William Humble Eric Ward,^[19] to replace the original building from 1870. The Town Hall (now Dudley Concert Hall) opened on St James's Road in 1928; it stands next to council offices which were converted from the old Police Station in 1939 after the construction of a new building on nearby New Street.^[20]

The town has had a public library since 1878; it was originally situated in Priory Street, before relocating to St James's Road in 1909. The library underwent a major expansion in 1966 and a significant refurbishment in 2002.^[21]

In 1966, the county borough was expanded to include the urban district councils of Brierley Hill and Sedgley, along with parts of Coseley, Amblecote and Rowley Regis, while an area in the eastern section of Dudley was transferred into the new borough of Warley, which became part of Sandwell in 1974.^[22] In 1974 it became part of the Dudley Metropolitan Borough, after a merger with the municipal boroughs of Stourbridge and Halesowen.^[23]

Since 1974, Dudley has been part of the West Midlands county.

Places of interest[link]

The ruins of Dudley Priory.

The town is home to Dudley Zoo, and the Black Country Living Museum. Visitors to the museum may also take a narrowboat trip from the adjacent canal, through the Dudley Tunnel. The ruined Dudley Castle is within the grounds of the zoo, and there is an extensive wooded ridge that runs north from the castle. Dudley Zoo is to be regenerated under proposals by Dudley Zoo in partnership with Dudley Council, St Modwen and Advantage West Midlands, which will see a former freightliner site redeveloped with a tropical dome, Asiatic forest, two aquatic facilities and walkthrough aviaries. It is expected to cost £38.7 million.^[24]

Dudley is home to a former Odeon Cinema and a former music hall, the Dudley Hippodrome, both from the Art Deco period in the 1930s. The Dudley Hippodrome was built on to the side of the now-demolished Opera House (built in 1900 and burnt down in 1936) and is now a bingo hall. There is a Showcase Cinema in a retail park between the zoo and museum.

The Odeon Cinema became an Assembly Hall for the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1976 for the West Midlands Area.

The Plaza Cinema was built on Castle Hill in 1938 next to the Hippodrome, and remained open until October 1990. The building was then taken over by Laser Quest, who used it until it was demolished in 1997. The site of the cinema remains undeveloped.

Since the 1970s, there has been a nightclub on Castle Hill situated on the corner of Station Drive; this has changed ownership several times since first opening.

Dudley Art Deco Cinema, now a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall

There are many canals in and around Dudley, the main one being the Dudley Canal - most of which passes beneath Dudley in a tunnel which lacks a towpath and is therefore accessible only by boat.

The open sections of canal are popular with walkers, cyclists, fishermen, and narrowboat users.^[25] Many of the canalside towpaths have been upgraded for cycling, and some sections are part of the National Cycle Network.

Established in 1260, Dudley Market in Dudley town centre is a major shopping area for the town. It has undergone numerous developments in its history. One major development was in 1982 when the area was pedestrianised and the 12th century cobblestones were removed. Other developments have included the addition of a new roof and new toilet facilities, with the new ground level block having replaced underground toilets in the early 1990s.^[26]

Dudley is also the location of several churches. These include the Church of St. Edmund, Church of St. James, and Church of St. Thomas.

The old St Edmund's Church School, a 19th century building near the town centre, was closed in 1970 on a merger with St John's Church School on Kates Hill, and later converted into a mosque for the town's growing Islamic community, which is mostly concentrated around Kates Hill, Queen's Cross, Eve Hill and The Buffery.

St James's Church at Eve Hill also had a church school from the mid 19th century, but this was closed during the 1970s and was used as a community centre for several years before being transferred to the Black Country Museum in 1989. The site of the school remained vacant until 2008, when work began on a new health centre that is due to open by 2010.^[27]

Saltwells Wood is nature reserve in Quarry Bank, whilst the reserve still remains, historic Saltwells House was allowed to fall into decline by Dudley Council and has been demolished in 2011.

Proposed mosque[link]

During the mid-2000s, plans were unveiled for the construction of a new mosque on the site of a derelict factory near the Dudley Southern By-Pass.

The mosque proposals were scrapped on 3 May 2010 in favour of an expansion to the existing Dudley Central Mosque on Castle Hill.^[28]

Government[link]

National government[link]

Dudley is presently covered by two parliamentary constituencies, Dudley North and Dudley South, which cover the town and its surrounding area. The current MPs elected from these seats to the House of Commons are Labour's Ian Austin, and the Conservative Chris Kelly, respectively.^[29][30]

Current Government proposals to change constituent boundaries would create a total of three Dudley constituencies, encompassing the current areas of Dudley North and Dudley South, along with several wards from other nearby constituencies in Sandwell and Wolverhampton.^[31]

Other[link]

Law enforcement in Dudley is carried out by the West Midlands Police and fire and rescue by the West Midlands Fire Service.

Dudley Police Station is situated on New Street, in a building that opened in 1939 to replace a 19th century structure on Priory Street which now forms part of the local council offices.

The Fire Station is situated on Burton Road, where it relocated to from a 1930s building on Tower Street. Part of the current site was previously occupied by Burton Road Hospital.

The current Ambulance Station was opened in the late 1980s on Burton Road, on part of land that formed the site of the hospital six years before its demolition.

There is also the Army Cadet Force.

Libraries[link]

Dudley Library

Dudley Library is situated on St. James's Road in the town centre. A Grade II listed Edwardian baroque building, it was designed by George H. Wenyon and opened in 1909.^[32][33]

The library service also operates 8 branch libraries and 4 self-service 'Library Links' situated throughout the Dudley Borough, along with 3 other main libraries located in the larger borough towns. A controversial re-structuring and modernization of the service between 2006 - 2009 lead to the closure of several smaller borough libraries in favour of the 'Library Links'.^[34][35]

Transport[link]

Rail[link]

View southward, towards Dudley Tunnel and Stourbridge Junction in 1951.

The nearest railway stations are all a mile or more from Dudley town centre, and none of them are within the town of Dudley; Tipton railway station, Dudley Port railway station and Coseley are served by local services operated by London Midland, and Sandwell and Dudley railway station which is served by both local London Midland services and Virgin Trains West Coast services from London Euston to Wolverhampton.

Dudley railway station, in the town of Dudley itself, opened in 1850, and closed under the Beeching Axe in 1964. In its heyday it was a hub of services east to Birmingham (via a junction at Great Bridge), Walsall and Lichfield; north to Wolverhampton, Tipton and Coseley; and south-west to Stourbridge, as well as a line that served the small communities on the way to Old Hill and Halesowen. This site was then used as a Freightliner terminal by Freightliner UK until an unpopular closure on 26 September 1989.^[36]

Both of the town's railway stations (Dudley and Blowers Green) were closed in 1962 under the Beeching Axe, although the line through Dudley remained open to goods trains until 1993, though it is planned that the town will regain a passenger rail link when an extension to the Midland Metro opens between Brierley Hill and Wednesbury, although the Midland Metro is a Light Rail system, and does not feature through ticketing to the national rail network.^[37]

Bus[link]

There is a large bus station in the town centre which has many connections to surrounding towns and communities, including: Bilston, Birmingham, Brierley Hill, Coseley, Cradley Heath, Gornal, Halesowen, Kingswinford, Merry Hill, Oldbury, Pensnett, Rowley Regis, Sedgley, Smethwick, Stourbridge, Tipton, Wall Heath, Walsall, Wednesbury, West Bromwich, Withymoor, Wolverhampton, Wombourne and Wordsley.

The bus station also sees a service from National Express, whose services call at the bus station mostly for London or Wolverhampton. Other places served include holiday destination Blackpool and London Heathrow and London Gatwick Airports. There is also a bus station at Russells Hall Hospital.

The town has been served by a bus station at the junction of Birmingham Street and Fisher Street since 1952. The original bus station was cleared in 1984 and replaced by the current bus station which became fully operational in 1987.

Originally, Midland Red operated bus services in the town, mostly from its own bus depot, which opened in 1929. This depot was located on Birmingham Road and passed to West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive in 1973, along with operation of all bus services in Dudley. The depot itself was closed in 1993 and demolished a year later to make way for the Castle Gate roundabout at the eastern end of the town's new southern by-pass. The island was built in 1997 and the by-pass opened on 15 October 1999.

Road[link]

Dudley is served by main roads which give a direct route to neighbouring towns. The longest of these roads are the B4176 (which runs to Wombourne, Bridgnorth and Telford) and the A461 (which passes through Wednesbury and Walsall, finally reaching Lichfield).

Air[link]

The nearest international airport is Birmingham International Airport, around 19 miles to the east. The nearest local airport is Wolverhampton Airport, which is about 10 miles to the west of the town.

Former tram service[link]

Dudley was the terminus point of two tram routes which opened in the later part of the 19th century. The first route, linking the town with Tipton and Wednesbury, opened on 21 January 1884 operating steam trams, the route being electrified in 1907 before being closed in March 1930 and replaced by Midland Red buses along the route. The second route opened a year later, linking the town with Birmingham and heading through the centre of nearby Tividale village on the Dudley-Tipton border. This line was electrified in 1904 and remained open until 30 September 1939, when it too was replaced by Midland Red buses.^[38]

Geography[link]

Geology[link]

Wren's Nest

Dudley covers an area of the South Staffordshire Coalfield, which contributed heavily to its growth and industrialisation during the 18th century Industrial Revolution.^[39]

North-west of the town centre lies the Wren's Nest Nature Reserve, the first British nature reserve in an urban area^[40] and a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), considered to be one of the most notable geological locations in the British Isles. A part of the Much Wenlock Limestone Formation, it was heavily mined for centuries because of its large limestone deposits, and is also the location of one of the largest fossil sites in England.^[41]

In the 1830s, Scottish geologist Sir Roderick Murchison visited the Wrens Nest to collect fossils as part of his research. 65% of his palaeontological evidence featured in the 1839 publication "The Silurian System" was from Dudley.^[42] Some of these fossils are still on display in the local Dudley Museum and Art Gallery.^[43]

Localities[link]

Demography[link]

The 2001 Census gives the Dudley Urban Subdivision as the third most populous in the West Midlands conurbation, with a total resident population of 194,919.

Ethnic unrest[link]

Tension between various ethnic communities, has been high in Dudley since the first Commonwealth immigrants settled in the town just after the end of the Second World War, though it has undoubtedly reached its height since the mosque project was first announced.

Dudley was the scene of some of Britain's first race riots in July 1962, when dozens of white men and youths rampaged in the North Street area of the town, vandalising properties in the area where the town's ethnic minorities were concentrated. Black Caribbean immigrants were particularly targeted in these disturbances.

Another riot, though less well known than the North Street riots, took place in Dudley in September 1991, when white and Asian youths clashed in the Kates Hill area.^[46]

The English Defence League demonstrated in the town centre on 3 April 2010; although there were no injuries, eight people were arrested and there were several instances of criminal damage. The English Defence League again demonstrated against the mosque project on 17 July 2010. There were severe confrontations at many levels with the result that 20 criminal offenses^[47] were being investigated by police during the aftermath, and many accounts of severe personal injury of visiting protesters were reported.^[48]

Education[link]

Primary schools[link]

Dudley is served by a range of primary schools. Several of these are church schools. For example, Jessons Church of England Primary School, St Chads Roman Catholic School, St Edmund's and St John's Church of England Primary School and Netherton Church of England Primary School are all Church of England primary schools.

Other primary schools in the town include Dudley Wood Primary School, Priory Primary School, Kates Hill Primary School, Sledmere Primary School, Russells Hall Primary School, Milking Bank Primary School, Highgate Primary School, Northfield Road Primary School, Dudley Wood Primary School, Foxyards Primary School, Netherbrook Primary School and Blowers Green Primary School. Many of these schools are named after the housing estates they are located within.

Primary schools throughout the Dudley borough currently all provide education for pupils aged 5 to 11 years. Some schools also have nursery units for pupils aged 3 and 4 years. From 1972 to 1990, schoolchildren in Dudley, Sedgley, Coseley and Brierley Hill stayed at primary school until the age of 12. Halesowen ran a 5-13 first and middle school system from 1972 to 1982, while Stourbridge and Kingswinford have always had a traditional 5-11 infant and junior system.

Wrens Nest Primary School[link]

Wrens Nest Primary School is a primary school that was built in 1936 to serve the new council housing estate which was being built at the time. The school expanded in September 2006 to accommodate pupils transferred from the nearby Sycamore Green Primary School, which had closed due to falling numbers on the school roll. This signalled the beginning of a £6.2million rebuild of the school, with the revamped school opening on 11 June 2010 with the official opening being made by long-serving school cleaner and community worker Margaret Lenton.[1]

Secondary schools[link]

There are four secondary schools in central Dudley. Castle High School is a visual arts college and secondary school. It was formed in September 1989 as a result of a merger between The Dudley School and The Blue Coat School. It also occupies the buildings which once consisted of Dudley Boys Grammar School and land that was once used for Dudley Girls High School. By name, it is one of the newest schools in the town, despite using some of the area's oldest school buildings.

Holly Hall School is a comprehensive school in Dudley and has computing and mathematics college status and has served the south-west of the town since 1968.

Bishop Milner Roman Catholic School is a Roman Catholic secondary school in Dudley. Constructed in 1958, it became one of the first Roman Catholic secondary schools in the region and is the oldest existing secondary school - by name - in Dudley.

Hillcrest School is another secondary school in Dudley, serving the community of Netherton since 1958.

Dudley traditionally ran a system of 5-7 infant, 7-11 junior and 11+ secondary schools, but in September 1972 the system was altered to create 5-8 first, 8-12 middle and 12+ secondary schools - this affected the towns of Dudley, Sedgley, Coseley and Brierley Hill, while the traditional system remained in Kingswinford. Secondary modern and grammar schools were replaced by comprehensive schools in September 1975, and since that date all state secondary schools in the borough have been comprehensive.

Stourbridge, which became part of the Dudley borough in 1974, retained the traditional system as well, although Halesowen had adopted 5-9 first, 9-13 middle and 13+ secondary schools in 1972.

Halesowen reverted to the traditional 5-7 infant, 7-11 junior and 11+ secondary school system in 1982, and by 1985 there were plans afoot to return to the traditional system across the borough. The traditional system was finally restored across the Dudley borough in September 1990, around which time most of the remaining sixth forms in Dudley secondary schools were closed in favour of concentrating post 16 education at Dudley College, Halesowen College, Stourbridge College and King Edward VI College in Stourbridge.

Casualties of the introduction of comprehensive education included Dudley's girls high and boys grammar schools, which merged with the nearby Park secondary modern school to form The Dudley School (which in turn became Castle High on a merger with The Blue Coat School in 1989), while the equivalent schools in Stourbridge merged with Valley Road Secondary Modern School to become Redhill School. Several other grammar schools, including the High Arcal School in Sedgley, continued merely with a change in status rather than name.

The borough's final single sex state schools, Walton Girls School and Richmond Boys School in Halesowen, merged in September 1985 to form Windsor High School.

Special schools[link]

There are three special schools within Dudley. Old Park School serves pupils from the age of 3 to 19.^[49]

Rosewood School also caters for children within the age range. It was built on the Russells Hall Estate during the 1960s but relocated to the former Highfields Primary School in Coseley in March 2008.^[50]

The Sutton School, built 1962, caters only for pupils from 11-16.^[51]

Defunct schools[link]

As well as The Dudley School, Sir Gilbert Claughton School and The Blue Coat School which merged to form Castle High School which also occupies the land and buildings of Dudley Boys Grammar School and Dudley Girls High School, other defunct schools in the town include Rosland Secondary School, which became part of The Blue Coat School in 1970, and Park Secondary School. Mons Hill School also shut down as a result of falling pupil numbers, it had originally opened in 1965 to replace another school; Wolverhampton Street School.

Primary schools that no longer exist include St James' School (erected in 1842), St John's Primary School and St Edmund's Primary School which both merged together to form St Edmund's and St John's Church of England Primary School in the 1970s. The St Edmund's Primary School building still exists and is currently used as Dudley Central Mosque.

Sycamore Green Primary School shut down in July 2006 following a consultation period which ended in the decision that it was no longer necessary to keep the school open as a result of falling pupil numbers. Staff and pupils were transferred to the Wrens Nest Primary School and the school buildings are currently used as a Pupil Referral Unit for students studying at Key Stage 3.

Further education[link]

Some buildings owned by Dudley College.

Dudley College is a college of further education and lies mainly to the north of the town centre, with further campuses at Castle View and Wren's Nest. It is Dudley's only college of further education, having opened in 1936.

Until the summer of 2002, there was a campus of the University of Wolverhampton within the town. The newer part of the campus, built during the 1960s, was retained as part of Dudley College. The older buildings, which were originally a teacher training college built in 1905, were demolished soon afterwards and the site redeveloped for private housing.

Medical[link]

The Joseph Guest Hospital's Victorian wing.

In October 2006, Dudley Beacon and Castle Primary Care Trust and Dudley South Primary Care Trust merged to become Dudley Primary Care Trust.^[52] It is chaired by Gill Cooper (as of January 2012).

Dudley is served by two major National Health Service health facilities. Dudley Guest Hospital was the first to be constructed. However it began as a charity by the Earl of Dudley to accommodate blinded local miners in 1849. The charity did not become popular and it was taken over by a local chainmaker who turned it into a hospital in 1871. As a result of the loss of the Emergency department in 1983, the hospital has become a less important facility compared with the Russells Hall Hospital, also in Dudley. A new outpatient centre opening at the Guest in 2003 but the original buildings remained use for another four years before the remaining services were transferred to Russells Hall.

Russells Hall Hospital was constructed in 1976 but financial problems meant that it could not open until 1983. A major expansion of the hospital was completed in 2005 when it incorporated all of the borough's inpatient services, following the closure of Wordsley Hospital and the downgrading of Dudley Guest Hospital and Stourbridge Corbett Hospital to outpatient services only.

Another hospital serving Dudley is Bushey Fields Hospital, which was developed in the 1980s and early 1990s.^[53]

Burton Road Hospital stood on Burton Road approximately one mile to the west of the town centre, but this was not part of Dudley until 1966 having previously been in Sedgley. It was built in the mid 19th century as a workhouse and became a hospital in 1859. The hospital was demolished in 1994, having closed in December 1993.

The town's ambulance station was opened on land adjacent to Burton Road Hospital in 1986. The fire station was opened nearby in 1999, replacing a 1960s building on Tower Street which was then incorporated into council offices before being demolished in late 2010 to make way for a new building of Dudley College which will incorporate a listed section of the fire station dating from the 1930s.

Dudley Health Centre was opened in Cross Street in 1979. There are currently four GPs employed there, as well as numerous administration staff. There are also doctor's surgeries in Bean Road, and the clinic on the Priory Estate was demolished in the mid-2000s after serving the local community for some 70 years. Another surgery was built in the extreme west of the town (on the border with Sedgley) around 1990, to serve the new Milking Bank housing estate.

Media[link]

Dudley is served by a number of local newspapers. The town has its own version of the Express & Star, published daily Monday to Saturday. There are also Dudley News,^[54] which is published weekly, and the Black Country Bugle, which looks at the history of Dudley and the rest of the Black Country. Dudley was also served by the Dudley Evening Mail until its absorption into the Birmingham Evening Mail in late 1986. Televised local news is provided through Midlands Today and Central Tonight, which also serve the wider area of the West Midlands.

BBC Radio WM, Beacon Radio, Heart West Midlands, Kerrang! Radio, and Smooth Radio 105.7 are some of the local radio stations that can be received in Dudley, also serving the wider West Midlands. The Kates Hill Press, founded in 1992 and named after a famous Dudley landmark, is a small press concentrating on the publishing of fiction and non-fiction of mainly local and regional interest.

Business and industry[link]

The town centre is home to numerous high street retailers including River Island, Wilkinsons, Clinton Cards, WH Smith, Argos and New Look. There is also a Subway restaurant. McDonald's, British Home Stores, Marks and Spencer and Burger King have all had branches in Dudley town centre in the past. Most of Dudley's shops are concentrated along the main shopping street (named High Street apart from a short length at the foot of the Castle called Castle Street)and two side streets: Stone Street and Wolverhampton Street.

Dudley Town Centre is now rather run down with empty shops all around the Market Place and along the High Street.

Dudley Market is situated on a wide part of High Street but most stalls are now empty. There are three small shopping centres or arcades with entrances on High Street: the Churchill Shopping Centre, the Trident Shopping Centre and the Fountain Arcade. The latest casualty was the Departmental Store Beatties which closed down in the Churchill Shopping Centre.

Dudley retailing was particularly hard hit by the opening of the Merry Hill shopping centre some three miles away in stages from 1985 to 1989. This led to the exit of many major retailers including British Home Stores (June 1990), Marks and Spencer (August 1990), Sainsbury's (September 1989), C&A (January 1992) and Littlewoods (January 1990).^[55]

Dudley residents and traders have asked for the removal of the parking charges in Dudley, which they see as a barrier to people coming into the town. (The rival Merry Hill Centre has free parking). Dudley Council has refused to reduce or remove parking charges citing "loss of revenue". Critics of the council point out that more revenue is lost through shoppers going elsewhere.

The Bean Cars factory was opened in the first years of the 20th century and remained in use until the 1930s, but survives to this day for other industrial use.

Notable people[link]

Footballer Duncan Edwards was born in Dudley and is commemorated by a statue in the town.

• Abraham Darby I (1678–1717) - Industrial pioneer, who developed the first practical method of producing iron using coke instead of charcoal.
• Sam Allardyce (1954 - ) - Football manager and former footballer.
• Duncan Edwards (1936–1958) - England footballer who died in the Munich Air Disaster. The Dudley Southern Bypass was renamed 'Duncan Edwards Way' in his memory, and a statue of him was erected in the town Market Place in 1999. He is buried at the town cemetery.^[56]
• Lenny Henry (1958 - ) - Actor and comedian.
• Sue Lawley (1946 - ) - Newsreader
• Bert Bissell (1902–1998) - Mountain clmber and peace campaigner. Dudley was twinned with the town of Fort William in his honour.^[57]
• William Perry (boxer) (1819–1880) - Prizefighter, also known as the Tipton Slasher. Buried in St John's Churchyard, Kate's Hill.
• John Badley (1783–1870) - Surgeon of Dudley, FRCS (original 300 Fellows) Medical pioneer
• John Haden Badley (1865–1967) - Educator, founder (1893) and Headmaster (1893–1935) Bedales School
• Ben Black (1889–1950) - Composer
• Jason Bonham (1966 - ) - Son of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham
• David Burrows (1968 - ) - retired professional footballer who played for clubs including Liverpool, Everton and Coventry City
• Charles Alfred Coulson (13 December 1910 - 7 January 1974) FRS, Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics and then Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Oxford
• John Metcalfe Coulson (13 December 1910 - 1990), Professor of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, author of major textbook series, twin of Charles, born in Dudley
• Billy Dainty (1927–1986) - Comedian
• Reanne Evans (1985 - ) - Three-time Ladies' World Snooker Champion
• Wagner Fiuza-Carrilho (1956 -) - X Factor 2010 Contestant
• Kaleigh Grainger (1986 - ) – unicyclist
• Nigel Mazlyn Jones - Musician
• Jas Mann (1971 - ) - Musician
• Jim MacCool (1958 - ) Dudley's poet in residence
• Ian Messiter (1920–1999) - Comedy writer
• Norman Pace (1953 - ) – comedian
• Dorothy Round (1908–1982) - tennis player who won the ladies' singles at Wimbledon in 1934 and 1937.
• Percy Shakespeare (1906–1943) - artist
• Joe Smith (1889–1971) - former footballer and manager (was manager of Blackpool at the time of their famous 1953 FA Cup final victory over Bolton, dubbed the "Matthews Final").
• James Whale (1889–1957) - film director.

In popular culture[link]

• The front and inner photographs for the 1971 Led Zeppelin IV album were taken in the Eve Hill area of the town; the main tower block, shown side on, is Butterfield Court off Salop Street, and still stands today.^[58] The two other blocks were demolished in 1999.^[59]
• The borehole in local author Hugh Walters' juvenile science fiction story The Mohole Mystery was sited in Dudley.
• The television comedy series The Grimleys was set in Dudley,^[60] but was filmed some 80 miles away in Salford.

Sport[link]

Dudley is the largest town in England never to have had a league football club.^[61] The town's key football teams, Dudley Town F.C. and Dudley Sports F.C. have never progressed beyond the Southern League. They are both currently^[when?] at Level 10 of the Football League pyramid.

Dudley Town is the older of the town's two clubs, and have enjoyed the most success. Their most notable success came in 1985 when they won promotion to the Southern Premier League, but in the same year they were forced to quit Dudley Sports Centre (at the junction of Tipton Road and Birmingham Road) due to mining subsidence. They played at Round Oak Sports Ground in Brierley Hill for the next 11 years, and then spent a season ground-sharing at Halesowen Town, before resigning from the Southern League due to financial difficulties. The club was reformed in 1999 to compete in the West Midlands Regional League, and currently ground-share with Stourbridge at the War Memorial Athletic Ground.

In 1981, when still playing at Dudley Sports Centre, Dudley Town played a prestigious game against Wolverhampton Wanderers to commemorate a refurbishment of the stadium, with the new floodlights being switched on by legendary former Wolves player Billy Wright.

For some time after leaving Dudley Sports Centre, there were hopes that it could be made safe for Dudley Town to return, but these plans never materialised and the site was instead redeveloped as a business and leisure complex which has been developing since 2000. The club currently play at The Dell Stadium in Pensnett.

Twin towns[link]

Dudley is twinned with:

References[link]

External links[link]

• Dudley PCT Dudley NHS Primary Care Trust
• BBC Black Country
• Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council
• Your Dudley
• Dudley Mind Local branch of Mind, a mental health charity.
• Twentieth Century Society article on Dudley Zoo
• Short film on the listed buildings that Berthold Lubetkin designed for Dudley Zoo in the 1930s
• Excelsior industrial estate Dudley

Peter Cook
Cook (left) with Dudley Moore in 1974
Born	Peter Edward Cook (1937-11-17)17 November 1937 Torquay, Devon, England
Died	9 January 1995(1995-01-09) (aged 57) Hampstead, London, England
Occupation	Comedian, satirist, writer
Years active	1958–1994
Spouse	Wendy Snowden (1963–1971) Judy Huxtable (1973–1989) Lin Chong (1989–1995)

Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. Cook has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath", although his work was also controversial.^[1] Cook was closely associated with anti-establishment comedy which emerged in Britain and the United States in the late 1950s.

Early life[link]

Cook was born at his parents' house "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son and eldest of the three children of Alexander Edward (Alec) Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant, and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret, née Mayo (1908–1994). He was educated at Radley College and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although politically largely apathetic, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he did join the Cambridge University Liberal Club.^[2]

It was at Pembroke that Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.^[3]

Whilst still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, for whom he created an entire West End comedy revue called One Over the Eight, before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, with Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore.

The show became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.^[4]

Career[link]

1960s[link]

In 1961 Cook opened the Establishment club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War";^[5] as a members-only venue it was outside the censorship restrictions. Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, My Life As Me, that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Cook's chiselled looks and languid manner led Humphries to observe that whereas most people take after their father or mother, Cook seemed more like an aunt. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.

In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment club, but it was not picked up straight away and Cook went to New York for a year to perform in Beyond The Fringe on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as That Was The Week That Was and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented. The 1960s satire boom was closing and Cook said that Britain would "sink into the sea under the weight of its own giggling".^{[citation needed]} He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona and that his only regret in life had been once saving Frost from drowning.^{[citation needed]} Around this time, Cook provided financial backing for the satirical magazine Private Eye, supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden; the couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970.

Cook expanded television comedy with Eleanor Bron, John Bird and John Fortune. His first regular television spot was on Granada Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E.L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.

Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to Not Only... But Also. This was intended by the BBC for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry and absurd television which lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic TV segment on Greta Garbo.

When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original programmes, only eight of the twenty-two episodes still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best of What's Left of Not Only...But Also was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD.

With The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967) Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of Bedazzled is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (The Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a monotonous deadpan voice and included his familiar put-down, "You fill me with inertia."

In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes entitled Goodbye Again, based on the Pete and Dud characters. They ignored suggestions from the director and cast. Sketches were drawn out to fill the running time. With no interest in the show, Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards and he ended up garbling the script, forcing Moore to ad-lib. The show was not a popular success, owing in part to the publication of the ITV listings magazine, TV Times, being suspended because of a strike. John Cleese was a cast member.

1970s[link]

In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, was not a success, although the cast contained notable names.

Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his own effort at hosting one for the BBC in 1971, Where Do I Sit?, was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. He was replaced after only two episodes by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were. Cook replied "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether."

He and Moore fashioned sketches from Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again with new material into the stage revue called Behind the Fridge. This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York in 1973, re-titled as Good Evening. Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the U.S. to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973 he married the actress and model Judy Huxtable.

Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went farther on long-playing records as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening, and it used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed, and tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further Derek and Clive albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.

In 1978 Cook appeared on British music series Revolver as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was an aspect of the programme.

In 1979 Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One In Heaven" and "Tryouts For The Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often started off a banal situation in his lyrics, and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S.J. Perelman.

[edit] Consequences album

Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album Consequences, written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, Consequences started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a triple LP boxed set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself.

The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr Haig and overbearing Mr Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor.

Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, Consequences was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then wife Judy Huxtable, plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, How Very Interesting, speculates that the characters Cook plays in Consequences are caricatures of the four Beyond The Fringe cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.^[6]

Amnesty International performances[link]

Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by humourists John Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed The Secret Policeman's Balls though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, A Poke in the Eye (with a Sharp Stick), as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of Beyond The Fringe, which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, Pleasure At Her Majesty's. He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles. It was retitled The Mermaid Frolics for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.

In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of The Secret Policeman's Ball – teaming with John Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End Of The World" sketch from Beyond The Fringe.

In response to a barb in The Daily Telegraph that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Mr Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary thought by some to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You," is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Cook and show producer Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled Here Comes the Judge: Live of the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.^[7][8]

Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.

Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual U.S. benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.

1980s[link]

In 1980, partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived U.S. television sitcom The Two of Us, also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films. In 1980, Cook starred in the LWT special Peter Cook & Co. The show included comedy sketches, including a Tales of the Unexpected parody "Tales Of The Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox and Terry Jones.

In 1983 Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of Blackadder, "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. He narrated the short film "Diplomatix" by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985.^[9] In 1986 he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents' Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. Cook appeared in The Princess Bride that year as the "Impressive Clergyman". Also that year he spent time working with Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 U.S. presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested Cook team with Moore for the U.S. Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch.

In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show, Whose Line Is It Anyway? Cook was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he'd portrayed in Peter Cook & Co.

Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his hatred of the Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional he did not learn Sven's real identity until later.

Revival[link]

In late 1989 Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life and he reduced his drinking, to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th century house in Perrins Lane, Hampstead, once owned by H.G. Wells, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away.

Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother? on BBC Radio 3. Morris described them:

On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid journalist. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and Cook returned to heavy drinking.

Death[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Cook died on 9 January 1995, aged 57, having suffered a gastrointestinal haemorrhage (a direct result of severe liver damage) in the intensive-care unit of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London. Days earlier he had been taken in and announced, "I feel a bit poorly". Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London in May 1995 and he and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook in Los Angeles the following November, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday.

Legacy[link]

Cook is universally acknowledged as the main influence on British comedians who followed him from amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to the radio and television. On his death some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, in so far as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook himself always maintained that he had no ambitions at all for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle and Stephen Fry^[11] said Cook had not wasted his talent but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.

Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of Fierce Creatures (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Peter Cook and of British naturalist/humorist Gerald Durrell.^[12]

In 1999 the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after him.^[13]

Ten years after his death, Cook was ranked at number one in the Comedians' Comedian, a poll of 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors throughout the English-speaking world.^[14] Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always, a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe a play, written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view, Pete and Dud: Come Again. Tom Goodman-Hill played Cook.

At the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Goodbye – the (after)life of Cook & Moore by Jonathan Hansler and Clive Greenwood was presented at the Gilded Balloon. The play imagined the newly dead Moore meeting Cook in Limbo, also inhabited by other comic actors with whom they had worked, including Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams. In May 2009 the play was seen again in London's West End at the Leicester Square Theatre (formerly "The Venue" and home to Pete and Dud: Come Again) with Jonathan Hansler as Cook, Adam Bampton Smith as Moore and Clive Greenwood as everyone else.

A green plaque was unveiled by Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment club on 15 February 2009.^[15]

Filmography[link]

• The Wrong Box (1966): Morris Finsbury
• Alice in Wonderland (1966): Mad Hatter
• Bedazzled (1967): George Spiggott/The Devil
• A Dandy in Aspic (1968): Prentiss
• Monte Carlo or Bust (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies) (1969): Maj. Digby Dawlish
• The Bed-Sitting Room (1969): Inspector
• The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970): Michael Rimmer
• The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972): Dominic
• Find the Lady (1976): Lewenhak
• The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978): Sherlock Holmes
• Derek and Clive Get the Horn (1979): Clive
• Yellowbeard (1983): Lord Percy Lambourn
• Supergirl (1984): Nigel
• Whoops Apocalypse (1986): Sir Mortimer Chris
• The Princess Bride (1987): The Impressive Clergyman
• Without A Clue (1988): Norman Greenhough
• Getting It Right (1989): Mr. Adrian
• Great Balls of Fire! (1989): First English Reporter
• Black Beauty (1994): Lord Wexmire

Amnesty

• Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)
• The Mermaid Frolics (1977)
• The Secret Policeman's Ball
• The Secret Policeman's Private Parts (1981)
• The Best of Amnesty: Featuring the Stars of Monty Python (1999)

UK chart singles:-

• "The Ballad of Spotty Muldoon" (1965)
• "Goodbye-ee" (1965) with Dudley Moore

Further reading[link]

• Harry Thompson (1998). Biography of Peter Cook. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-64969-0. 
• Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (2003). Dud and Pete: The Dagenham Dialogues. Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-77347-0. 
• Robert Hewison (1983). Footlights!: A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy. Methuen London Ltd. ISBN 0-413-51150-2. 
• Roger Wilmut (1980). From Fringe to Flying Circus: Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960–1980. Eyre Methuen Ltd. ISBN 0-413-46950-6. 
• Peter Cook Appreciation Society (2006). How Very Interesting!: Peter Cook's Universe And All That Surrounds It. Snowbooks. ISBN 1-905005-23-7. 
• Alexander Games (1999). Pete & Dud: An Illustrated Biography. Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-99642-7. 
• Wendy Cook (2006). So Farewell Then: The Biography of Peter Cook. HarperCollins Entertainment. ISBN 0-00-722893-7. 
• Lin Cook (2003). Something Like Fire: Peter Cook Remembered. Arrow Books. ISBN 0-09-946035-1. 
• Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde (2006). Pete and Dud: Come Again. Methuen Drama. ISBN 0-413-77602-6. 
• William Cook (2003). Tragically I was an only twin: the complete Peter Cook. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-31891-X ISBN 0-09-944325-2. 
• Judy Cook with Angela Levin (2008). Loving Peter: My Life with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Piatkus. ISBN 978-0-7499-0966-6. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Peter Cook

• Peter Cook at the Internet Movie Database
• The Establishment
• Mr Blint's Attic
• Tribute to Peter Cook, with texts and commentary
• Good Evening, a Peter Cook Fansite incl. Gallery
• The BBC Guide to Comedy: Not Only...But Also
• Missing-Episodes.com
• One Leg Too Few, script for one of Cook and Moore's most famous and oft-performed sketches.

William "Bill" Boggs III (born July 11, 1946) is an Emmy Award–winning American television presenter and journalist.

Boggs was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently the celebrity correspondent for the syndicated My Generation television show airing on PBS, featuring interviews inspired by his 2007 HarperCollins book, Got What it Takes?: Successful People Reveal How They Made It to the Top. The book includes interviews with Renée Zellweger, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, Clive Davis, Joe Torre, and others. He has also published a novel, At First Sight, with Grosett and Dunlap publishers.^{[citation needed]}

A former news anchorman for WNBC in New York, Boggs also presented several game shows for CBS. He created the first national restaurant review show, TV Diners, for the Food Network, and spent many years hosting the network's first non-cooking show, the celebrity interview show, Bill Boggs' Corner Table. Boggs co-executive produced and hosted TV's first syndicated stand up comedy series, Comedy Tonight in the late 1980s.^{[citation needed]}

Boggs appeared in several film and television dramas including Oz and Miami Vice. In New York City, he is also known for his stint in the 1970s as host of Midday Live on WNEW (now WNYW), succeeding Lee Leonard.^[1]

He debuted a solo stage show called Talk Show Confidential in 2003. The show, which includes stories and rare video clips from his years as a television talk show host, is currently running at the Triad Theatre in New York City.^[2]

Personal life[link]

He was briefly married to Canadian actress Linda Thorson; the couple have a son.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bill Boggs at the Internet Movie Database
• Personal Website

	Csárdás Csárdás, performed by The United States Air Force Band
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Vittorio Monti (6 January 1868 – 20 June 1922) was an Italian composer, violinist, and conductor.

Monti was born in Naples, where he studied violin and composition at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella. Around 1900 he got an assignment as the conductor for the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris, where he wrote several ballets and operettas, for example, Noël de Pierrot.

His only famous work is his Csárdás, written around 1904 and played by almost every gypsy orchestra.

External links[link]

• Csárdás for Violin and Piano on www.kreusch-sheet-music.net
• Csárdás arranged for accordion
• Czárdás arranged for string quartet [1]
• Csárdás for Violin and Guitar on [2]
• Free scores by Vittorio Monti at the International Music Score Library Project
• Vittorio Monti sheet music: contemporary arrangements

This article about an Italian composer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e