Dudley Moore

A mischievous presence on British stage and television during the 1960s, Dudley Moore was one-half of an influential comedy team with Peter Cook before finding solo success in America as the giddy star of Hollywood comedies like "10" (1979) and "Arthur" (1980). With Cook, he was the eternally put-upon sidekick, the butt of his taller, more verbally vicious partner's taunts as well as his best sounding board, but after the duo split in the 1970s, Moore became an unlikely romantic hero - if one given to frequent pratfalls - in American comedies. A classically trained pianist, his tenure as a movie star was short-lived; in the 1980s, his health was jeopardized by a degenerative brain disease. His death in 2002 robbed the comedy and film world of one of their most joyous and charismatic figures.