The Tragedy Behind Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli’s Movie Comedy ‘Arthur’

A little over 40 years ago — and long before Russell Brand attempted an awful remake — audiences were taken by surprise with the 1981 big-screen comedy Arthur, starring Dudley Moore (who had scored two years earlier alongside Bo Derek in 10) and Liza Minnelli (who … well, is Liza). Compared to many of the screwball romantic comedies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, it’s a rapid-fire joke machine where the humor comes from character rather than outlandish situations.

Written and directed by Steve Gordon, Arthur centers around eccentric and wealthy playboy Arthur Bach (Dudley), who is next in line to inherit a vast fortune from his family. However, Arthur’s carefree and irresponsible lifestyle becomes a concern for them and they want him to marry a woman of their choosing in order for him to secure their wealth. Despite this pressure, Arthur falls in love with a working-class woman named Linda (Liza), but faces the dilemma of choosing between his genuine feelings and his family’s expectations. It sounds serious, but it’s not, although there is tremendous heart at its core.

“I saw the screenplay and I just leapt at it,” Moore explained at the time. “It was the funniest screenplay I’d read since 10 and I told my agent to kill, if necessary, to get me the role. I love drunks. I love the idea of someone desperately struggling to hold onto an elusive thread of logic. Take Arthur, for example. He’s a wonderful drunk. Every now and then he lists his reasons why he’s in a given situation, just so he can be sure he knows. It’s funny the way Arthur does occasionally lose his thread. Perhaps my favorite scene in the movie is the one where he picks up the hooker and takes her to dinner at the Plaza and forgets she’s a hooker. She says, ‘Don’t you want to know how I got to be a hooker?’ And he says, ‘A hooker? Good lord, so that’s what you are. That explains it. I’d just rather imagined … I was getting along with you quite well.’”

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Elsewhere he added, “I didn’t get the feeling that Arthur in the film was an alcoholic. I felt he was a man who really did drink a lot, but who could stop if he found love. He does, and I think the implication is very strongly that he doesn’t need it. So, I didn’t think he was some maudlin alcoholic, because, in fact, he’s a very happy man who drinks. And he’s making jokes all the time. He enjoys boozing — it’s like New Year’s Eve every day for him. The spirit of the man really enchanted me when I read the script.”

Meet ‘Arthur’ Writer/Director Steve Gordon

The real hero of Arthur was its 44-year-old writer/director, Steve Gordon, whose prior credits included writing six episodes of television (Chico and the Man and Barney Miller among them), creating the short-lived 1976 Danny Thomas series The Practice, and writing the 1978 Henry Winkler film The One and Only. But then came Arthur, which represented his directorial debut.

“Frankly, I don’t think any one of us knew what we had,” he admitted to film critic Roger Ebert. “There’s no way we could have known. Maybe I thought Dudley was brilliant and John Gielgud [who played his butler, Hobson] was brilliant, but we didn’t know how people would take the characters. By that time I had been preconditioned to hear that the script was no good, that no one would ever sympathize with a rich, childish drunk, no matter how funny or lovable I thought he was.

“Everybody passed on the script,” Steve added. “Studios, a lot of actors, a lot of actors’ agents, secretaries, producers, messengers. I couldn’t get a script read after writing a hit movie. Originally, I had a three-picture deal with Paramount. It started with The One and Only, which I wrote and produced, with Carl Reiner directing. No blockbuster, but a profitable picture. I had written a first draft of Arthur and knew I wanted to direct it. That’s no reflection on Carl, who’s a great friend and a terrific director. I simply realized that you never can get exactly what you want unless you get in the position of directing the script you’ve written.”

“When a writer puts his own work on film, if it’s bad, it’s bad, but if it’s good, it’s pure,” he reflected to Ebert, noting that it was the casting that really transformed the movie into something more than he’d envisioned.

“Never, ever had I imagined Dudley, or any other English person for that matter, in the role of Arthur. It was a very American script,” he said. “When I thought of leading men, I thought of Chevy Chase or Ryan O’Neal — it was always this blond WASPy guy. Dudley was right under everyone’s nose and no one thought of him. John Gielgud occurred to me only after Dudley had said he was the funniest man ever. I had imagined Alec Guinness as Hobson, and at one time I thought it would be absolutely hysterical if Walter Matthau played the role. Then we hired John, which was the smartest thing we ever did. Liza we thought of right away, but most of the casting was a happy mistake.”

A “mistake” that paid off huge dividends based on the fact that Arthur was produced at a cost of $7 million and enjoyed a global box office take of $95 million. A huge triumph for everyone, right? Well, this is where the tragedy of the headline comes into play. The success of Arthur, and the acclaim it received, should have paved the way for Steve Gordon to continue creating great comedies, but, sadly, a little more than a year later, he died of a massive heart attack. He was only 44 years old and one can only imagine what he would have produced had he gone forward.

The Tragedies Continued

The sad news didn’t stop with Gordon. In April 1997, Moore had developed calcium deposits in the basal ganglia of his brain and irreversible frontal lobe damage. On top of that, he suffered four strokes and in 1999 announced he had been diagnosed with terminal degenerative brain disorder progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a Parkinson-plus syndrome. He lived until March 27, 2002, at the age of 66.

Liza, of course, has suffered many years addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, which began in the aftermath of the death of her mother, Judy Garland. It’s something she’s struggled with for decades, and it has most definitely impacted at times on her life, health, and career.

But for a snapshot of a happier time for all of them — and sure to bring a smile to your own face — is Arthur, a brilliant comedy-romance and one of the funniest movies you’ll see. So see it!