Playboy Interview: Dudley Moore

If an audition had been held just a few years ago to find someone who would become, by 1982, one of America's most popular sex symbols, Dudley Moore wouldn't have got past the stage door. At 5'2" and 47 years of age, with a clubfoot and a dirty mind, Moore isn't exactly cut from heroic cloth. But with two huge successes—in " '10' " and in "Arthur"—behind him and with three more big movies either breaking or in the offing, the British-born actor and comedian is one of the hottest screen talents in the world today. The fact that he both composes and plays music to professional and critical acclaim only adds to his popularity.

And there's something else: Although his marital record is disastrous and his eye for the ladies is renowned, people seem to sense that Moore is one of the last of the staggering, heart-clasping, full-tilt romantics. Actress Susan Anton, his girlfriend of the past three years, met him when she was recovering from a breakup with Sylvester Stallone and Moore was newly divorced from Tuesday Weld. Anton recalls their meeting:

"The first time I saw Dudley—at the National Association of Theater Owners' convention—he made me laugh, so I went up and introduced myself. Later, he came to Vegas, where I was performing, to see me. When he came backstage after my show, we both thought we'd made a terrible mistake. I'd forgotten how short he was and he'd forgotten how tall I was. After a midnight dinner, I impulsively said, 'Why don't we go to my room? I've got a bottle of wine and we can talk.' So we went there and started talking. And pretty soon I said, 'Do you know what I want to do? I want to go to your room and I want to go to bed with you and I want you to hold me. I'm not ready for anyone to make love to me yet. I just want to be held.' Dudley said OK, and that was our first night together. He just held me and let me cry about everything that hurt me. The next morning, we watched 'Wuthering Heights' and we both cried. He cried about his divorce and I cried about my breakup with Sly. And that's how we fell in love."

Moore's origins were considerably less than romantic. Born in London with a deformed left foot, he was raised in the gray town of Dagenham, Essex. His father was a railway electrician and his mother a domineering and cold figure who instilled in her son her own shame about his deformity.

His childhood was isolated. Because of his clubfoot, he was in and out of hospitals and was bullied by his peer group until, at 13, he struck back. His weapon was humor and he wielded it with a vengeance, metamorphosing overnight from class bookworm to class clown.

He employed the same tactic several years later at Oxford, where, as the recipient of an organ scholarship to Magdalen College, he spent his first two years miserable and insecure. During his junior year, Moore hooked up with the campus cabaret circuit and, again, found the acceptance he craved by making people laugh. By the time he was graduated with two degrees in music, he was notorious for his comic improvisations. Scotching his original notion of becoming a choirmaster, he headed for show business, hell-bent on performing both musically and in comedy revues.

His wish was soon granted. In 1959, after a frantic year of penning music for everything from ballets to commercials, as well as two whistle-stop orchestra tours of America, Moore ended up at the world-renowned Edinburgh Festival. There he joined three other young Englishmen—Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett—to form "Beyond the Fringe," the now-legendary satirical revue. Following a short run in Edinburgh, the show moved to London's West End. There it played to packed houses for two years before crossing the Atlantic to repeat that success on Broadway.

In 1964, when "Beyond the Fringe" disbanded, Moore, then 29, teamed up again with Cook—a collaboration that was to stretch over the next 14 years and include movies, television, records and theater. Their first big success came with "Not Only ... But Also," a weekly series of comedy sketches that ran on English television for three years. Shortly thereafter, they returned to the stage with "Good Evening," a two-man revue that played continually around the world for five years.

Their film efforts were decidedly less magical. With the exception of 1967's "Bedazzled" and, to a lesser degree, the cult favorite "The Bed Sitting Room," Moore and Cook's movies—"The Wrong Box," "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies" and "The Hound of the Baskervilles"—fizzled both critically and commercially. Moore's solo movie efforts—"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia"—were no more successful, but he earned a reputation as a composer of film scores, including the themes for "Bedazzled," "Staircase," "30 Is a Dangerous Age ...," "Inadmissible Evidence" and, recently, "Six Weeks."

In 1973, Moore and Cook again courted notoriety with their record albums starring the foulmouthed janitors Derek and Clive. But in 1975, they parted ways. Cook returned to London, while Moore remained in Los Angeles to pursue a movie career—and actress Tuesday Weld, with whom he was involved. Moore and Weld were a bout made in heaven. Married in 1975, with Weld pregnant, and divorced in 1980, the two split up more than 20 times in the course of their five-year marriage. (Son Patrick, six, lives with Weld in New York but visits his father frequently.) It was Moore's second shot at matrimony; he had previously been married to British actress Suzy Kendall.

In 1978, the comedian finally cracked the American movie market with "Foul Play." Cast in a supporting role as an insatiable swinger with an appetite for sex aids, Moore nearly stole the show from its stars, Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. A short time later, he met director Blake Edwards, who asked him to replace George Segal as the mid-life-crisis-stricken hero of " '10.' " The movie, of course, was a hit, catapulting both Moore and his co-star, Bo Derek, to international stardom.

He followed that success with an even greater one: "Arthur." His portrayal of the happily drunk, softhearted millionaire, playing off Sir John Gielgud's long-suffering valet, netted Moore his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor.

It also filled his acting schedule to overflowing. Following this month's planned release of "Six Weeks," with Mary Tyler Moore, he will be seen opposite Elizabeth McGovern in "Lovesick" and Mary Steenburgen in "Romantic Comedy."

Moore has never lost interest in his first love: music. From the time of his first orchestral piece, written at the age of 12 and titled, appropriately, "Anxiety," he has continued to write, compose and perform both classical music and jazz. His Dudley Moore Trio has toured the world, breaking house records in Australia and New Zealand. He has eight jazz albums to his credit, the latest of which—"Smilin' Through," released last summer—saw him teamed with his old pal singer Cleo Laine. In 1981, his love of classical music led him to perform at The Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra—in "An Evening with George Gershwin"—and, later, at New York's Metropolitan Museum, where, with violinist Robert Mann of the Juilliard String Quartet, Moore presented a chamber-music concert.

Playboy assigned reporter and interviewer Nancy Collins to get to know Moore over a five-month stretch. They talked in New York on the set of "Lovesick" and, later, in California on the set of "Romantic Comedy" and at Moore's Marina del Rey home. Her report:

"What immediately strikes one about Dudley Moore is the simplicity with which he conducts the business of being a superstar. Now, that may be hard to believe, considering his two pet extravagances—a white Rolls-Royce and a two-seater Mercedes—but otherwise, his life is mercifully free of Hollywood trappings. He makes his own appointments, answers his own phone and, when a visitor arrives at his house, putters around the kitchen, fixing tea for two.

"His home is an unpretentious, charming, three-bedroom beach house in the singles' haven of Marina del Rey. The decor is that of a hip but well-lived-in bachelor pad. On the main floor, a large, comfortable L-shaped sofa and a baby-grand piano dominate the living room, where art is largely represented by framed posters from Moore's movies. Several pictures of girlfriend Susan Anton are prominently displayed, along with snaps of himself, the most obvious of which has a fully clad Moore standing in a sea of naked bodies, all extras in " '10.' "

"Although, technically, his only housemate is a Pekingese named Kong, he admits that since he and Anton met, they have barely spent a night apart, preferring 'mooching around the house' to Hollywood socializing.

"A Dudley Moore movie set is a happy movie set. And intentionally so. 'Dudley has an uncanny ability not only to adjust immediately to new situations but also to nudge them along,' says Marshall Brick-man, 'Lovesick's' writer and director. 'The tone of a set filters down from the director and the star, and Dudley is very clever about creating a happy atmosphere—one in which he can do the right things and in which those things seem right and are. He makes everybody feel happy and relaxed and smart.'

"Yet he can also be almost wincingly candid and profane to the point of embarrassing people—as he did one TV interviewer after being pestered about his height and his affair with Anton. 'Actually,' he said, grinning into the camera, 'I go up on Susan!' During our many hours of conversation, we covered a lot of ground, but he was curiously bland about the standard topics—movies, celebrities, success, even his beloved music—and astonishingly open about his own childhood and hang-ups and sex life. It became almost a form of therapy to him, as if he had stored up memories for just this kind of candid format.

"There's another thing that comes through clearly in this psychological self-portrait: The main thrust of Moore's life, which many of us would envy for its success and versatility, is to be loved. And because he wants it so badly—and lets you know it so openly—most people do love him. He's irrepressible. To use an outdated word, he's naughty—perhaps the naughtiest little 47-year-old boy in the world."

[Q] Playboy: Let's start with the important stuff: You're perhaps the only man on this planet to have been in bed—onscreen, anyway—with both Raquel Welch, in Bedazzled, and Bo Derek, in "10." Tell us about it, please.

[A] Moore: Well, Raquel played a tempting creature known as Lillian Lust. Holy shit, she really has a great body! When she was supposed to seduce me in the bed scene, I wore three pairs of underpants, thinking, Christ, if I get an erection, maybe three pairs will help. I was thinking of tying my cock down with Band-Aids or something—literally! I thought it was going to be very embarrassing. But that kind of scene ultimately turns out to be unerotic, because you're thinking of something else.

[Q] Playboy: And the scene with Bo?

[A] Moore: Well, I had to do both scenes with both women twice. Hmmmmm, I think a little pattern is emerging here. [Chuckles] We were both naked, but they lighted it so you couldn't see a damned thing. I was nervous, but Bo wasn't. She had to get up from the bed and walk over to the hi-fi and then go back to the bed. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy for me.

[Q] Playboy: The sacrifices one makes....

[A] Moore: Indeed. But it is embarrassing to have everyone staring, saying, "What's she got? What's he got?" You feel more stupid than turned on. You're thinking about your lines, your timing, your camera angles—not about sex.

[Q] Playboy: But did you find Bo sexy?

[A] Moore: Bo is basically cool. I didn't think of her as a sexy person. I don't mean that as an insult. I just mean she doesn't farm it out in public. She's not like Bardot, who used to flirt with the world; nor is there a sensuality as you have with Anna Karina or Sophia Loren.

[Q] Playboy: Movie scenes aside, sex appears to be a pretty important theme running through your life—right?

[A] Moore: I think sex is the most important part of anybody's life.

[Q] Playboy:The most important part?

[A] Moore: The ability to enjoy your sex life is central. I don't give a shit about anything else. One's desire for another person is the most flattering thing you can take from that person. The best sex you can give anybody is what you take from her with the utmost enthusiasm.

[Q] Playboy: Are women, then, more important to you than your work?

[A] Moore: Absolutely.

[Q] Playboy: Are they the obsession of your life?

[A] Moore: Totally. What else is there to live for? Chinese food and women. There is nothing else. Actually, I sometimes hate women for having such an effect on me.

[Q] Playboy: That comes through from time to time. Some of your humor—especially the early stuff with your former partner, Peter Cook—seems to have some anger toward women in it. Are you secretly a little hostile toward women?

[A] Moore: No. I just want to do everything to them. I want to murder them and love them and embrace them and die in them and live in them and all that stuff. Everything! Just go through the dictionary, and that's what I want to do: I want to aardvark them, Afghanistan them, blender them, demarcate them, Zulu them. I want to do everything!

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever been to bed with more than one person?

[A] Moore: Yeah, with two women. But just once.

[Q] Playboy: Did you like it?

[A] Moore: Yeah, it was fuckin' great. I also tried it once with a male friend and a woman, but we just ended up laughing. I mean, it was like choosing ends: "Which end do you want?" It was so exhilarating we couldn't do anything.

[Q] Playboy: When did you realize you were going to be such a prisoner of sex?

[A] Moore: When I was about 11. I looked at girls, and suddenly, all I wanted to do was to love them, have them kiss me. I even remember their names. Joan Harold and Shirley Powell and Louise McDonald and Jean Dabbs and—oh, fuck.... Yeah, sex really had me by the ears. I masturbated from five or six on, but it wasn't until a couple of years later that I focused on doing something more with girls.

[A] As a teenager, I found the idea of intercourse completely frightening. I do remember the first breast I ever fondled. The girl wasn't exactly attractive, but she did have a fair pair of knockers. Anyway, we went behind her house, where I stood on some bricks so I could reach her. Then, as if by remote control, she guided my hand to her breast. I remember feeling this thing and thinking, Oh!—as though I'd put my hand on a sheep's eye or something.

[Q] Playboy: And how did you feel about it afterward?

[A] Moore: Totally disgraced. I thought, That's it. I've done it now. I've blotted my copybook. That went on for some time—girls and very passionate snogging and smooching, a bit of breast fondling. But nothing very much of a south-waist nature. I remember once at a party sitting frozen in a chair with a girl on my lap. We were both pretending we were asleep, but I felt the sexual electricity just whipping through us. I didn't actually get into any heavy petting until I was about 16 or so and met a French girl. She terrified me. But I still used to visit her in Paris. She had a little garden house where we'd go and I would venture to insert part of my disgusting body into her, only to withdraw as if we were magnets with equal, but like, poles meeting.

[A] And, then, of course, I used to wank myself to death over my father's magazines. He had quite a collection. Come to think of it, he's probably also the reason I've always fantasized about women with big tits. I mean, show me a fire hydrant and I'll come on the spot. But I also like a nice ass and legs. In the end, of course, none of it makes a damned bit of difference, because it's just pounds of flesh. Besides, basically, I just want the same things all men do: Rice Krispies and sucking.

[Q] Playboy: How old were you when you got around to having intercourse?

[A] Moore: Oh, about 45. [Laughs] No, 22, 23. Technically, that is. What is that Chinese saying? To walk a thousand miles, you first have to walk one foot. Well, to fuck a girl, you have to put one inch in. And although I'd gotten that inch in now and then from the time I was 15, I was too afraid to leave anything as valuable as my penis in that cavern of no return.

[Q] Playboy: What did you think was going to happen?

[A] Moore: I didn't know. Maybe pregnancy. I was just terrified; my repression had been so long and continuous.

[Q] Playboy: Was part of that terror knowing that in order to make love, you'd have to undress and expose your clubfoot?

[A] Moore: No, not necessarily. Although I was quite attuned to the possibility that I would have to make love in my duffel coat and snow boots, with just the offending member emerging and splurging. Emerge and splurge: the wisdom of life.

[A] No, my dread was more general: that of allowing myself to be out of control with someone I hardly knew. Which is why masturbation is always very safe, because there you not only control the person you're with but you can leave when you want to. [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: You've mentioned your clubfoot in public, usually briefly, but what exactly is your handicap?

[A] Moore: When I was born, both of my feet were turned in. The right one apparently righted itself, while the left one was more severely damaged. As a result, my left leg is one half inch shorter than my right and is shriveled from the knee down. If I look at it dispassionately, I realize it looks like a sweet child's foot. I've learned to see it that way because of the people who didn't throw up when they saw it.

[Q] Playboy: Were there a lot of people who did, figuratively, throw up?

[A] Moore: When I was a child, yes. I was constantly made aware of it. I didn't realize my foot was different until I went to school and got laughed at. My leg was an object of ridicule. Kids used to shout, "Hopalong!" and mimic me. I always wore short pants, so the greatest day in my life was when—at 13—I was finally allowed to wear long pants and cover my leg.

[Q] Playboy: Wouldn't it have been more humane to have put you in long pants sooner?

[A] Moore: Of course. But my mother didn't want me to feel there was anything wrong—and yet she did. On the one hand, she was very anxious about my foot, and on the other, she pretended it didn't exist, which made me very confused. She either overinflated me or underinflated me. It was either "You're perfect; there's nothing wrong with you" or "You're a complete cripple." So with that came the idea that I was either a genius or a piece of crap.

[Q] Playboy: How did your leg affect you socially?

[A] Moore: I had a very isolated youth. I was either in the hospital, being operated on, or at home, sitting in splints, recovering. I spent so much time in the hospital, where the distance between me and another person was six feet, that when I finally got out in the world and was only two feet from a kid who was alive and kicking—not depressed and waiting to get well—it was suddenly very frightening. Any sense of humor I might have had was severely limited by my enormous fear of being out there.

[A] And I have some ghastly hospital memories. During the war, I was on a ward that was loaded with soldiers. I was the only kid. One night, there was a soldier across from me who, when they drew the curtains around him, kept screaming, "No! No! No! No!" I was very frightened.

[A] Later, I was wheeled into a darkened operating theater, where I was left alone. I stayed for what seemed like two hours before anybody knew I was there. I was dying of thirst, but nobody gave me water, because nobody saw me there. Finally, this guy came in—this prick of a doctor—and said, "It's the right leg off, isn't it?" I said, "No, no, no, no. It's the left!" As it turned out, that asshole was trying to be funny.

[A] Another crucial thing occurred when I was left in a hospital for about two weeks without visits from my parents. My mother said she just couldn't get there, bless her heart. But I gather from psychological studies that kids up to the age of five who are institutionalized or left on their own for more than two weeks generally freeze up. They never quite crack out of it. I'm not sure that happened to me, but even today, I'm afraid of family life. I like to be on my own, basically.

[Q] Playboy: Your own family was English working class; did that mean you grew up poor?

[A] Moore: We were poor. But so was everybody. My father was an electrician for the Stratford East Railway and, as such, he never made more than £15 a week—that's about $40. We didn't seem poor, but we didn't seem rich, either. Richness to me was having a bike with three speeds rather than a fixed wheel. When I did Beyond the Fringe, I earned in one week what my parents had managed to save in 20 years—£100.

[Q] Playboy: Did you get your sense of humor from your parents?

[A] Moore: They enjoyed humor very much. But my father was a quiet, hidden man whom I dearly loved but also despised because he wasn't stronger than he was. He was also a Christian Scientist, so his life was his church—apart, of course, from the steaming repressed sexuality that was locked inside him.

[Q] Playboy: And your mother?

[A] Moore: An irredeemably repressed ball of floating anxiety.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds as though they were well matched.

[A] Moore: Yes. [Chuckles] My mother was a complete fucking mess in terms of knowing who she was and what rights she had. She felt she didn't have any right to her body and, in fact, was disgusted by it. Yet, with all that, there was a humor and brightness that just kept her nose above water. That—and being incredibly defensive—kept her going until she was 81.

[Q] Playboy: Were you funny as a kid?

[A] Moore: No. Quite frankly, I never had any sense of humor. I was a very pompous little boy who was driven to humor.

[Q] Playboy: As a defense against your clubfoot?

[A] Moore: Yeah. And my height. I got funny so I wouldn't get beaten up anymore.

[Q] Playboy: Were you actually brutalized by other children?

[A] Moore: Bullied and pushed, mostly. See, I also liked schoolwork. I was a hardworking kid who used to ask teachers for more work in front of other kids. I just loved to work. But, as a result, I got punished by my peer group. Once I started being funny, making fun of the teachers as they did, I was accepted.

[Q] Playboy: Did you keep up your studies?

[A] Moore: No. I stopped reading when I started clowning. I always had a vivid imagination and read like a maniac, two or three books a night. So I very much resented having to clown, because it stopped me from learning and developing. Sometimes I despise the fact that I make people laugh. But being funny is a way of drawing blood without revealing where the arrow came from.

[Q] Playboy: It sounds as if you and your mother had a complicated relationship.

[A] Moore: We did. I was very attached to her—but very angry with her, too. She made me feel that if I made one false step, she would die. You must understand, I don't blame her for it. I don't have any bad feelings toward her now. But then she was constantly worried about my foot.

[Q] Playboy: Worried or embarrassed?

[A] Moore: Both. My mother was obsessed by my foot and, because of that, made me obsessed by it.

[Q] Playboy: Why that obsession?

[A] Moore: She had wanted to produce something perfect. My mother had a brother on whom she was quite fixated. He was a missionary in Africa and died of some disease. When she lost him, she longed to have someone replace him. But instead of producing the perfect brother, she produced this leg.

[Q] Playboy: Are you sure you're not reading into her motivations?

[A] Moore: No. She told me she felt that way. She said the pain I was going to suffer was unbearable—but, obviously, it was the pain she was going to suffer, feeling, as she did, that she was on trial for producing a hunchback.

[Q] Playboy: Was she warm or affectionate with you?

[A] Moore: No. There was nothing from her, no hugs or anything. Her excuse was that I shouldn't be touched because the plaster might break on my leg. So I often felt as if I were stuck on the mantel with a sign reading Don't touch him.

My first intimation of the effect that physical affection, particularly from a woman, had on me came from a nurse in a convalescent home. When I went into the home, I was terrified. It was my first night, and this nurse said, "Should I kiss you good night?" I said no. But then, as she was going, I said yes, and she bent down and kissed me, so loving and gentle and sweet. That kiss affected my whole life. A friend said to me, "You've looked for that tenderness throughout your whole life." And I have. It haunts and sustains me. Which is why, I suppose, I live for touching and being touched.

[Q] Playboy: When you got older, did you and your mother ever talk about what she'd done to you as a child?

[A] Moore: There was one moment, the last time I saw her before she went into the hospital. I think she had intimations that she was about to bum off. She started bringing out photographs of herself as a young girl. And she said, "I don't know why you say you were unhappy as a child. Look at this picture of you." And there was this picture of me smiling.

[A] Anyway, one Sunday afternoon, I remember saying goodbye to her, and I remember her doing what she often did: She looked at me in a peculiar, obsessive way, as if she had to put everything into it because that was the only way she could express it—nonverbally. That particular time, I looked at her and we just nodded at each other as if to say, "Yeah, I know what we feel for each other and I know there's no way of unraveling it or somehow making good the bad parts." But in that 30 seconds, I felt as though the whole of the thing had been straightened out. And that was the last time I saw her before she went into the hospital and had an operation from which she never fully recovered.

[Q] Playboy: Today, if you see someone with a clubfoot, how do you respond?

[A] Moore: I'm repelled. I guess because I equate it with my own repulsion about myself. It's not something I will ever be totally at ease with. In fact, my foot stops me from doing certain things. As a kid, I was very athletic, but now I do nothing, probably because I'm well known and feel, Oh, no. I can't show that to people.

[Q] Playboy: If you don't want people to know about your foot, why talk about it like this?

[A] Moore: I didn't for a long time. Finally, I did because I thought it was a way to air it, get rid of my feelings. But I never got rid of them. I wish I could say, "Fuck it—who cares about a twisted piece of bone?" But I can't. It's been an enormous influence on me. I know there are people who have much more grossly incapacitating things who don't seem to have any awareness of them. Take Itzhak Perlman, for instance. He's got two carcasses attached to his thighs and heaves them around like logs. But I don't see any sadness in him, because somehow his family was able to make him feel, OK, those two bits of flesh don't work, but you can play the violin. With my situation, there was a focusing of a deadly nature upon my foot.

[Q] Playboy: With your success now, don't you feel vindicated?

[A] Moore: No. I'm simply more at home with the pain. It doesn't go away. Once, during analysis, I was asked to draw my foot. I drew the foot with a typical curvature, making it look like a penis, because an erect penis turns up slightly at the end. Then I drew a stiff club. It was like saying, "This foot represents my sexuality, which I'm freezing into a dead club that I'm going to hit the world with." Of course, that's oversimplified, but that's what was really draining my energy—pointing to this thing and saying, "This is responsible for my feeling inadequate."

[Q] Playboy: Do you still feel inadequate?

[A] Moore: I'll always be enraged and humiliated by my handicap, except now I can deal with it without being persecuted.

[Q] Playboy: Since you link your foot to your sexuality, what happened once you started having sex with women? Did you tell them about your foot beforehand?

[A] Moore: Oh, I always felt I had to bring up this odious skeleton, as if somehow it would fly out of bed and hit them on the head if I didn't. I always had to say, "I have to tell you something. I've got this ..." and go through great agonies. I felt they had to know they were going to bed with this deformed fish.

[Q] Playboy: Was there ever any woman who was unkind about it?

[A] Moore: Never. Never in my life. Some women, in fact, couldn't understand it at all. You know: "What are you talking about? So you've got a bent finger or a bent ear. What's that got to do with anything?" But even then, I wasn't convinced. I still felt I had to come up with this prologue: "Hello, I want to stick my foot up you."

[Q] Playboy: Let's stay with your sex life for a while. Who first told you about sex?

[A] Moore: Kenny Vare. I was about nine or ten, and Kenny came running into the playground as if he were bearing the news of the vikings' landing. "Do you know what you have to do when you grow up?" he asked. "You have to put your winkie in a girl."

[A] Well, by that time, having already masturbated myself into the ground, I thought, My God. I've done it. I've ruined myself for this ghastly task. I really thought there was something wrong with me.

[Q] Playboy: We gather that your mother didn't know about your preoccupation.

[A] Moore: God, no! But I've got some hilarious stories about masturbation. In fact, I've always wanted to do a film about it. I remember, through sheer fear and lust, coming six times in one evening when I was supposed to be doing my homework. I just sat there masturbating, with my parents next door. That always made things a little more titillating, you know.

[A] See, I had a carpet by my bed. And I used to come all over the carpet and then rub it in. The carpet became like sculpted grass. I'll never know why on earth it was never discovered, except that my mother would occasionally say, "This carpet got all funny. Very strange, isn't it?"

[A] But the actual idea of masturbation never got brought up at all. Except once. We—my mother, my father, my sister and I—were all sitting around in the living room, the only room in the house, besides the bathroom, where you wouldn't freeze your balls off in winter. Anyway, Mother was sitting across the room, darning socks, while I sat on the sofa, hand in my pocket, having a nice, quiet feel. The only person watching me, as far as I could tell, was the Virgin Mary, who happened to be in a picture above our fireplace—and I knew she sure wasn't going to blow the whistle on me. Anyway, on the radio came a coloratura soprano, singing some Viennese piece. [He breaks into an operatic aria] Suddenly, she hit an extremely high note, prompting my mother to say, without missing a beat, "This-woman-is-singing-the-highest-note-that's-ever-been-sung-don't-do-that-dear."

[A] Well, the moment was frozen, because my mother had discovered me. And from that night onward, I could be found in the early hours of the morning, frantically flipping the radio dial to find a coloratura to masturbate by. I could always come on the top note.

[Q] Playboy: Do high notes still do it for you?

[A] Moore: No, unfortunately. I get a twinge, but it's just not the same thing. When I was at Oxford, however, I went into a record shop and discovered a record by somebody called Mado Robin, who probably never knew what she did for me.

[A] Robin was a coloratura soprano in the French opera. On that record, she sings a B-flat in altissimo, which is, I think, the highest recorded note. Well, when I heard that, my whole body went into a fever. I thought, God, if I buy this record, I'll wank myself to death. So, instead of buying it, I used to go to the record shop, wearing my father's raincoat, slip into the glass booth and play certain cuts of the record, to which I would masturbate.

[Q] Playboy: Weren't you afraid that people would catch you in the act?

[A] Moore: No, because I was wearing the raincoat. However, every time I came, I not only screwed up my face but slapped myself on the forehead—and that did draw considerable attention. I think the owners of the shop always wondered why I never bought the record. Finally, I did buy it and then didn't leave my room for a week. It was like a Pavlovian response—hilarious.

[Q] Playboy: Who was your first real lover?

[A] Moore: A very beautiful actress.

[Q] Playboy: Thus beginning an unalterable preference in women.

[A] Moore: Shit! I hadn't even thought of that, but you're right.

[Q] Playboy: What is it you find so compelling about actresses? You've married two and you're seeing another one now.

[A] Moore: It's the fact that they compel you to look at them. Beautiful women are generally the most insecure about their looks, so they're sometimes like flashers in Central Park. They may not want to have sex with the whole world, but they do need to be attractive to the whole world.

[Q] Playboy: OK, back to your first actress.

[A] Moore: Well, this girl was intrigued that I was a virgin.

[Q] Playboy: Did she seduce you?

[A] Moore: I don't remember how it came up, but I told her I'd never had an orgasm inside a woman. She said, "Oh, I think you ought to," and we agreed to meet in a hotel in Oxford. She came up from London on the milk train, arriving at five A.M. after having missed the 11 P.M. train. I was sitting on the platform waiting for her, trembling with fear, shame, anticipation and cold. We went to the hotel and got into bed. I recall her looking over my shoulder at something on the wall while we were doing it. You can imagine how heartening that was.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel?

[A] Moore: I found the whole thing not very exciting at all. As I came—and I'm surprised I did—she said, "Oh, I forgot to put my thing in," meaning her diaphragm. Well, she got pregnant. She told me later but said she'd deal with it and did. I saw her a couple of times after that, but it didn't work.

[Q] Playboy: So after all those years of silent lust, reality was a disappointment.

[A] Moore: I felt a great fear in my loins—a traction of fear that shriveled me spiritually and organically. I cringed with fear and shame and disappointment. Eventually, however, I came out of that theological funk.

[Q] Playboy: And became even more obsessed with women?

[A] Moore: Shortly thereafter, I was doing Beyond the Fringe in London and by that time had decided that what I wanted to do with my life was perform onstage, make people laugh and play jazz because it attracts women. So I did that; I started playing jazz in the basement of a club called The Establishment, which Peter Cook had founded. Each night, after the performance, I'd go to play jazz and [giggles] stroke girls.

[Q] Playboy: Were women the sole reason you started playing jazz?

[A] Moore: Yeah. You ask any jazz musician why he wants to play jazz and he'll tell you the same thing.

[Q] Playboy: What is the correlation between jazz and sex?

[A] Moore: Jazz is very upfront, if you'll pardon the expression. A visceral, unambiguously sexual sort of music. There's an excitement to jazz that, if you understand it enough to play it, manifests itself in other areas.

[Q] Playboy: In other words, if you can improvise well on the keyboard, chances are you can improvise well in bed.

[A] Moore: That's right.

[Q] Playboy: Then may one assume that men who love jazz are exceptional lovers?

[A] Moore: Oh, we are. An unbeatable crowd.

[Q] Playboy: Onward. Who started Beyond the Fringe?

[A] Moore: A man named John Bassett, then assistant director of the famous Edinburgh Festival. He decided it would be a good idea to have a late-night university revue, featuring two men from Cambridge and two from Oxford, that would be presented each night after the official festival presentation. Bassett asked me from Oxford and Jonathan Miller from Cambridge to work on it. We each recommended another person. Jonathan recommended Peter Cook and I suggested Alan Bennett.

[Q] Playboy: Where did you get the title Beyond the Fringe?

[A] Moore: Because it was not official, it was called The Fringe Festival. So, naturally, they wanted a fringe-type entertainment, which is why we were called Beyond the Fringe.

[Q] Playboy: According to legend, Miller and Cook wrote most of the material.

[A] Moore: Not true. Peter wrote most of it. Jonathan is often credited with more, but Peter was the main creative force. I'd say that on a percentage scale, starting with me at zero, Peter probably contributed 67 percent and Jonathan and Alan the rest.

[Q] Playboy: You wrote nothing?

[A] Moore: I didn't contribute a word. I provided music and did musical satires.

[Q] Playboy: Why didn't you write anything?

[A] Moore: Because I was intimidated by the others. Their thrust was political, social, literary, philosophical—every area I knew nothing about. The only humor I could really get into was the humor of my own background. They seemed much more knowledgeable about what was going on in the world. I didn't read the newspapers then.

[Q] Playboy: Cook has said that your contributions to the group were treated with "benign contempt." Were they?

[A] Moore: Oh, yeah. It was total scorn, thinly disguised.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't that hurt you?

[A] Moore: Sure. I just felt I couldn't contribute anything to that lot. I was always terrified that we'd get arrested for everything we did. I was very timid.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Moore: Because I didn't know what my rights were. I came from a family that was scared of policemen, librarians, schoolteachers—everybody. There was always a feeling of not really having the right to be wherever you were at the moment.

[Q] Playboy: How did Miller, Bennett and Cook treat that fear? Also with benign contempt?

[A] Moore: Yes. Even today, the same sense of patronizing continues. Peter says, "I can't understand Dudley's success," and Jonathan says, "I think he can do better." I think they feel I'm a lightweight—doing lightweight material, having a lightweight life, lightweight hobbies and lightweight interests.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever considered yourself an intellectual?

[A] Moore: I'm a performer. And there is an intellectual exercise in that. I am as intellectual as any of them in an area they don't know fuck-all about—music. To write music is an intellectual activity. Anyway, my feelings about an intellectual life are that it's the by-product of an emotional life. The intellect is the muscle growth on top of the emotional roof, instead of the other way around.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you're a good musician?

[A] Moore: I think I'm a terrific musician. I think I'm hot shit! I also think I'm a terrific actor and a terrific comedian.

[Q] Playboy: But you still care more about your music than about your performing?

[A] Moore: Absolutely. Always have.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get started in music?

[A] Moore: I started studying piano and singing in the church choir at the age of six. From the age of 11 to 18, I used to go to London to the Guildhall School of Music every Saturday morning to study violin and organ. It was actually the headmaster of Guildhall who suggested I apply to Oxford for an organ scholarship.

[Q] Playboy: Not many working-class kids applied to Oxford in those days. Did you think you'd get in?

[A] Moore: Well, in those days I wanted very much to please, so it seemed like a distinguished thing to do and I did. I competed in an organ-scholarship competition and won a scholarship to Magdalen College. As a working-class boy, I was, indeed, greatly surprised to have been accepted. I remember the day we got the notification, my mother went absolutely wild with ecstasy. She ran down the road like Archimedes, screaming, "My son's going to Oxford!"

[Q] Playboy: The thought of Oxford must have been pretty frightening.

[A] Moore: I was very frightened. And when I got there, I felt very ill equipped. Everybody spoke so factually. I had the feeling I was in the presence of very superior beings. I felt they'd all had a classical education, were older and had done national service, which I hadn't because of my leg. I felt very inferior.

[Q] Playboy: What was the toughest part of that first year?

[A] Moore: Not knowing how to open my mouth without having it sound like an old saw, because, coming from Dagenham, I spoke in a very lazy accent—not Cockney but sort of suburban. I went through a terrible stage of trying to imitate other people's voices, so I ended up with a peculiar voice, very untidy, with vowels lurching in every direction. I still talk that way today.

[A] I was also at odds with the place because it was too beautiful. Magdalen College is breath-takingly beautiful. And there I was, this clubfooted wanker sitting on the organ seat, playing this beautiful organ in this beautiful chapel. I felt I really didn't deserve to be there.

[Q] Playboy: How long did you feel that way?

[A] Moore: For two years.

[Q] Playboy: Then what happened?

[A] Moore: Comedy. My third year, I started doing cabaret, and it was like being the school clown all over again. I found a niche and became rather well known around campus as a cabaret performer, a guy who improvised and generally made a fool of himself. After that, I started acting in sketches and doing revues, which ultimately led to Beyond the Fringe.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a favorite sketch from Beyond the Fringe?

[A] Moore: I really liked the war sketch, about the so-called romance of World War Two. A lot of World War Two stories involved pilots who never returned. So in that sketch, there is one scene between Peter and Jonathan in which Jonathan says, "It's up to you, Perkins. I want you to fly up in a crate, take a shufty [have a look] over Bremen and don't come back!" Peter says, "Well, thank you, sir. Is this au revoir?" "No," replies Jonathan, "this is goodbye."

[Q] Playboy: Did the four of you ever use drugs to write or perform Beyond the Fringe?

[A] Moore: No. None of us ever used drugs then. Ever.

[Q] Playboy: Do you use drugs now?

[A] Moore: I don't like drugs. I have no temptation. Now, I do eat a lot of sugar and salt—masses of salt. I was reading an article in Time about people's salt consumption, and I eat twice as much as the person with the largest intake. It's probably just eating away at my balls, replacing all the sperm with sodium chloride. One day, I'll come and there'll be this little puff of salt out the end and I'll give birth to Lot's wife. [Laughs] I did read once that salt intake gives you hardening of the penis. Now, in that case, I may double my already excessive salt intake—though, let me hasten to add, I have never had a problem with hardening of the penis.

[Q] Playboy: If you say so. But what's more difficult to believe is that you've never tried drugs. A little marijuana, maybe?

[A] Moore: I have sucked on a marijuana cigarette about a dozen times, and, once, it did give me an orgasm that lasted for three days. But, then, I don't need pot, because my orgasms normally last that long, anyway.

[Q] Playboy: Undoubtedly. And have you ever tried cocaine?

[A] Moore: I've had one minor sniff of cocaine, which I did under protest, because I didn't even want to try it. Well, nothing happened. Of course, that's what everybody says, but [he breaks into swinger jargon, like his character in "Foul Play"], "Hey, I'm no different. I've just had 17 snorts of cocaine, but nothing's different, baby."

[A] Fact is, not only do I fear being out of control but I get a buzz from a cup of coffee; so if I took cocaine, my ass would fall to the ground, my cock would explode into 1000 stars and a breast would turn into a cantaloupe—you know, the usual humdrum stuff.

[Q] Playboy: When Beyond the Fringe went beyond its modest beginnings and opened in the West End of London, how did you celebrate? With limousines, caviar, more salt?

[A] Moore: I continued living the same way I always had. I was living in a small room that cost me ten shillings a week—that's about 90 cents—and I stayed there. I drove a silly little car, a 1935 Austin box car, that I finally had to abandon on the side of the road, whereupon I bought another car for £40—that was $100.

[Q] Playboy: When Beyond the Fringe broke up, you and Cook teamed up, off and on, for the next 14 years, doing movies, another stage revue, Good Evening, and Not Only ... but Also—a hit TV series for the BBC. What was Not Only ... but Also?

[A] Moore:Not Only Peter Cook ... but Also Dudley Moore. Basically, we did the same type of comedy sketches, the same eccentric humor with some slightly smutty jokes thrown in.

[Q] Playboy: Slightly smutty?

[A] Moore: Well, it was the BBC.

[Q] Playboy: Did the BBC try to censor you?

[A] Moore: Yeah, but it was a strange censorship, purely subjective. For instance, we once did a sketch about a confrontation between a scriptwriter and the head of the BBC. The BBC guy was saying, "Listen, you can't say bloody this many times. You already said bum [meaning ass] five times!" Finally, the writer says, "All right. I'll drop bloody if you'll let me have another bum."

[A] That sketch was based on an actual meeting, except at ours it was between tits and bum. We got away with tits, though I'm amazed we did. Peter loved it when we got away with things. Like the time he talked about a bottle of wine that, instead of being called Château Margaux or Châteauneuf-du-Pape, was called Chât All over the Carpet.

[Q] Playboy: Did Cook again do all the writing?

[A] Moore: No. He wrote about 70 percent of our material and I did about 30. I used to build my humor by elaborating on things that had happened to me. Peter's came out of left field.

[Q] Playboy: For instance?

[A] Moore: "The Frog and the Peach," a really ridiculous sketch from the Alice in Wonderland segment of Peter's mind, all about the only restaurant left where one can find a "very big frog and a damned fine peach."

[Q] Playboy: What were the specialties of the house?

[A] Moore: Frog à la pêche and pêche à la frog. Frog à la pêche is a frog with a peach stuck in its mouth and covered with flaming Cointreau, while pêche à la frog is a peach sliced down the middle to reveal hundreds of squiggling little tadpoles.

[Q] Playboy: What about your Bo Dudley character?

[A] Moore: Ah, yes. That was a take-off on James Brown's song Papa's Got a Brand-New Bag. In the sketch, I'm supposed to be one of the great blues singers, who advertises himself as black even though he is actually white. Naturally, I am wearing dark glasses and sitting at a piano. The name is obviously from Bo Diddley—and it's probably how Bo Derek got her name, too.

[A] Peter, meanwhile, plays a very upper-class BBC-type commentator who, totally mystified by R&B, has asked me to explain the song to him, literally lyric by lyric. He says, "Now, what does this line 'Momma's got a brand-new bag' mean?" And I say, "The darky mother has gone into the bustling market streets of Harlem to purchase a gaily colored bag." He then asks about "I'm gonna groove it, we're gonna groove it all night long." And I say, "There is some sort of celebration for the darky baby for which the mother will be making some indentations into the bag with a groover, the work of which will take her all night long." Peter then asks about "You turn the light on for me, baby," and I explain that the baby turns the light on, blowing the circuits and causing the whole wigwam to go up in smoke.

[A] It is then left to Peter to paraphrase the entire song, which he does, concluding that the moral of the story can be summed up in one question: Is it wise to let people buy gaily colored plastic bags when they should instead have the electrical wiring redone in their houses?

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a favorite Cook line?

[A] Moore: My favorite line was one that Peter came out with one afternoon. We were talking about his wife and he said, "My wife does all the cooking ... and all the eating. She goes down to the well every morning, but she is not a well woman." And then I said, "How did you meet your wife?" And he said, "I met her during World War Two. She blew in through the window on a piece of shrapnel and became embedded in the sofa. One thing led to my mother, and we were married within the hour." There's such a marvelous thoroughness about the whole thing. Very British. Somehow, he'd summed up colonization, the empire—everything—all in one go.

[Q] Playboy: How would you describe Cook?

[A] Moore: Basically, a fucking cunt. [Chuckles] He's an enormously softhearted/hardhearted, sweet/sour, vulnerable/invulnerable man. He lives on the edge of two poles.

[Q] Playboy: We hear you two had a pretty volatile relationship.

[A] Moore: I always enjoy Peter on my own, but if I'm with somebody else, we always get into an argument. There's a video tape coming out of an album we did titled Ad Nauseam. It's really a documentary about Peter and me, showing the irritability that existed between us. I mean real irritability. We've always gotten pissed at each other. Peter's always pissed off with my nitpicking, logical mind. And I used to get pissed off at his lack of directness in dealing with people.

[Q] Playboy: Obviously, the irritation worked as a creative catalyst.

[A] Moore: Yes, and it also endeared us to each other. Although we never speak unless we bump into each other.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you two split up?

[A] Moore: I don't know that we have. That makes it sound as though we'll never work together again. I'm sure that if something were right for us, we'd do it. I feel that Peter is more interested in doing caricature stuff than in acting. He's a very funny comedian, but he's not as interested in comedic acting as I am. Right now, I just consider what I'm doing solo stuff.

[A] It's true, though, that after we'd taken Good Evening to Australia, things just ground to a halt. But we did go on to do other things, such as the Derek and Clive albums.

[Q] Playboy: The Derek and Clive albums are three of the most notorious, raunchy comedy albums in the business. How did they come about?

[A] Moore: Peter and I wanted to do some material we couldn't do on radio, TV or stage. So we rented a recording studio, went in and basically improvised as we recorded. The first cut—or the first cunt, as we say in the vernacular, or the venereal—was The Worst Job I Ever Had. Peter said [does a Cockney accent], "The worst job I ever had was gettin' lobsters out of Jayne Mansfield's asshole. Jayne used to go swimmin' off the beach at Mally-boo and these fuckin' lobsters used to go flyin' up her ass. And I used to have to pull the fuckers out."

[A] Again, I love that image. It's like a reversal, if you'll pardon the expression, of a cunt's having teeth. Up the ass are giant lobsters ready to get you. No matter where you stick it, you find teeth.

[Q] Playboy: Cook has described Derek and Clive as "two stupid hooligans, bored and angry about everything, who spend all their time trying to outdo each other in areas about which they have no knowledge." Why all the dirty talk, though?

[A] Moore: In England, there are whole classes of people who talk just like Derek and Clive, whose total means of communication is in language some people call obscene. For instance, there's one cut on the album in which this bloke Pete calls me a cunt. I say back to him, in a morally outraged tone, "Who are you calling cunt, cunt?" So he says, "You cunt, you." I say, "You fucking cunt! You called me a cunt. You fucking cunt!" So he says, "You're calling me a cunt, you cunt?" And it just goes back and forth like that.

[A] What we basically did on the Derek and Clive albums was speak the unspeakable. Take, for instance, cancer, which Peter and I discuss on one album. The thing about cancer is that it's one of those subjects that, when they come up, cause everyone to put on a serious face. Everybody fears it, because we all secretly feel it's self-induced through anxiety or doubt. I know that sometimes I sink into days when I get so anxious that I conjure up an image of a white-eyed, greedy rodent gnawing away at my asshole. That's cancer-causing.

[A] Anyway, even though Peter and I knew that cancer was awful, it was still something we wanted to ventilate. And in doing so, we got into the most outrageous convolutions until we ended up competing with each other over who had the worse cancer. For instance, Peter said, "I've got cancer of my wife." And I said, "That's nothing. I've got cancer of my whole fucking ass." Then he'd say, "Only that? Well, listen, I've got cancer of the house." And it went on like that until we both got hysterical with laughter. As Peter says, there's absolutely no socially redeeming value about cancer, which is one of its greatest merits.

[Q] Playboy: Still, even very open-minded people wince at some of the words and images you guys use on those albums.

[A] Moore: First of all, let me make a conventional remark: True obscenities are not orifices. Shit and holes of the human body are not obscene, nor is making love or screwing or whatever you want to call it. Pictures of war or violence can be obscene. You know, a woman being handed her husband in a plastic bag in Vietnam. Dreadful. And obscene.

I remember the first time I asked my mother, "What does cunt mean?" Well, she farted, snorted, her head blew off and her arms fell out. She didn't know what to do with herself. She said it was the filthiest word that had ever been invented. Imagine.

[Q] Playboy: When you cut the Derek and Clive tracks, did you really plan to release them?

[A] Moore: Originally, we recorded them for our personal use. Copies ended up with a lot of rock groups, such as The Rolling Stones and The Who. They used to tell us they listened to them on the plane, fucking laughing their fucking heads off. Suddenly, we thought, Fuck, maybe we should release this fucking thing. Finally, we did and caused a certain small tempest in a teacup among the British press, which pretended to be self-righteous and moral. Generally, the disapproval came from those newspapers that ran a girl with bare tits on page three and talked about a vicar fucking a rooster on page four. They were the ones who objected to us boys' talking dirty or calling people fucking cunts. But we got the record released and then did two others.

[Q] Playboy: But both in this interview and in some of your work, you show a preference for the scatological. You really do have a fairly dirty sense of humor, don't you?

[A] Moore: Oh, sure. I have a very ribald sense of humor, what is conventionally known as obscene. It's always there and it's always been there. It's just my way of thinking. People always wonder how, with this ribald outlook, I can also write such emotional, moving music. They can't put together the feeling swings. Not to make a comparison, but Mozart had a very scatological sense of humor, too. He was always talking about farting and cunts and asses. He had a very basic sense of humor. I don't find anything wrong with that. I just love having a fun time, cocking a snoot, as they say.

[Q] Playboy: Have you always talked dirty?

[A] Moore: From the time I was about 13. But there's a misconception that if you talk dirty, you're not a serious person.

[Q] Playboy:Six Weeks is one of the first films, if not the first, in which you play a serious role. Do you think people really want to see Dudley Moore being serious?

[A] Moore: I don't know. I think the order of events is that I want to be serious. Listen, I'm gambling. I'm throwing my dice here. But I don't feel it's a gamble, because I'm quite comfortable being serious.

[A] The Six Weeks script gave me more to work with, because I didn't have to put my finger into the comedy socket on the wall to gain that extra dimension. I pared myself down to exactly who I am, which in many ways gave me more breadth as a person.

[A] In my next film, Lovesick, by Marshall Brickman, my character overcomes his fears to pursue a young girl. He throws over the so-called ethics of psychoanalysis—he is a psychoanalyst—and jeopardizes his place in the profession to have an affair with a young girl of 21. As a result, he falls in love with her, sort of against his nature, and changes his way of working. It's a serious comedy.

[Q] Playboy: Is Dudley Moore a serious person?

[A] Moore: Of course. Very, very serious, indeed. Gosh. Absolutely. Profoundly serious. Very, very, very serious. Phew. Gosh. Golly again. Fucking-A serious.

[Q] Playboy: With the exception of Bedazzled, the Moore/Cook combination has never really succeeded in movies. The Wrong Box, The Bed Sitting Room, The Hound of the Baskervilles—now, that was a stinker, wasn't it?

[A] Moore: You can say that again. And mainly because we were working with [director] Paul Morrissey, who frustrated us at every turn. I will not take blame for that, except that we should have dumped the entire idea.

[Q] Playboy: Some people also feel that way about Wholly Moses!

[A] Moore: It wasn't as farcical or as romantic as it should have been. But when I was approached by the producers, I found them so nice and friendly that, even though I thought they were nuts to do the material, I said yes. In retrospect, I was nuts to have done it.

[Q] Playboy: We're showing a dangerous tendency toward drifting away from your crucial subject—sex. Let's get back to it quickly. What do you find sexy in a woman?

[A] Moore: I love romanticism in a woman, even though in many ways I strongly disapprove of it. I like a woman passionate and focused on me, without, of course, drifting into cannibalism. I look for someone who's huggable, has a sense of humor, a lot of feeling and can talk about the crucial things in life: enjoying yourself, dying, enjoying yourself. [Laughs] You know, "Oh, God, oh, God, I'm coming. Bang, pop ... ah, done." That sort of thing.

[Q] Playboy: What about brains?

[A] Moore: I don't want a woman who has anything of magnitude or devastating interest to say. Basically, I want someone to have a good time with. Fun!

[Q] Playboy: So your women don't have to be smart?

[A] Moore: Not in the slightest. Or only in the very slightest. If I want to be stirred up intellectually, I have my books and my films. It's not important to find that with the woman I'm with.

[Q] Playboy: You do seem to have a definite physical type—tall, blonde, gentile. Are you sure you're not Jewish?

[A] Moore: [Laughs] Well, I married two blondes and am with one now. Actually, I go for women with an overbite and flared nostrils, an aggressive, slightly hostile look. I love the looks of Bardot and Marthe Keller, both of whom have that vaguely toothy quality. And, of course, Susan [Anton] has enough to feed the world.

[Q] Playboy: What attracts you to Susan?

[A] Moore: She's a wonderful, amazingly nurturing, amazingly loving woman. She's passionate, sensitive, full of emotions, curious and very willing to learn. But there's not an academic debate going on there. I don't require that. We're great companions. I lead a very sealed life with her.

[Q] Playboy: Are you naturally monogamous?

[A] Moore: No. I am not a monogamous person, though I am with Susan. She has interested me enough for three years to be monogamous.

[Q] Playboy: How would you feel if you found out Susan was having an affair?

[A] Moore: I'm perfectly prepared for anything. I just don't want to know about it. Period.

[Q] Playboy: Are you the jealous type?

[A] Moore:Very.

[Q] Playboy: How does it manifest itself?

[A] Moore: Murder and shoving Steinways up people's assholes.

[Q] Playboy: Not to indulge in gossip, but there have been press reports that you and Susan have been having some problems lately. How would you describe the current status of your relationship?

[A] Moore: We're together. We spend days and nights together.

[Q] Playboy: And is the relationship still a monogamous one on your part?

[A] Moore: Um-hum....

[Q] Playboy: Why are you smiling? [His smile gets broader.] Falling in love with one's leading ladies seems to be an occupational hazard for a movie star. So, straight out: Have you ever had an affair with any of your leading ladies?

[A] Moore: No. [Smiles again]

[Q] Playboy: Would you tell us if you had?

[A] Moore: Oh, yes. [Still smiles and now blinks madly]

[Q] Playboy: What about Elizabeth McGovern, your co-star in Lovesick? It was reported that you two got involved during the filming of the movie.

[A] Moore: There was one report—in People—that probably popped up in every paper after that. I've been known to be very friendly with all my lovely leading ladies, and I hope I always will be.

[Q] Playboy: Did you and Elizabeth, in fact, have an affair?

[A] Moore: No.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think that relationship got misinterpreted?

[A] Moore: It wasn't misinterpreted. I'm seeing Susan. We've been together ever since I got back from filming in New York. But what is it that people are fascinated by, anyway? Whether you put your pee-pee in somebody else's pee-pee? It's my business where I put my Willie Winkie—nobody else's. They can go wank themselves to death over stories about other people; I'm not going to open my fucking mouth about anything ever again.

[A] It's just the arid sexual lives of most people that make the supposed sexual lives of famous people interesting. The problem is that most people generally aren't doing anything except planting themselves into the vacuum system of their apartments, which I once did myself. And, Christ, it felt good. Besides, how can somebody deduce the fact that I'm having an affair with somebody because I'm talking to her at a party?

[Q] Playboy: You've been with Susan for three years, and before that, you were married twice, first to Suzy Kendall and then to Tuesday Weld. Do you think you'll ever marry again?

[A] Moore: I don't want to. And I say that with the greatest love for Susan. Marriage doesn't add anything to my life. In fact, it takes away, because I don't like the idea. It means some kind of respectability that I don't respect—some sort of making a good woman out of somebody, which I think is crass.

[Q] Playboy: What was the most difficult part for you of being married?

[A] Moore: Just being married. Just the notion of being married is such anathema to me that it colors my whole life. I feel starved. I feel as if I'm not available to the rest of the world—as if I have to curtail my feelings. I think being on such a monogamous level with my mother made me feel that I don't want to be married to her—or to anybody else. I've already experienced the horror and anxiety of feeling I can't move.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think you got married the two times you did?

[A] Moore: Oh, that's not available.

[Q] Playboy: To whom?

[A] Moore: To the world. You can't expect me to talk about my marriages.

[Q] Playboy: You're so open about the rest of your life; why not about your relationships, since you say they're the most important part of your life?

[A] Moore: Because there's a real distinction here. I want to love people and have them love me. So why should I sound off against my ex-wives, whom I love?

[Q] Playboy: Then let's just talk about Weld, the woman. You know, she's a near cult figure to a lot of men. What attracted you to her?

[A] Moore: I was very attracted by her waywardness, her devilishness, her unpredictability, her unbelievably aggressive humor. When I bantered with her, she always won. That was half the attraction, trying to win with her. But there was no winning, because I was afraid of her.

[Q] Playboy: Afraid of what?

[A] Moore: Of being rejected, and I think she knew that, even though she didn't reject me. I've always been afraid of rejection. That's been the primary fear of my life; and, therefore, it's easy for me to feel in an inferior position a great deal of the time. Tuesday is very sweet and soft as butter, really. But she has weapons that she uses quite devastatingly. Anybody who responds to them is finished. The main reason we finally parted was a constant locking of horns. But we're good friends and, of course, share our son, Patrick.

[Q] Playboy: Patrick is six now. How did you feel about becoming a father? Did you want children?

[A] Moore: No. I've always been terrified of them. It's not so bad now, but, frankly, I really don't want children. Now I'm glad as hell that I have Patrick, but for me, the first years were not massively attractive. I'm not that sort of person. And before he was born, I was worried to death that he'd inherit my foot.

[A] There are some men who are wonderful fathers. They enjoy the years of seeing a child grow. But it's not my cup of tea, to put it in a banal way. However, now that he's six, it's increasingly delicious. I used to think children were mainly enjoyable to women, but Patrick—well, he came, he saw, he conquered.

[Q] Playboy: You don't live lavishly. Without large family obligations, what do you do with your money?

[A] Moore: I invest. I don't buy anything, because I have everything I want. As long as I eat well, have an occasional bottle of good red wine and do my work, I'm content. I get my pleasure from everything that's free.

[Q] Playboy: Do you spread your wealth around?

[A] Moore: I'm sometimes generous. I don't like jewelry, but I am giving Susan the score I composed for Six Weeks—the original sketches. I'm having them bound. I've dedicated the score to her, because she really loves it. I've never given anybody my original sketches before. She suggested the gift, though I had already thought of the idea. She said, "I want your music bound." Here in California, they fucking bind everything. And I said, "I've already thought of that, you cunt." She said, "It would mean more to me than anything, either marriage or child, because it's the essence of you." And it is—the inner blood, the most valuable thing I have to offer.

[Q] Playboy: Needless to say, you're romantic.

[A] Moore: I'm romantic in a way that's unreachable. My romance is out there in the dust of the galaxies. That sounds so cheap, doesn't it? My God, I can even smell ghastly perfume! My passion and romance are buried in the deep past of my youth—longing to be loved. That's the inspiration of my music. The other is sheer jest and joy.

[Q] Playboy: In some ways—your height, for instance—you're an unlikely romantic lead. Does being short still bother you?

[A] Moore: On occasion, though not that much. It bothers me if I am overweight, because then I look like a fucking tennis ball. That neurosis has really faded, because every leading lady I've had has been taller. When we were doing Six Weeks, the first scene Mary [Tyler Moore] and I had was a party scene. She was wearing heels that none of us liked. She said, "Well, I didn't want to wear flats, in case anybody thought I was trying to accommodate Dudley's size." She didn't give a shit! Julie Andrews, on the other hand, hadn't wanted to act with me in "10" because she didn't want to act with somebody who was smaller than herself.

[Q] Playboy: Your role in "10" was that of a guy having a mid-life crisis---

[A] Moore: I've been having a mid-life crisis since I was two weeks old. I went right from a midwife to a mid-life crisis.

[A] In fact, I was in the process then of writing a story on the same subject as "10," except the man went off with a lot of women instead of one. Then again, I've always been greedy. But it was certainly a great opportunity to have met Blake Edwards when I did, but I was primed to go and one way or the other, I would have forced myself into a situation and gotten some movie going.

[Q] Playboy: Between wives and girlfriends, you've covered a lot of ground with women, indulging in what you once called "meaningful one-night stands." What is a meaningful one-night stand?

[A] Moore: I think you can love everybody. You can have a very deep and loving relationship with somebody---

[Q] Playboy: Whom you've known two hours?

[A] Moore: Abso-bloody-lutely! If, that is, you're willing to let yourself go to the point of intimacy. I think you can have wonderful experiences with a person you've known for three minutes. By the way, I don't know that I've had that many women—only as many as I could lay my hands on.

[Q] Playboy: Your obsession with sex seems total. Is there anything you don't like about sex?

[A] Moore: Well, in terms of oral sex, I never had anybody's mouth around my nob until 1960. I was doing Beyond the Fringe in London and there was this girl with huge tits I was just mad for, who, one day, came to the theater and said, "Dudley, I want to suck your cock." Well, there I was, 25 years old and never had it done to me. Don't ask why. But the next two years were just great. Jeez, I didn't know the delights I'd been missing. Of course, I was never keen on doing it myself, but one soon realizes there are results from reciprocity.

[Q] Playboy: In other words, you would prefer not to reciprocate?

[A] Moore: I'm not an ardent devotee. In fact, I'm always amazed at people who wouldn't do anything else. They're probably rather favored by women. It's probably a good enthusiasm to have.

[A] My own feelings about it go back to the castration complex. I'm often amazed that women can get hold of those things and pop them into their mouths. I mean, they're strange-looking creatures. If it were a bar of chocolate, I could understand. I don't think I have any taboos about it; I just haven't gone out of my way to do it. Although, I must say, I have used it to seduce women when I felt that nothing else would do the job.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of that period in your life, Jonathan Miller told us that during the Beyond the Fringe days, the other guys were absolutely amazed at the stream of women always parading in and out of your dressing room.

[A] Moore: Yes, well, I did make up for lost time. Jonathan was married, as I think Peter was. Alan didn't seem that interested in pursuing girls at that time, so that left only me. I had a marvelous time. In London, after every performance, I'd play in this club from 11 P.M. until four or five in the morning. And there were always lots of beautiful girls around. I remember one girl I was absolutely mad for whom I never dreamed I'd be able to come to grips with. Well, I finally did, and it was such an extraordinary experience.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Moore: Oh, I was just so turned on to her that I couldn't think of anything else. I remember one night, during a performance, I was fucking her in my dressing room. Suddenly, I heard my cue. I was supposed to be onstage, but I was just coming. I went, "Oh, my God!" and I ran down the stairs—having just come, of course—and ran onto the stage with my hair dripping wet. I looked at the others and said, "Oh, hi." They just looked at me and said hello. They knew exactly what I'd been doing. [Laughs] I can't think of anything in life more pleasurable than that.

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't it then that you got tagged "Cuddly Dudley"?

[A] Moore: Yes, well, I was called that in the British press for a while. And rather accurately, I might add. For me, cuddling is the most exciting thing in the world. I love it.

[Q] Playboy: You're obviously more at peace now about love and life than you were then. How did you get to this point?

[A] Moore: Through analysis and living and wiving. I wived. [Laughs] It's just a process. I've been in therapy since 1964.

[Q] Playboy: How would you categorize your illness?

[A] Moore: It was just a general depression, basically.

[Q] Playboy: Summarize your psychiatric experiences, if you don't mind.

[A] Moore: I started in England going to a therapist twice a week. When I went to Australia, I couldn't do it, but I made a lot of progress by reading books on analysis. When I came to New York in 1973, I was with a woman who practiced bio-energetics, an offshoot of Reichian therapy whose basic idea is that neuroses are reflected in a corporeal display of muscular spasms. I did Reichian therapy for a time but found it too studiedly self-conscious. When I got to California, I went into group therapy and found it one of the best moves I'd made. But I stopped therapy a year ago.

[Q] Playboy: Is it a permanent halt?

[A] Moore: I think so. I may go in to brush my teeth every now and again. But, basically, I feel fine.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think it took so long? Why 18 years of therapy?

[A] Moore: I just went at my own pace.

[Q] Playboy: Vis-à-vis your therapy and your finding yourself, Cook once said that on your deathbed, you'd be issuing a press release saying, "Wait. I'm nearly there."

[A] Moore: Yes, and he also said, "Dudley has been looking for himself for years. Why bother? I found him years ago." You know, I absorb all these swipes and keep on going.

[Q] Playboy: Was there one overriding influence for the kind of humor that brought you and Cook this far?

[A] Moore: In 1952, Britain had a radio show called The Goon Show, starring Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan—one of the great British clowns—and Harry Secombe, a wonderfully funny basic comedian. Their program was absolutely mad. They gave birth to that kind of humor. We didn't emulate them in any way, but there was still a fascination with eccentric humor.

[Q] Playboy: What is the funniest sketch you've ever seen?

[A] Moore: It was done by Georges Carl, who performs at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris. Carl, who must be 60, comes onstage and for about six minutes gets tangled up in his microphone. And that's all that happens. He gets tangled up in his microphone. He releases himself from one tangle and gets tangled up somewhere else. It's so hilarious it's almost indescribable. Finally, he gets out his harmonica, which looks like a walkie-talkie, and starts playing it. He plays more and more passionately until he hits this enormous climax and the whole thing collapses into cutlery—knives, forks, spoons—crashing to the floor.

[Q] Playboy: Who are the funniest people you know?

[A] Moore: Marshall Brickman, who wrote and directed Lovesick, is one of the funniest people I've ever met. And Peter Cook could be at times. Steve Gordon, who wrote Arthur. Laraine Newman is hilarious, the funniest woman I've ever met, though I haven't met Joan Rivers, who really makes me laugh. I also find Ted Knight and Betty White very funny. I find something funny in almost everybody, actually. I love people such as Foster Brooks, the late Paul Lynde, Milton Berle—especially his early shows. I also like Robin Williams, David Brenner, Johnny Carson.

[Q] Playboy: Are you in any sense a satirist?

[A] Moore: That's the last thing I am. Satire in its best form is both destructive and constructive. Mort Sahl is a real satirist. He gets enormous enjoyment out of his contempt for things. And for that reason, he is very funny, even though at times the contempt overrides the joy so much that you don't enjoy him as much as you might.

[A] As for my being a satirist, I'm just a person acting who I am at this point in my life. I'm not making any commentary or any messages. I'm just being myself, even though that is such a fucking stupid phrase. Some people may want me to say there is more to what I do, but there isn't. In all my movies, I basically play myself. "10" was the first movie in which I was comfortable enough to finally play myself, which is why, I think, it worked so well. And now I basically look for material in which I can play myself in one form or another.

[Q] Playboy: What's your greatest strength?

[A] Moore: I am very stubborn and very sensitive, but I also have the ability to put my hand in my chest and pull my heart out. And I don't mean wearing it on my sleeve or brandishing it above my head.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about Dudley Moore?

[A] Moore: My intellectual friends think I'm stupid and my friends who've had very little education think I'm a fucking brain surgeon. Actually, what I really am is a terrific musician and a terrific comedic actor.

[Q] Playboy: Words for your tombstone?

[A] Moore:That I want to read, quite simply, He died and rose again from the dead.

"Basically, I just want the same things all men do: Rice Krispies and sucking."