British comedian, movie star and jazz pianist Dudley Moore admitted that he is close to death, in a rare documentary that aired late Monday night.
The BBC program was a curtain-call on a life that has ranged from the comic to the inspirational.
The 65-year-old was diagnosed last year as having progressive supranuclear palsy. The disease attacks brain cells which control balance and eye movements as well as some mental and motor functions.
In the program, which a BBC spokesman said Moore had decided would be his "last television appearance," he spoke of the "short and uncertain future" he has left.
"It's totally mysterious the way this illness attacks, and eats you up, and then spits you out," he says, in extracts released in advance.
"There's always this feeling of why did it hit me? and I cannot make peace with it because I know I am going to die from it."
"Yes I feel angry, that's true, to be reduced to this insignificant version of myself is overpowering."
Moore said strangers think he is drunk, while the affliction has robbed him of his greatest pleasure, his ability to play music.
Before learning of the illness, he had hoped to earn a living as a concert pianist. "Music is my main comfort now.
"But it is difficult to know that all the keys are there to be played and I can't play them."
Moore is probably best known in Britain for his comic talents, particularly for his legendary pairing with Peter Cook, and is an accomplished musician.
In the United States and the rest of the world however, he is probably best known for his role in two Hollywood blockbusters, 10 and Arthur.
In 10, the quintessential middle-age crisis comedy from 1979, he starred opposite Bo Derek. His role as a bored millionaire in the bittersweet Arthur,1981, earned him an Academy Award nomination. – AFP.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
