A Touch of Hollywood….

When I began researching the history of Hollywood for Tears of Blood, I was amazed by how much the films that have graced the silver screen influence or reflect our lives.  Some are classics that simply make us laugh, or they're referenced in more modern scripts, which leaves me to explain why there's a girl with braids running down a beach and a rather homely man running toward her.

Many of these films have been redone lately and re-introduced to an entirely new viewing audience, but there are those of us that remember the original fondly.

One of those films was Arthur, which starred Russell Brand.  The remake was…fun, but it didn't match the same flash and style that the original film from 1981.  Brand's talented but, in my opinion, he lacked the necessary charisma to pull off the character.

Perhaps it was the star from that original film that won my heart.  Quite honestly, I loved Dudley Moore's quirky humor, and the way he could look into the camera and you could 'see' the little devil lingering behind his eyes.  He could make the audience laugh and cry, as well as sympathize for a useless bounder that had nothing better to do with his life except drink.

Dudley Moore had charm that oozed from every inch of his diminutive body.  Besides being a star in his home country, he was big in the U.S., and filmed some hilariously classic comedies of the 1970s and 80s.  Among those was 10  (with Bo Derek), Arthur (1981), Micki + Maude (1984), Crazy People (1990) and many others.

On this day in 2002, Hollywood and the world lost Dudley Moore to a degenerative brain disorder.

His final words were "I can hear the music all around me…."