A toast is in order for Arthur, which became a comedy classic despite a quiet release 45 years ago.
After penning Carl Reiner’s 1978 comedy The One and Only starring Henry Winkler, Steve Gordon was hired to direct his own Arthur script for Orion. Gordon initially considered George Segal and John Belushi for the title role before casting Dudley Moore off the success of 10, in which the actor starred opposite Bo Derek.
Arthur centers on alcoholic playboy Arthur Bach, who will be cut off from his family fortune unless he marries a woman he doesn’t love, which becomes complicated when he falls for working-class Linda, played by Liza Minnelli. At the time, Moore praised the script for its barrage of jokes: “Ten laughs a page, instead of one laugh every 10 pages.”
Actress Anne DeSalvo, who played sex worker Gloria, tells The Hollywood Reporter that Moore, a classically trained pianist, would warmly greet her on set. “Dudley would be playing the piano, and he’d say, ‘Good morning, Anne,’ ” she recalls. “He was such a gentleman.”
The lead character was written as American, but Moore convinced Gordon to let him keep his British accent: “Steve kept phoning me up and saying, ‘Are you sure you can’t do an American accent?’ I told him if I tried, it would be the most distorted performance.”
Arthur hit theaters on July 17, 1981, with THR‘s review extolling the “hilarious comedy” and Moore’s “impeccable timing.” The film got off to a slow box office start amid marketing challenges, but word of mouth drew crowds for weeks to come, as Arthur became the year’s fourth-highest-grossing title. The film earned four Oscar nominations, winning for best supporting actor for John Gielgud as butler Hobson. It also won an Academy Award for Christopher Cross’ main theme song, “Best That You Can Do” — co-written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager — which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Gordon died suddenly of a heart attack a year later at age 44, making Arthur his only feature. Moore and Minnelli returned for a 1988 sequel, while a 2011 remake starred Russell Brand, Jennifer Garner, Greta Gerwig and Helen Mirren, but neither matched the success of the original, which was named one of AFI’s top 100 comedies.
Moore, who died in 2002 at age 66 after battling progressive supranuclear palsy, once called Arthur his favorite role: “I love the character.”
This story appeared in the Aug. 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.