Ron Moody

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Ron Moody

Born

Ronald Moodnick
January 8, 1924 (age 84)

London, England

Spouse(s)

Therese Blackbourn (1985-)

Awards won
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 1969 Oliver!

Ronald Moodnick, known as Ron Moody (born 8 January 1924) is a British actor.

[edit] Life and work

Born in Tottenham, North London,^[1] he has worked in a variety of genres, but is perhaps best known for his starring role as the villainous yet loveable Fagin in the musical Oliver!, based on Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. He created the role in the original West End production, and reprised it on Broadway and in the 1968 film version, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

He has appeared in several children's television series, including The Animals of Farthing Wood, Noah's Island, Telebugs, Into the Labyrinth, and the Discworld series.

Moody played French entertainer and mime artist The Great Orlando in the 1963 Cliff Richard film Summer Holiday.

In 1969, he was offered, but declined, the lead role in Doctor Who, following the departure of Patrick Troughton from the part. He played Edwin Caldecott, an old nemesis of Jim Branning in EastEnders. He played Ippolit Vorobyaninov alongside Frank Langella (as Ostap Bender) in Mel Brooks' version of The Twelve Chairs (1970). In 2005, he acted in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio play Other Lives, playing the Duke of Wellington.

Moody married pilates teacher Therese Blackbourn in 1985. They are the parents of six children, the youngest born when Moody was in his early seventies.

In 2005 the British ITV1 nostalgia series After They Were Famous hosted a documentary of the surviving cast of the motion picture Oliver!. Several of the films musical numbers were reenacted. Most notable and poignant perhaps was Moody, then 81 but still spry, and Jack Wild (the Artful Dodger from Oliver! and seriously ill with oral cancer at the time of the shooting) recreating their dance from the closing credits of the movie.

He is also the cousin of the Coronation Street director Laurence Moody.

[edit] References

^ My London. The Londoner. Mayor of London (August 2005). Retrieved on 2007-06-18. “Are you a London boy originally? Yes. I was born in Tottenham. Then we moved to Hornsey, which was not that far away, but was a few steps up the social ladder.”