Ron Moody


Ron Moody was an English actor, singer, composer and writer best known for his portrayal of Fagin in Oliver! and its 1983 Broadway revival. Moody earned a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for the film, as well as a Tony Award nomination for the stage production. Other notable projects include The Mouse on the Moon, Mel Brooks's The Twelve Chairs and Flight of the Doves, in which Moody shared the screen with Oliver! co-star Jack Wild.
Moody holds the peculiar distinction of having portrayed the wizard Merlin in two Disney films, Unidentified Flying Oddball and A Kid in King Arthur's Court.

Early life

Moody was born in Tottenham, Middlesex,, the son of Kate and Bernard/Barnett Moodnick, a studio executive. His father was a Russian Jew and his mother was a Lithuanian Jew; said Moody, "I'm 100% Jewish—totally kosher!" He was a cousin of director Laurence Moody and actress Clare Lawrence. His surname was legally changed to the more anglicised Moody in 1930.

Education

Moody was educated at Southgate County School, which at the time was a state grammar school, and based in Palmers Green, Middlesex, followed by the London School of Economics in Central London, where he trained to become an economist. During World War II he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and became a radar technician.

Life and career

Despite training to be an economist, Moody began appearing in theatrical shows and later decided to become a professional actor.
Moody worked in a variety of genres, but is perhaps best known for his starring role as Fagin in Lionel Bart's stage and film musical Oliver! based on Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. He created the role in the original West End production in 1960, and reprised it in the 1984 Broadway revival, garnering a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical. For his performance in the 1968 film Oliver!, he received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, the Best Actor award at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination in the same category. Reflecting on the role, Moody states: "Fate destined me to play Fagin. It was the part of a lifetime. That summer of 1967 was one of the happiest times of my life". He reprised his role as Fagin at the 1985 Royal Variety Performance in Theatre Royal, Drury Lane before Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Moody appeared in several children's television series, including the voice of Badger and Toad in the TV Adaptation of Colin Dann's The Animals of Farthing Wood, Noah's Island, Telebugs, and Into the Labyrinth. Among his better known roles was that of Prime Minister Rupert Mountjoy in the comedy The Mouse on the Moon, alongside Margaret Rutherford, with whom he appeared again the following year in Murder Most Foul, one of Rutherford's Miss Marple films. He played French entertainer and mime artist The Great Orlando in the 1963 Cliff Richard film Summer Holiday. He acted again with former Oliver! co-star Jack Wild in Flight of the Doves.
In 1969, Moody was offered, but declined, the lead role in Doctor Who, following the departure of Patrick Troughton from the part. He later told many people that declining the role was a decision he subsequently regretted. He played Ippolit Vorobyaninov alongside Frank Langella in Mel Brooks' version of The Twelve Chairs. In 2003, he starred in the black comedy Paradise Grove alongside Rula Lenska, and played Edwin Caldecott, an old nemesis of Jim Branning on the BBC soap EastEnders. In 2005, he acted in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio play Other Lives, playing the Duke of Wellington. He made several appearances in BBC TVs long running variety show, The Good Old Days, enacting pastiche/comic Victorian melodramas.
In 2004, the British ITV1 nostalgia series After They Were Famous hosted a documentary of the surviving cast of the film Oliver! Several of the film's musical numbers were reenacted. Moody, then 80 but still spry, and Jack Wild recreated their dance from the closing credits of the film.
Moody appeared in an episode of BBC1's Casualty as a Scottish patient who had served with the Black Watch during the Second World War. On 30 June 2010, Moody appeared on stage at the end of a performance of Cameron Mackintosh's revival of Oliver! and made a humorous speech about the show's 50th anniversary. He then reprised the "Pick a Pocket or Two" number with the cast.
Moody was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur FC.

Family

Moody married a Pilates teacher, Therese Blackbourn, in 1985. The couple had six children.

Death

Moody died of natural causes whilst in a London hospital on 11 June 2015, aged 91. The death of Sheila White who played Bet, left Shani Wallis, who played Nancy, and Mark Lester, who played Oliver and Kenneth Cranham who played Noah Claypole as the last surviving cast members from Oliver!

Partial filmography