Book excerpt: Barbra Paskin was the late Dudley Moore's official biographer, having known him well for many years. In this latest book, she provides an affectionate celebration of this extraordinary comic and musical talent, perhaps the best-loved major star of his or any generation. Although it rehearses his extraordinary life and career from Beyond the Fringe with the Cambridge Footlights, followed by his long association with Peter Cook that produced such immortal programmes as Not Only . . . But Also, to Hollywood stardom with films like 10 and Arthur, it is more than a mere biography. Uniquely, Dear Dudley also publishes for the first time the many kind, comforting, supportive, and often extremely funny letters that the author obtained from leading celebrities to mark Dudley's sixty-fourth birthday, from the Rolling Stones to Michael Caine, Billy Joel to Alan Bennett, Goldie Hawn to Woody Allen, all of whom have given permission for them to be reproduced in the book.