Kieron Moore, the heavily built, moody Irish actor who, despite a relatively limited film career, appeared in several intriguing British cult movies, died on July 15 of natural causes in Charente-Maritime, France. He was 82.

He was born Kieron O'Hanrahan in Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland on October 5, 1924. He was raised in Dublin and for awhile entertained a career in medicine before he joined the Abbey players in 1943. He was only 20 when he made his screen debut in Maurice Wilson's The Voice Within (1945), a small but tight IRA drama that caught the attention of British film mogul Alexander Korda. O'Hanrahan was offered a film contract by Korda, changed his last name to Moore and promptly moved him into bigger productions.

In 1947, he starred in two stunning productions: the first was for Leslie Arliss in Man About the House and featured him as a lecherous handyman who woos his way into a wealthy family only to turn to murder; the other was Anthony Kimmins' critically acclaimed psychological thriller Mine Own Executioner where he portrayed an unbalanced RAF pilot who murders his wife despite the help of his psychiatrist (Burgess Meredith). He was heralded as the next big thing by English film critics based on these two films, but after his unfortunate casting as Count Vronsky in Julien Duvivier' adaptation of Anna Karenina playing opposite Vivien Leigh, he received a critical pandering that took away some of the luster of his early promise.

Nevertheless, he pressed on, and in 1951, he tried his luck in Hollywood, but his first film there, playing Uriah in Henry King's heavy handed epic David and Bathsheba with Susan Hayward was met with critical indifference. His second feature there, the jaunty Willis Goldbeck adventure yarn, Ten Tall Men, where he played a flirtatious Foreign Legion soldier, showed that Moore had a flair for humor that was missing in his previous roles.

Moore really wouldn't make an impact on the screen again until he starred in Robert Stevenson's fantasy Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) for Walt Disney. But soon after that, Moore found himself performing in a string of oddly varied parts in offbeat films: a fey, homosexual ex-military officer in Basil Dearden's nifty caper thriller The League of Gentlemen (1960); a Russian anarchist in Monty Berman's The Siege of Sidney Street (also 1960), based on a true uprising incident that occurred in London in 1911; a deranged scientist (is there any other kind?) obsessed with reviving the dead in Sidney Furie's Dr. Blood's Coffin (1961); the biologist who discovers that man-eating alien plants can be killed by salt water in Steve Sekely's solid adaptation of John Wyndham's sci-fi classic The Day of the Triffids (1963); and as a suave Arab holding his own against Sophia Loren in Stanley Donen's slick spy yarn Arabesque (1966).

Moore's film career dried up soon after, although he did guest star in a few television series in the '70s such as The Adventurer and The Protectors, but he soon retired completely from acting to concentrate on religious charities. Most notably, he directed some documentaries for Irish television about poverty in the Third World, and he became an active member of CAFOD, an organization designed to help end world poverty. In 1994, he moved to Charente-Maritime, France where remained until his death. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, the actress Barbara White; sons, Casey, Colm and Sean; and a daughter, Theresa.

by Michael T. Toole