Once playing the most eccentric TV dads in Australian TV history and enjoying a prolific acting career, Richard Moir was forced to cut his career short for a cruel reason.
Long before he played the lovable dad Tony Twist in the classic Aussie show Round the Twist, Moir began his career as a film editor for the low-budget art films and TV dramas that began to populate Australian screens in the mid-70s.
Many of these films were the work of renowned Danish-Australian director Esben Storm and their friendship helped Moir become a prolific actor in the Australian scene, beginning with roles in 27A (1974), In Search of Anna (1978), and eventually Round The Twist (1989).
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Richard Moir played Tony Twist in Round the twist. (ABC)He also appeared in The Restless Years (1978), Prisoner (part of the original cast in 1979), With Prejudice (1983), An Indecent Obsession (1985), Dolphin Cove (1989), Law of the Land (1993), and more.
All the while, however, Moir was hiding a secret.
His left arm was the first to freeze, and while he could hide that for a while, he couldn't do the same when he began to have trouble speaking and was unable to speak his lines on cue, interfering with his life's work.
Moir was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1990 and his diagnosis brought a premature end to his promising film career.
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Richard Moir with his TV children. ( Australian Children's Television Foundation)By 1992 he had wrapped up work on Round the Twist, being replaced by Andrew Gilbert for the later seasons, and by 1997 he had stopped appearing on-screen altogether.
In 2006, he and Storm decided to document the process of an experimental operation for deep brain stimulation therapy in a film, The Bridge At Midnight Trembles, a title that Moir came up with himself, inspired by the lyrics of Bob Dylan.
"To me it means that in the dark times, there is a way through, even though that way gets pretty fearful," he shared in a 2006 interview, "Also 'trembles' has the ring of the Parkinson's tremor."
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Richard Moir documented his experimental treatment in The Bridge at Midnight Trembles. (Bayview Films)Moir said the experience helped him distance himself from the gravity of the life-changing operations, commenting, "I was able to play an actor playing the role of an actor who is having an operation."
Moir also went back to his film editing roots as he played producer on the project, letting pieces of his life fall on the cutting room floor.
Since then he had been silent on the professional front, until 2022 when he went back in front of the camera for one very special role.
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Richard Moir's real life played out in the film Not Dark Yet. (Vimeo/Bonnie Moir)In short film Not Dark Yet, Moir played the role of a man deteriorating from Parkinson's disease, while his young son is on the verge of exploring adulthood, being held back by his role as his father's caretaker.
The film was praised for Moir's portrayal of the heart-wrenching dilemma, no doubt influenced by his own experiences as well as those of the director of the film, Bonnie Moir, his daughter.
Though Moir's career may have come to an end, his daughter Bonnie's is just beginning.
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