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Alistair Cooke (born Alfred Cooke; 20 November 1908 – 30 March 2004) was a British-American writer whose work as a journalist, television personality and radio broadcaster was done primarily in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.George Perry
"The War at Home: Near Filed 60 Years Later," ''American Heritage'', Aug./Sept. 2006. Outside his journalistic output, which included '' Letter from America'' and '' America: A Personal History of the United States'', he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS ''
Masterpiece Theatre ''Masterpiece'' (formerly known as ''Masterpiece Theatre'') is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on January 10, 1971. The series has presented numerous acclaimed Briti ...
'' from 1971 to 1992. After holding the job for 22 years, and having worked in television for Cooke retired in 1992, although he continued to present ''Letter from America'' until shortly before his death. He was the father of author and folk singer
John Byrne Cooke John Byrne Cooke (October 5, 1940 – September 3, 2017) was an American author, musician, and photographer. He was the son of Alistair Cooke, and the great-grandnephew of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the 1960s he played with the Bluegrass mus ...
.


Early life

He was born Alfred Cooke in
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
,
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...
, England, the son of Mary Elizabeth (Byrne) and Samuel Cooke. His father was a
Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
lay preacher and metalsmith by trade; his mother's family were of
Irish Protestant Protestantism is a Christian minority on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline of approximately 5% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 census of the ...
origin. He was educated at
Blackpool Grammar School Blackpool Aspire Academy is a secondary school located in the Layton area of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The school was formed in 2014 by merging Collegiate High School with Bispham High School Arts College. It was temporarily located on Bi ...
, and won a scholarship to
Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...
, where he gained an honours degree (2:1) in English. He was heavily involved in the arts, was editor of ''
Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...
'', and set up the
Mummers Mummers' plays are folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers (also by local names such as ''rhymers'', ''pace-eggers'', ''soulers'', ''tipteerers'', ''wrenboys'', and ''galoshins''). ...
, Cambridge's first theatre group open to both sexes, from which he notably rejected a young James Mason, telling him to stick to architecture. Cooke changed his name to Alistair when he was 22, in 1930.


Career


Media beginnings

Cooke's first visit to the United States was in 1932 on a two-year
Commonwealth Fund The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation (United States), private U.S. foundation whose stated purpose is to "promote a high-performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly fo ...
Fellowship, now
Harkness Fellowship The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several cou ...
to Yale and Harvard, where his acting and music skills came to the fore with visits to Hollywood. Cooke saw a newspaper headline stating that Oliver Baldwin, the Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...
's son, had been sacked by the BBC as film critic. Cooke sent a telegram to the Director of Talks, asking if he would be considered for the post. He was invited for an interview and took a
Cunard Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Berm ...
liner back to Britain, arriving twenty-four hours late for his interview. He suggested typing out a film review on the spot, and a few minutes later, he was offered the job. He also sat on a BBC Advisory Committee headed by
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
for correct
pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...
. Cooke was also the London correspondent for
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
. Each week, he recorded a 15-minute radio dialogue for American listeners on life in Britain, under the series title of ''London Letter''. In 1936, he intensively reported on the
Edward VIII abdication crisis In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King-Emperor Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing the divorce of her second ...
for NBC. He made several talks on the topic each day to listeners in many parts of the United States. He calculated that in ten days he spoke 400,000 words on the subject. During the crisis, he was aided by a twenty-year-old
Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
,
Walt Rostow Walt Whitman Rostow (October 7, 1916 – February 13, 2003) was an American economist, professor and political theorist who served as National Security Advisor to President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969. Rostow worked ...
, who would become
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
's national security advisor.


Move to the United States

Cooke replaced Oliver Baldwin as the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's film critic on 8 October 1934 and gave his first BBC broadcast: ''"I declare that I am a critic trying to interest a lot of people into seeing interesting films", he told his audience. "I have no personal interest in any company. As a critic I am without politics and without class."'' Thus very soon in 1937, Cooke emigrated to the United States; but became a United States citizen and swore the Oath of Allegiance on 1 December 1941, six days before
Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...
was attacked. Shortly after emigrating, Cooke suggested to the BBC the idea of doing the ''London Letter'' in reverse: a 15-minute talk for British listeners on life in America. A prototype, ''Mainly About
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
'', was broadcast intermittently from 1938, but the idea was shelved with the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in 1939. During this time, as well, Cooke undertook a journey through the whole United States, recording the lifestyle of ordinary Americans during the war and their reactions to it. The manuscript was published as ''The American Home Front: 1941–1942'' in the United States (and as ''Alistair Cooke's American Journey: Life on the Home Front in the Second World War'' in the UK) in 2006. The first ''American Letter'' was broadcast on 24 March 1946 (Cooke said this was at the request of Lindsey Wellington, the BBC's New York Controller); the series was initially commissioned for only 13 instalments. The series came to an end 58 years later in March 2004, after 2,869 instalments and less than a month before Cooke's death. Along the way, it picked up a new name (changing from ''American Letter'' to '' Letter from America'' in 1950) and an enormous audience, being broadcast not only in Britain and in many other Commonwealth countries, but throughout the world by the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
.


Journalist

In 1947, Cooke became a
foreign correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...
for the ''Manchester Guardian'' newspaper (later ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''), for which he wrote until 1972. It was the first time he had been employed as a staff reporter; all his previous work had been freelance. In reporting on the
Montgomery bus boycott The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States ...
, begun by
Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the ...
and led by
Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
, Cooke expressed sympathy for the economic costs imposed on the city bus company and referred to Mrs. Parks as "the stubborn woman who started it all ... to become the
Paul Revere Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot and Founding Father. He is best known for his midnight ride to a ...
of the boycott." In 1968, he was only yards away from Robert F. Kennedy when he was assassinated, witnessing the events that followed.


''Omnibus''

In 1952, Cooke became the host of
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
's '' Omnibus'', the first U.S. commercial network television series devoted to the arts. It featured appearances by such personalities as
Hume Cronyn Hume Blake Cronyn Jr. OC (July 18, 1911 – June 15, 2003) was a Canadian-American actor and writer. Early life Cronyn, one of five children, was born in London, Ontario, Canada. His father, Hume Blake Cronyn, Sr., was a businessman and ...
,
Jessica Tandy Jessie Alice Tandy (7 June 1909 – 11 September 1994) was a British-American actress. Tandy appeared in over 100 stage productions and had more than 60 roles in film and TV, receiving an Academy Award, four Tony Awards, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe ...
,
Gene Kelly Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create a new form of American dance accessibl ...
and
Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
.
Jonathan Winters Jonathan Harshman Winters III (November 11, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. Beginning in 1960, Winters recorded many classic comedy albums for the Verve Records label. He also h ...
was the first comic to appear on the show.


Mid to later years

In 1966 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the
Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland (IESIS) is a multi-disciplinary professional body and learned society, founded in Scotland, for professional engineers in all disciplines and for those associated with or taking an interes ...
. He chose the subject "The Jet Age and the Habits of Man". In 1971, he became the host of the new ''
Masterpiece Theatre ''Masterpiece'' (formerly known as ''Masterpiece Theatre'') is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on January 10, 1971. The series has presented numerous acclaimed Briti ...
'',
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
's showcase of quality British television. He remained its host for 22 years, before retiring from the role in 1992. He achieved his greatest popularity in the United States in this role, becoming the subject of many parodies, including " Alistair Cookie" in ''
Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) a ...
'' ("Alistair Cookie" was also the name of a clay animated cookie-headed spoof character created by
Will Vinton William Gale Vinton (November 17, 1947 – October 4, 2018) was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his wor ...
as the host of a video trailer for ''The Little Prince and Friends''), and Alistair Quince, portrayed by
Harvey Korman Harvey Herschel Korman (February 15, 1927May 29, 2008) was an American actor and comedian who performed in television and film productions. His big break was being a featured performer on CBS' ''The Danny Kaye Show'', but he is best remembered f ...
, who introduced many episodes in the early seasons of ''
Mama's Family ''Mama's Family'' is an American sitcom television series starring Vicki Lawrence as Mama (Thelma Harper). The series is a spin-off of a recurring series of comedy sketches called " The Family" featured on ''The Carol Burnett Show'' (1967–78 ...
''. '' America: A Personal History of the United States'' (1972), a 13-part television series about the United States and its history, was first broadcast in both the United Kingdom and the United States in 1973, and was followed by a book of the same title. It was a great success in both countries, and resulted in Cooke's being invited to address the joint Houses of the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
as part of Congress's bicentenary celebrations. After the series was broadcast in Ireland, Cooke won a
Jacob's Award The Jacob's Awards were instituted in December 1962 as the first Irish television awards. Later, they were expanded to include radio. The awards were named after their sponsor, W. & R. Jacob & Co. Ltd., a biscuit manufacturer, and recipients ...
, one of the few occasions when this award was made to the maker of an imported programme.


Final years

On 2 March 2004, at the age of 95, following advice from his doctors, Cooke announced his retirement from ''Letter from America''—after 58 years, the longest-running speech radio show in the world. Cooke died at midnight on 30 March 2004, at his home in New York City. He had been ill with heart disease, but died of lung cancer, which had spread to his bones. He was cremated, and his ashes were clandestinely scattered by his family in
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...
.


Theft of bones

On 22 December 2005, the ''
New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'' reported that several of Cooke’s bones and many other people had been surgically removed before cremation by employees of
Biomedical Tissue Services Biomedical Tissue Services (BTS) was a Fort Lee, New Jersey, human tissue recovery firm that was shut down by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)Holtzclaw, D; Toscano, N; Eisenlohr, L; Callan, D (2008)"The Safety of Bone Allografts Used in D ...
of
Fort Lee, New Jersey Fort Lee is a borough at the eastern border of Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated along the Hudson River atop the Palisades. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the borough's population was 40,191. As of the 2010 U.S. census, th ...
, a tissue-recovery firm.Holtzclaw, D; Toscano, N; Eisenlohr, L; Callan, D (2008)
"The Safety of Bone Allografts Used in Dentistry: A Review"
, '' JADA'' 139: 1192–1199 The thieves sold the bones for use as medical-grade bone grafts. The cancer from which Cooke was suffering had spread to his bones, making them unsuitable for grafts. Reports indicated the people involved in selling the bones altered his death certificate to hide the cause of death and reduce his age from 95 to 85. Michael Mastromarino, a former New Jersey-based oral surgeon, and Lee Cruceta agreed to a deal that resulted in their imprisonment. Mastromarino was sentenced on 27 June 2008, in the
New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...
, to 18 to 54 years' imprisonment. The entire story of the theft featured in a documentary aimed at educating the public about modern-day
grave robbery Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a grave, tomb or crypt to steal commodities. It is usually perpetrated to take and profit from valuable artefacts or personal property. A related act is body snatching, a term ...
. On the morning of 7 July 2013, at age 49, Michael Mastromarino died at St. Luke's Hospital after suffering from liver cancer.


Personal life


Marriages and children

In 1932 Cooke became engaged to Henrietta Riddle, the daughter of the English actor Henry Ainley and the Baroness von Hütten, but she broke off the engagement the following year while he was in America on a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship. He met Ruth Emerson, a great-grandniece of
Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
, in 1933, and they married on 24 August 1934. Their son,
John Byrne Cooke John Byrne Cooke (October 5, 1940 – September 3, 2017) was an American author, musician, and photographer. He was the son of Alistair Cooke, and the great-grandnephew of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the 1960s he played with the Bluegrass mus ...
, was born 5 October 1940 in New York City, New York. Alistair Cooke divorced Ruth in 1944, and married
Jane White Hawkes Jane White Cooke (January 10, 1913 – May 8, 2011) was an American portrait painter. Cooke was born Frances Jane White in Montclair, New Jersey on January 10, 1913. A war widow, in 1946 she remarried to journalist and broadcaster Alistair Cooke ...
, a portrait painter and the widow of
neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...
A. Whitfield Hawkes, the son of
Albert W. Hawkes Albert Wahl Hawkes (November 20, 1878May 9, 1971) was a United States senator from New Jersey. Studies He was born in Chicago on November 20, 1878. He attended the public schools and graduated from Chicago College of Law in 1900, gaining admissio ...
, on 30 April 1946. Their daughter, Susan, was born on 22 March 1949.


Recreation and interests

Cooke took up golf in his mid-fifties, developing a fascination with the game, despite never attaining an extraordinary level of skill. He was driven by his love of golf to devote many of his ''Letter from America'' episodes to the topic, speaking once of the thrill of learning "how much more awesome was the world of golf than the world of politics." Cooke became close friends with many of the leading golfers of the era:
Jack Nicklaus Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is a retired American professional golfer and List of golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest go ...
, in the introduction to a compilation of Cooke's writing on golf, recounts his many notable achievements, but describes him as "most of all ... a friend."


Honours and awards

In 1973, Cooke was awarded an honorary
knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
hood ( KBE) for his "outstanding contribution to Anglo-American mutual understanding." Cooke was reportedly happy to accept, because in the words of
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
, it did not involve "the very great vanity of a title." Having relinquished his British citizenship during World War II, he could not be called "Sir Alistair". After Alistair Cooke's death the Fulbright Alistair Cooke Award in Journalism was established as a tribute to the man and his life and career achievements. The award supports students from the United Kingdom to undertake studies in the United States, and for Americans to study in the United Kingdom.


Bibliography

* (As editor). ''Garbo and the Night Watchmen: A Selection from the Writings of British and American Film Critics'' (1937). London: Jonathan Cape. . * (As editor). ''Garbo and the Night Watchmen: A Selection Made in 1937 from the Writings of British and American Film Critics'' (1971). London: Secker & Warburg. . . Reprinted. *''Douglas Fairbanks: The Making of a Screen Character'' (1940) *''A Generation on Trial: The USA v.
Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
'' (1950)
Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
; (1982) *''
Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...
'' (1955) *''A
William March William March (September 18, 1893 – May 15, 1954) was an American writer of psychological fiction and a highly decorated United States Marine Corps, U.S. Marine. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was praised by ...
Omnibus: with an introduction by Alistair Cooke'' (1956) *''Around the World in Fifty Years: A Political Travelogue'' (1966) Field Enterprises Educational Corporation ASIN B0000CN5PS *''The Patient Has the Floor'' (1986) *''Six Men'' (1977) The Bodley Head ;(1995) *''Fun & Games with Alistair Cooke: On Sport and Other Amusements'' (1996) *''Memories of the Great and the Good'' (2000) *''The American Home Front: 1941–1942'' (2006) *''Alistair Cooke's American Journey: Life on the Home Front in the Second World War'' (2006) *''Alistair Cooke: the biography'' by Nick Clarke (1999)


"America" books

*''Letters from America'' (1951)
Rupert Hart-Davis Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis (28 August 1907 – 8 December 1999) was an English publisher and editor. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his ''Hugh Walpole'' (1952), as an editor, f ...
, London – with introduction "To the British Reader" *''One Man's America'' (1952) Alfred A Knopf, New York – same chapters as 'Letters from America' (1951), with introduction "To the American Reader" *''Talk about America: Letters from America, 1951–1968'' (1968)
The Bodley Head The Bodley Head is an English publishing house, founded in 1887 and existing as an independent entity until the 1970s. The name was used as an imprint of Random House Children's Books from 1987 to 2008. In April 2008, it was revived as an adul ...
; (1981) Penguin Books *''Letter from America: The Early Years, 1946–1968'' *''Alistair Cooke's America'' (22 November 1973) BBC Books, London ; (13 November 2003) Phoenix – updated edition with new introduction and final chapter written by Alistair Cooke *''The Americans: Fifty Talks on our Lives and Times, 1969–1979'' (Nov 1979) Alfred A Knopf, New York *''America Observed: The Newspaper Years of Alistair Cooke/selected and edited by Ronald A. Wells'' (1988) Penguin *''Letters from America: The Americans, Letters from America and Talk About America'' *''Letter from America: (1946–2004)'' (2004) *''The Marvelous Mania: Alistair Cooke on Golf'' (2007) * ** Review: Review of ''Reporting America: The Life of the Nation, 1946–2004''. Cooke also co-authored several "
coffee table book A coffee table book, also known as a cocktail table book, is an oversized, usually hard-covered book whose purpose is for display on a table intended for use in an area in which one entertains guests and from which it can serve to inspire convers ...
s".


Media

* '' America: A Personal History of the United States'' has been released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
, with an additional feature where Cooke talks about his life. * ''An Evening With Alistair Cooke at the Piano'', an
LP record The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of  rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a ...
first released in 1955, later re-released in 1973 by Columbia Special Products (catalogue number B00110SXCK). The album features Cooke playing jazz standards on piano with accompanying whistle and speaking about his life in America.


References


External links

* *
Alistair Cooke
(obituary) by
Nick Clarke Nicholas Campbell Clarke (9 June 1948 – 23 November 2006), was an English radio and television presenter and journalist, primarily known for his work on BBC Radio 4. Biography Clarke was born in 1948 in Godalming, Surrey, and educated at West ...
, ''The Guardian'', 31 March 2004.
"Alistair Cooke, Elegant Interpreter of America, Dies at 95"
(obituary) by Frank J. Prial, ''The New York Times'', 31 March 2004.
''Letter from America''
– BBC Letter from America, with 900 episodes to play on demand * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke, Alistair 1908 births 2004 deaths 20th-century American journalists Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge American male journalists BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC World Service British emigrants to the United States British male journalists British radio people British radio personalities Deaths from bone cancer Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state) English people of Irish descent Harkness Fellows Harvard University alumni Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Jacob's Award winners Peabody Award winners People educated at Blackpool Grammar School People from Blackpool People from Salford Yale University alumni Victims of body snatching