Peter Edward Cook

Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.

Born in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue '' Beyond the Fringe'', beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho, Central London. In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with '' Not Only... But Also''. Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films ''The Wrong Box'' (1966) and '' Bedazzled'' (1967). Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting ''Saturday Night Live'' in the United States. From 1978 until his death in 1995, Cook no longer collaborated with Moore, apart from a few cameo appearances but continued to be a regular performer in British television and film.

Referred to as "the father of modern satire" by ''The Guardian'' in 2005, Cook was ranked number one in the ''Comedians' Comedian'', a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors in the English-speaking world.

Early life

Cook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son, and eldest of the three children, of Alexander Edward "Alec" Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret (1908–1994), daughter of solicitor Charles Mayo. His father served as political officer and later district officer in Nigeria, then as financial secretary to the colony of Gibraltar, followed by a return to Nigeria as Permanent Secretary of the Eastern Region based at Enugu. Cook's grandfather, Edward Arthur Cook (1869–1914), had also been a colonial civil servant, traffic manager for the Federated Malay States Railway in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. The stress he suffered in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion led him to commit suicide. His wife, Minnie Jane (1869–1957), daughter of Thomas Wreford, of Thelbridge and Witheridge, Devon, and of Stratford-upon-Avon, of a prominent Devonshire family traced back to 1440, kept this fact secret. Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family.

Cook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely apathetic politically, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs.

While still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, providing several sketches for Williams' hit West End comedy revue ''Pieces of Eight'' and much of the follow-up, ''One Over the Eight'', before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, '' Beyond the Fringe'', alongside Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and Dudley Moore.

''Beyond the Fringe'' became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.

Career

1960s

In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, a club at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook later joked that it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets ... which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War". As a members-only venue, it was outside the censorship restrictions. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune.

Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, ''My Life As Me'', that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s.

Cook also opened an Establishment club in New York in 1963 and Lenny Bruce performed there, as well.

In 1962, the BBC
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