![]() His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs. At Pembroke, Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. 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. 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. Ĭook was educated at Radley College and then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. Peter Cook only discovered the truth when later researching his family. 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. The stress he suffered in the lead-up to an interview regarding promotion led him to commit suicide. ![]() 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. 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. 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. Early life Ĭook was born at his parents' house, "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. 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. 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. Cook and Moore returned to television projects continuing to the late 1970s, including co-presenting Saturday Night Live in the United States. Following the success of the show, the duo appeared together in the films The Wrong Box (1966) and Bedazzled (1967). They received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. Cook’s deadpan monologues contrasted with Moore’s buffoonery. ![]() In 1965, Cook and Moore began a television career, beginning with Not Only. In 1961, Cook opened the comedy club The Establishment in Soho. After graduating he created the comedy stage revue Beyond the Fringe, beginning a long-running partnership with Dudley Moore. ![]() There he became involved with the Footlights Club, of which he later became president. 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.īorn in Torquay, he was educated at the University of Cambridge. Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English comedian, actor, satirist, playwright and screenwriter.
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