Biography Of Peter Cook

  Lin pointed defiantly to Peter’s work-in-progress list: his stage show with Eleanor Bron, the possibility of him writing his autobiography, or of doing another Clive Anderson Talks Back. ‘If you look at the Clive Anderson show Peter looked very slim, he was wearing jeans and looked very handsome,’23 she stressed. ‘What made Peter’s death so sad,’ claimed Eleanor Bron, ‘was that he was in such a creative period.’24 But with the exception of the autobiography, first mooted many years previously but never pursued, these were all projects from 1993. Peter died in 1995. His last creative wave had subsided in the year before his death, just as its predecessors in 1979–81 and 1987 had faded away. Peter’s whole life was littered with such unfinished ideas and projects, each studded with tantalising details. In The Sunday Times, John Lloyd listed some of the half-finished notions in his possession:

  There are limitations to the human mind . . . as this series will prove.

  Tragically, I was an only twin.

  Pulsars are small and immensely heavy and remind me strangely of my first wife.

  I’m sorry, M’lud, but I am unable to continue without an injection of nerve gas.

  Not to mention sabre-tooth giraffes, the Burberry apes, the False Passport Office, clay stag-hunting, and living in Sherwood Forest with a band of in-laws; the last one, of course, being an old joke from Goodbye Again.

  The debate over Peter’s future potential was however utterly eclipsed in the newspapers and on radio and television by an exhaustive debate about his past potential, and whether or not he had managed to fulfil it. Some, like Christopher Booker, spoke of ‘that lack of a master thread to his career which left such a sense of unfulfilled promise.’25 Stephen Fry retorted on The Late Show by attacking such ‘silly, ignorant nonsense . . . What does that mean? That his potential would have been realised by appearing in more Hollywood films or in having a regular prime-time TV show? Why commentators have to write and talk about extraordinary people as if they are composing school reports is beyond me.’ Booker, of course, was not referring to a conventional career progression of the kind that Peter had unsuccessfully attempted to follow from the late 1960s until the early 1980s. He and others like him were reaching out for something they could not describe, because they did not know themselves what it comprised: something new, original and ground-breaking that a sober Peter might have come up with in later life, like the best of his early work. Barry Humphries felt that ‘If Peter had managed to stop drinking he would have been a thousand times funnier, and right now he would have been absolutely at the height of his powers.’ Richard Ingrams agreed that ‘He never really did the things that he was capable of, in my view. Although you could say that what he did do was very brilliant, it was only a part of what he might have done.’ It is not appropriate, though, to separate Peter’s talent from his propensity to self-destruction in this manner: the two were inextricably bound by circumstance, if not by genetic make-up. Michael Parkinson compares Peter to George Best: ‘For that brief moment in their careers they burned so brightly, didn’t they. You wonder – is that what they were born to do?’ Peter was always on target to hit his own personal ceiling far too fast for his own good, leaving him nowhere to go but downwards in mood. ‘If I start feeling tremendously gloomy, I may look back and say yes, it was because I was successful too early,’26 he once confessed.

  Perhaps the most concisely accurate contribution to the debate was that made by Jonathan Ross: ‘It’s such a shame that Peter didn’t get around to writing his own tributes – if he had, then we wouldn’t have had to suffer halfwits and dunderheads prattling on about how he never fulfilled his youthful potential. Of course he fulfilled it, he fulfilled it when he was still young.’27 (The author of this book, incidentally, was among those halfwits and dunderheads who spoke without thinking that week.) Although Peter couldn’t indeed write his own tributes, he had offered his own opinion on this very subject just before his death, when Alan Titchmarsh had suggested on BBC 1’s Pebble Mill that his potential remained unfulfilled. ‘I’d certainly agree with you on that,’ Peter had replied. ‘I’ve never attempted to achieve my potential. What could be worse than achieving your potential so early in life?’

  Most of the tributes published on Peter’s death painted him either as the last great amateur (a description he had found flattering in life), restrained solely by his Olympian lack of drive who could easily have conquered the world again, whenever he liked, if only he’d set his lazy mind to it; or as a forlorn, hopeless drunk, no longer capable of focusing on a career direction. There was precious little room for complexities. Dudley, weadss given space to reflect, remained as confused by his former partner as ever. ‘Peter went to his grave as mysteriously as he came out of it,’ he told the BBC’s Omnibus programme. Perhaps the most ingenious summing-up of his life came from Alan Bennett in the London Review of Books:

  One thinks of one of the stock characters in an old-fashioned Western . . . the doctor who’s always to be found in the saloon and whose allegiance is never quite plain. Seldom sober, he is cleverer than most of the people he associates with, spending his time playing cards with the baddies but taking no sides. Still, when the chips are down, and slightly to his own surprise, he does the right thing. But there is never any suggestion that, having risen to the occasion, he is going to mend his ways in any permanent fashion. He goes on much as ever down the path to self-destruction, knowing that redemption is not for him – and it is this that redeems him. As for us, his audience, we are comforted by the assurance that there is a truer morality than the demands of convention, that this is a figure from the parables, a publican, a sinner but never a pharisee. In him morality is discovered far from its official haunts, the message of a character like Peter’s being that a life of complete self-indulgence, if led with the whole heart, may also bring wisdom.28

  One might, perhaps, quibble with the last line: the message of a character like Peter’s being that too much wisdom (too much awareness of one’s own talent and one’s own limitations) may also bring a life of complete self-indulgence.

  Most of the obituarists, of course, mentioned Peter’s colossal influence on British comedy, from Monty Python through Smith and Jones right up to Harry Enfield, whose Self-Righteous Brothers enjoy superior and imaginary altercations with celebrities in the manner of the first ever Pete and Dud sketch. Peter would probably have enjoyed the journalist Ed Porter’s assertion that he was ‘the Elvis of modern British comedy: he did much to invent it, grew bloated on hedonism, he made some dreadful films presumably for good money, and he died too young. But he won’t be forgotten.’ Peter himself always decried the power of comedy, and especially satire, to influence anything except the work of other comedians; but as John Bird pointed out, ‘The funny thing is that, despite himself, he actually did change the world.’29 Which, let’s face it, is more than he could ever have achieved at the Foreign Office.

  Postscript

  In 1997, Rainbow George finally inherited £30,000 from his mother and decided to spend the entire sum on securing a party political broadcast, which would alert millions of potential voters and sweep the Rainbow Party to victory at the polls. To qualify for a broadcast, his party was required to field fifty candidates; he advertised for kindred spirits, and gave the fifty successful applicants £500 each to use as their deposit. Nineteen of them absconded with the money and were never seen again. The broadcast was cancelled by the BBC as a result.

  At about the same time, Dudley Moore returned to England to find work. He finally secured the role of Buttons, in Cinderella at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton.

  David Frost remains hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic.

  Notes

  All sources are given as accurately as possible. Where information is missing (specifically unidentified or undated newspaper cuttings), that information could not be provided by the library which supplied the cuttings.

  Chapter 1 Raised by Goats: Early Life, 1937–51

  1. The
Malay Mail, 12 May 1914.

  2. John Hind, Comic Inquisition.

  3. Radio Times, 23 December 1978.

  4. Sunday People, 4 January 1968.

  5. Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979.

  6. John Hind, Comic Inquisition.

  7. Daily Mail, 14 November 1992.

  8. News of the World, 29 May 1966.

  9. John Hind, Comic Inquisition.

  10. Ibid.

  11. A Life In Pieces, TalkBack for BBC 2, 1990.

  Chapter 2 I’m Much Bigger Than You Are, Sir:

  Radley and Abroad, 1951–57

  1. Jonathan Harlow, ‘Peter Cook’s Schooldays’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  2. Harpers & Queen

  , December 1989; Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979; John Hind, Comic Inquisition.

  3. Parkinson, BBC 1, 1977.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid.; Decca promotional material, July 1965.

  6. John Hind, Comic Inquisition; Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  7. Jonathan Harlow ‘Peter Cook’s Schooldays’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  8. Cook’s Tour, BBC Radio 4, 1995; Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979.

  9. The Radleian, 1995.

  10. Jonathan Harlow, ‘Peter Cook’s Schooldays’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  11. Michael Bawtree, ‘Black & White Blues’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  12. Harpers & Queen, December 1989.

  13. Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979.

  14. Daily Mail, 5 September 1977.

  15. Unidentified press cutting, 1966 or 1967.

  16. Russell Harty, LWT, 9 October 1975.

  17. Daily Mail, 5 September 1977.

  18. The Radleian, 1995.

  19. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  20. John Hind, Comic Inquisition.

  21. Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979.

  22. John Hind, Comic Inquisition.

  23. A Life in Pieces, TalkBack for BBC 2, 1990.

  24. The Radleian, 1995.

  25. John Stow, In Africa and the Caribbean.

  26. Parkinson, BBC 1, 197font>

  27. Decca promotional material, July 1965.

  28. The Times, 27 February 1987; The Sun, 28 October 1989.

  29. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  30. John Hind, Comic Inquisition.

  Chapter 3 I Could Have Been a Judge: Cambridge, 1957–60

  1. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  2. Daily Mail, 12 November 1994; Independent, 14 December 1993.

  3. Sunday People, 4 February 1968.

  4. News of the World, 29 May 1966.

  5. Adrian Slade, ‘Thirty-Seven Years a Very Rare Friend’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Radio Times, 1 June 1976.

  9. Cook’s Tour, BBC Radio 4, 1995.

  10. Alan Bennett, ‘Thoughts and Afterthoughts’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  11. Eleanor Bron, ‘Peter’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  12. Unidentified press cutting, January 1959.

  13. Unidentified press cutting, March 1959.

  14. Ronald Bergan, Beyond the Fringe . . . And Beyond.

  15. Friday Night Saturday Morning, BBC TV, 16 November 1979.

  16. Roger Law, A Nasty Piece of Work.

  17. Harpers & Queen, December 1989; Sun 29 September 196font>

  18. Cook’s Tour, BBC Radio 4, 1995.

  19. Manchester Guardian, 10 June 1959.

  20. Daily Mail, 12 November 1994.

  21. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ronald Bergan, Beyond the Fringe . . . And Beyond.

  24. Peter Bellwood, ‘The Seven Wild Strawberries are Flying’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  25. Guardian, 10 January 1995.

  26. Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979.

  27. Beyond the Fringe, Introduction by Michael Frayn.

  28. Ronald Bergan, Beyond The Fringe . . . And Beyond.

  29. Daily Mail, 28 September 1996.

  30. Junkin’s Jokers, BBC Radio 2, 19 October 1993.

  31. Paul Donovan, Dudley Moore.

  32. QED, BBC TV, 1990.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. The Late Clive James, ITV, 22 June 1985.

  36. In part from the Daily Mail, 10 January 1995.

  37. Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979.

  Chapter 4 So That’s the Way You Like It: Beyond the Fringe, 1960–62

  1. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  2. Sun, 28 October 1989.

  3. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  4. Christopher Hitchens and Dudley Moore, ‘The Other Half of the Sketch’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  5. Ronald Bergan, Beyond the Fringe . . . And Beyond.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Guardian, 10 January 1995.

  8. Ronald Bergan, Beyond the Fringe . . . And Beyond.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Harpers & Queen, December 1989.

  11. Independent, 10 January 1995.

  12. Barbra Paskin, Dudley Moore.

  13. Unmarked press cutting, January 1995.

  14. Ronald Bergan, Beyond the Fringe . . . And Beyond; unidentified press cutting 1967; Independent, 14 December 1993.

  15. Junkin’s Jokers, BBC Radio 2, 19 October 1993.

  16. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  17. Edinburgh Evening News, 25 August 1960.

  18. John Wells, ‘The Mystic Spube’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  19. Spectator, 2 November 1996.

  20. London Review of Books, 25 June 1995.

  21. Alan Bennett, ‘Postscript’, in The Complete Beyond the Fringe, ed. Roger Wilmut.

  22. Graham Chapman, A Liar’s Autobiography.

  23. Granta, 15 October 1960.

  24. The New Yorker, 23 January 1995.

  25. Eric Idle, ‘The Funniest Man in the World’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  26. Pembroke College Annual Gazette, 1995.

  27. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  28. Paul Donovan, Dudley.

  29. Ronald Bergan, Beyond the Fringe . . . And Beyond.

  30. Vanity Fair, December 1995.

  31. Michael Palin, ‘I Had That Peter Cook in the Back of My Car’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  32. Daily Mail, 6 April 1961.

  33. Observer, 1 October 1961.

  34. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Ibid.

  37. The New Yorker, 23 January 1995.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  40. Observer, 14 May 1961.

  41. Sunday Times, 14 May 1961.

  42. Newsnight, BBC 2 9 January 1995.

  43. Sunday Pictorial, 18 February 1962.

  44. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  45. Daily Mail, 1 March 1962.

  46. Mavis Catches up with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, ITV, 22 November 1989.

  47. Sunday Express, 15 January 1995.

  48. Daily Mail, 24 November 1977.

  49. London Review of Books, 25 May 1995.

  50. Christopher Hitchens and Dudley Moore, ‘The Other Half of the Sketch’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  51. London Review of Books, 25 May 1995.

  Chapter 5 Sorry, Sir, There Is a £5 Waiting List:

  The Establishment Club, 1961–62

  1. Person to Person, BBC TV, 1979.

  2. Observer, 23 July 1961.

  3. In part from Evening Standard, 10 January 1995.

  4. Friday Night Saturday Morning, BBC TV 16 November 1979.

  5. John Bird, ‘Impresario’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  6. Promotional material
, December 1961.

  7. Daily Express, 5 October 1961.

  8. Observer, 1 October 1961.

  9. Roger Wilmut, From Fringe to Flying Circus.

  10. Daily Express, 5 October 1961.

  11. John Bird, ‘Impresario’, in Something Like Fire, ed. Lin Cook.

  12. Barry Humphries, More Please.

  N.B. Humphries’ autobiography places this evening subsequent to Peter offering him a slot at the club, but this cannot be the case. Peter and the regular cast had gone to America when the offer was made, and the cast did not return until Peter had left the club, after Humphries’ engagement was finished.