Alistair Cooke | |
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 Cooke during an interview in 1974 | |
| Born | Alfred Cooke (1908-11-20)20 November 1908 Salford, Lancashire, England |
| Died | 30 March 2004(2004-03-30) (aged 95) New York City, US |
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| Children | 2, includingJohn Byrne |
| Awards | Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire |
Alistair Cooke,KBE (néAlfred 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.[1] Outside his journalistic output, which includedLetter from America andAmerica: A Personal History of the United States, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBSMasterpiece Theatre from 1971 to 1992. After holding the job for 22 years, and having worked in television for42 years, Cooke retired in 1992, although he continued to presentLetter from America until shortly before his death. He is the father of author and folk singerJohn Byrne Cooke.
He was bornAlfred Cooke inSalford, Lancashire, England, the son of Mary Elizabeth (Byrne) and Samuel Cooke.[2] His father was aMethodist lay preacher and metalsmith by trade; his mother's family were ofIrish Protestant origin.[3]
He was educated atBlackpool Grammar School, and won a scholarship toJesus College, Cambridge, where he gained an honours degree (2:1) in English. He was heavily involved in the arts, was editor ofGranta, and set up theMummers, Cambridge's first theatre group open to both sexes, from which he notably rejected a youngJames Mason, telling him to stick to architecture.[4]
Cooke changed his name to Alistair when he was 22, in 1930.[5]
Cooke's first visit to the United States was in 1932 on a two-yearCommonwealth Fund Fellowship (nowHarkness Fellowship) to Yale and Harvard, where his acting and music skills came to the fore with visits toHollywood.[6]Cooke saw a newspaper headline stating thatOliver Baldwin, the Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin'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 aCunard 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.
Cooke replacedOliver Baldwin as theBBC'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." He sat on a BBC Advisory Committee headed byGeorge Bernard Shaw for correctpronunciation.[7]
In 1935, Cooke also became London Correspondent forNBC. Each week, he recorded a 15-minute radio dialogue for American listeners on life in Britain, under the series title ofLondon Letter. In 1936, he intensively reported on theEdward VIII abdication crisis for NBC. He delivered 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-oldRhodes Scholar,Walt Rostow, who would becomeLyndon B. Johnson's national security advisor.[8]
Cooke stated that, on a visit to New York in 1936, he had been impressed at how freely newspapers and journals were able to report on the abdication crisis whilst all comment was still censored in London. Very soon, in 1937, he immigrated. He became a United States citizen and swore the Oath of Allegiance on 1 December 1941, six days beforePearl Harbor was attacked. Shortly after immigrating, Cooke suggested to the BBC the idea of doing theLondon Letter in reverse: a 15-minute talk for British listeners on life in America. A prototype,Mainly AboutManhattan, was broadcast intermittently from 1938, but the idea was shelved with the outbreak ofWorld War II 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 asThe American Home Front: 1941–1942 in the United States (and asAlistair Cooke's American Journey: Life on the Home Front in the Second World War in the UK) in 2006.
The firstAmerican 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 fromAmerican Letter toLetter from America in 1950) and an enormous audience, being broadcast not only in Britain and in many otherCommonwealth countries, but throughout the world by theBBC World Service.
In 1947, Cooke became aforeign correspondent for theManchester Guardian newspaper (laterThe Guardian), 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.[9]
In reporting on theMontgomery bus boycott, begun byRosa Parks and led byMartin Luther King, 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 thePaul Revere of the boycott."[10] Martin Luther King complained about Cooke's "biased and hostile reports", which motivated philosopherMichael Dummett to write his own refuting report, whichThe Guardian refused to publish.[11]
In 1968, Cooke was only yards away fromRobert F. Kennedy when he was assassinated, witnessing the events that followed.[12]
In 1952, Cooke became the host ofCBS'sOmnibus, the first U.S. commercial network television series devoted to the arts. It featured appearances by such personalities asHume Cronyn,Jessica Tandy,Gene Kelly andLeonard Bernstein.Jonathan Winters was the first comic to appear on the show.[13]
In 1966 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to theInstitution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "The Jet Age and the Habits of Man".[14][15]
In 1971, he became the host of the newMasterpiece Theatre,PBS'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" inSesame Street ("Alistair Cookie" was also the name of a clay animated cookie-headed spoof character created byWill Vinton as the host of a video trailer forThe Little Prince and Friends), and Alistair Quince, portrayed byHarvey Korman, who introduced many episodes in the early seasons ofMama's Family.[16]
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 thejoint Houses of theUnited States Congress as part of Congress's bicentenary celebrations. After the series was broadcast in Ireland, Cooke won aJacob's Award,[17] one of the few occasions when this award was made to the maker of an imported programme.[citation needed]
On 2 March 2004, at the age of 95, following advice from his doctors, Cooke announced his retirement fromLetter from America—after 58 years, the longest-running speech radio show in the world.[18]
Cooke died at midnight on 30 March 2004, at his home in New York City. He had been ill with heart disease, but he died oflung cancer, which had spread to his bones.[19] He was cremated, and his ashes were clandestinely scattered by his family inCentral Park.[20]
On 22 December 2005, theNew York Daily News reported that several of Cooke's bones, and those of many other people, had been surgically removed before cremation by employees ofBiomedical Tissue Services ofFort Lee, New Jersey, a tissue-recovery firm.[21] The thieves sold the bones for use asmedical-grade bone grafts.[22] 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.[23] Michael Mastromarino, a former New Jersey–basedoral surgeon,[21] and Lee Cruceta agreed to a deal that resulted in their imprisonment.[24] Mastromarino was sentenced on 27 June 2008, in theNew York Supreme Court, to 18 to 54 years' imprisonment.[25] The entire story of the theft was featured in a documentary aimed at educating the public about modern-daygrave robbery.[22] On the morning of 7 July 2013, at age 49, Michael Mastromarino died at St. Luke's Hospital after suffering fromliver cancer.[26]
In 1932 Cooke became engaged to Henrietta Riddle, the daughter of the English actorHenry Ainley and the Baroness von Hütten, but she broke off the engagement the following year while he was in America on aCommonwealth Fund Fellowship.[27] He met Ruth Emerson, a great-grandniece ofRalph Waldo Emerson, in 1933, and they married on 24 August 1934. Their son,John Byrne Cooke, was born 5 October 1940 in New York City, New York.[28]
Alistair Cooke divorced Ruth in 1944, and marriedJane White Hawkes, a portrait painter and the widow ofneurologist A. Whitfield Hawkes,[29] the son ofAlbert W. Hawkes, on 30 April 1946. Their daughter, Susan, was born on 22 March 1949.[30]
Cooke took up golf in his mid-fifties, developing a fascination with the game, despite never attaining an extraordinary level of skill.[31] He was driven by his love of golf to devote many of hisLetter 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."[31] Cooke became close friends with many of the leading golfers of the era:Jack Nicklaus, 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."[31]
In 1973, Cooke was awarded an honoraryknighthood (KBE) for his "outstanding contribution to Anglo-American mutual understanding." Cooke was reportedly happy to accept, because in the words ofThomas Jefferson, it did not involve "the very great vanity of a title."[32] Having relinquished his British citizenship during World War II, he could not be called "Sir Alistair".
After Alistair Cooke's death theFulbright 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.[33][34]
Cooke also co-authored several "coffee table books": 4.
The album features Cooke playing jazz standards on piano with accompanying whistle and speaking about his life in America.
Alistair Cooke BBC committee.
| Preceded by none | Host ofMasterpiece Theatre 1971–1992 | Succeeded by |
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