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Peter Cook
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===1960s=== [[File:Peter Cook Beyond the Fringe 1962.JPG|thumb|upright|Cook playing the character of [[E. L. Wisty]] in the revue ''[[Beyond the Fringe]]'', 1962]] In 1961, Cook opened [[The Establishment (club)|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 [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] and prevent the outbreak of the [[World War II|Second World War]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/28/1046407753895.html |title=Tom Lehrer interview |publisher=The Sydney Morning Herald|date=1 March 2003 |access-date=16 September 2013}}</ref> As a members-only venue, it was outside the [[Lord Chamberlain's Office|censorship restrictions]]. The Establishment's regular cabaret performers were [[Eleanor Bron]], [[John Bird (actor)|John Bird]], and [[John Fortune]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/01/23/bedazzled |title=BEDAZZLED |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=2018-08-12 |language=en-US}}</ref> 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.<ref>[https://youtube.com/watch?v=PKu3Y5B 20 January 1963 episode of ''What's My Line''].</ref> In 1962, the [[BBC]] commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not immediately picked up and Cook went to [[New York City]] for a year to perform ''Beyond the Fringe'' on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as ''[[That Was the Week That Was]]'' and had made a television star of [[David Frost]], something Cook made no secret of resenting. He complained that Frost's success was based on directly copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist",<ref name="Hattenstone">Simon Hattenstone [https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/jul/02/david-frost-interview-frost-nixon "The Saturday interview: David Frost"], ''The Guardian'', 2 July 2011</ref> and said that his only regret in life, according to [[Alan Bennett]], had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued.<ref>Humphrey Carpenter, ''That Was Satire That Was: The Satire Boom of the 1960s'', London: Victor Gollancz, 2000, pp. 270β71.</ref> By the mid 1960s the [[satire boom]] was coming to an end and Cook said: "England was about to sink giggling into the sea."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cBs-AQAAIAAJ&q=sink+giggling |title=The Spectator, Volume 211 |year=1963|access-date=16 September 2013}}</ref> Around this time, Cook provided substantial financial backing for the satirical magazine ''[[Private Eye]]'', supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in [[libel]] trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden. The couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970. Cook's first regular television spot was on [[Granada Television]]'s ''On the Braden Beat'' with [[Bernard Braden]], where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal [[E. L. Wisty]], whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} [[File:Dudley Moore Peter Cook Kraft Music Hall.JPG|thumb|left|upright|Cook and [[Dudley Moore]] in London for the US television programme ''[[Kraft Music Hall]]'']] Cook's [[Double act|comedy partnership]] with Dudley Moore led to ''[[Not Only... But Also]]''. This was originally intended by the BBC as a vehicle for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry, absurd television that proved hugely popular and lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as [[Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling]] and the two men created their [[Pete and Dud]] alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the [[Gerry Anderson]] [[marionette]] TV shows, and Cook's [[pastiche]] of 1960s trendy arts documentaries β satirised in a parodic segment on [[Greta Garbo]]. When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be [[Lost television broadcast|wiped]], a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original 22 programmes, only eight still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, ''The Best of... What's Left of... Not Only...But Also'' was shown on television and has been released on both [[VHS]] and [[DVD]]. With ''[[The Wrong Box]]'' (1966) and ''[[Bedazzled (1967 film)|Bedazzled]]'' (1967), Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by [[Stanley Donen]], the underlying story of ''Bedazzled'' is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of [[Faust]], it stars Cook as George Spigott (the [[Devil]]) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire β the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer ([[Eleanor Bron]]) β in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by [[Barry Humphries]] as Envy and [[Raquel Welch]] as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a [[deadpan]] monotone and included his familiar put-down, "you fill me with inertia". In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to [[Associated Television|ATV]] for four one-hour programmes titled ''[[Goodbye Again (TV)|Goodbye Again]]'', based on the Pete and Dud characters. Cook's increasing [[alcoholism]] led him to become reliant on [[cue card]]s. The show was not a popular success, owing in part to a strike causing the suspension of the publication of the [[ITV (TV channel)|ITV]] [[listings magazine]] ''[[TV Times]]''. [[John Cleese]] was also a cast member, who would become lifelong friends with Cook and later collaborated on projects together.<ref>{{cite AV media |last1=Geraghty |first1=Geraldine |title=The Undiscovered Peter Cook |date=16 November 2016 |publisher=BBC |type=Film }}</ref>
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