Peter Cook, father of sixties satire, dies

Cook, a star of the mould-breaking revue Beyond The Fringe and a founder of the satirical magazine that pioneered the art of disrespect towards the governing classes, died of a gastrointestinal haemorrhage at the Royal Free Hospital near his home in Hampstead, north London. He had been admitted there last Tuesday and had been under intensive care.

A heavy smoker, drinker and lover of spicy food and other exotica, Cook had lived alone in (an 18th-century house, while his third wife, the Malaysian Lin Chong, lived 100 yards away. Cook once said the arrangement would be much more popular if more people could afford it.

Members of his family including his two daughters by his first marriage, were with him when he died, and later expressed "immense gratitude" to hospital staff for the care he had received.

The son of a colonial servant, educated at Radley and Cambridge, Cook came to prominence in 1960 as one of a quartet of Cambridge undergraduates who took their revue to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the still-staid Macmillan years and explored new boundaries of irreverence. His three co-players, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller, all proceeded to such success in their varied fields - from diminutive but musical Hollywood sex-symbol, to trenchantly iconoclastic northern writer, to medical practitioner and artistic polymath - that Cook came to be seen as the under-achiever of the revue, which went on to play the West End and Broadway.

He preferred to stay at home, achieving television success during the 1970s with Moore in such series as Not Only . . . But Also, and keeping a benevolent but non-interfering eye on his part-owned property, Private Eye.

In more recent years his public appearances tended to be restricted to brief spots on chat shows.

Friends and fellow-professionals yesterday paid generous tributes to his wit, originality and good humour, painting a picture of a man whose breakfast lager would unleash a day-long stream of jokes and anecdotes.

Moore was told of Cook's death at 1am in Los Angeles. He said: "I've lost a very close and dear friend. Peter will be missed by many, many people."

His former partner's death "was just a matter of time, but it was so regrettable and I'm sure everyone did what they could to help him. I knew he wasn't 100 percent fit. His death was untimely, but, sadly, I suppose, the writing was on the wall. We were still very close and I saw him last time I was in England." Moore said. He plans to return to England for the funeral.

Referring to Cook's absence from the limelight during his later years, Moore said: "The press couldn't understand why he gave up comedy, but I congratulated him. You have different ambitions when you get older, and he changed. He was a great man who made a massive contribution to comedy, even if it was often understated. He had an extraordinary talent and set a strong, seminal course for comedy, I enjoyed all the work we did together and finished up by being indebted to him."

John Cleese, also in Los Angeles, said Cook had been the presiding spirit of the 1960s revolution in comedy. "What he and others did never struck us in Cambridge as comedy, it struck us as being funny about slightly more serious things. If you wanted three minutes' great comedy, you just asked him to talk and turned on a tape recorder."

Eric Sykes, the veteran comedy writer and actor, said that a bright light had gone out with Cook's death. "When I see a talent like Peter's disappear it makes me very sad. Another bright light has gone out of the world of comedy, and there aren't too many left."

Unlike his former co-players Moore and Bennett, Cook had not progressed to great financial success. "I think that was because he was not prepared to do what other people wanted; he wanted to do what he wanted." Sykes said.

Harry Thompson, producer of the BBC2 satirical show Have I Got News For You, on which Cook occasionally appeared, said: "It was sad that he never really lived up to his potential, because he seemed to enjoy life more than work, but his work was truly inspirational. Shows like Beyond The Fringe had a huge effect on comedy, because it was the first time anybody got away with being rude about the Prime Minister. In recent years he had his good days and his bad days, but when he was good there was nobody like him."

Michael Winner, the film, director, said every alternative comedian today owed his existence to Cook's genius.

Alan Yentob, controller of BBC1, said Cook was "an absolute one-off" whose influence on succeeding generations of television writers and performers was immeasurable.

Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, said Cook was a great hands-off proprietor. "He used to come in occasionally."He used to come in occasionally and make a few jokes, and he was very involved in the early days. He invented the phrase: 'This man is a proven Lawyer.' Surreal brilliance, impossible to match."

Private Eye still attracts writs, which Cook saw as its Oscars. He once described the magazine as a monument to his lack of financial acumen. His last work before his death was to make a golfing video, Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls, released last year.

Alan Hamilton