The man who feared the laughter would dry up

Bernard Levin on how Peter Cook made him laugh so loudly the management nearly complained

Peter Cook, who died yesterday, was the complete funny man: note that there is no hyphen between funny and man. Cook was an entertainer (indeed, that is what he called himself for Who's Who), but he also had the lineaments of the funny man who is tormented beneath the laughter. Cook tormented? Cook? Yes, and not only in his last years, which were lived in a haze.

Pete (it was difficult to call him anything else) was one quarter of the famous four that gave us Beyond the Fringe, and were catapulted into fame with it. And indeed, the fame was real; Dudley Moore broadened his humour and found success in Hollywood; Alan Bennett became a playwright of considerable quality; Jonathan Miller became practically everything you can think of from lecturing on medicine to staging operas.

And Pete? It is much too facile to say that the other three had abiding talent but Pete had only the laughter of the hour. But what is certainly true is that Pete, as he saw his three coevals going out into fame and fortune, felt a fear that I believe never left him - a fear that one day the stream would dry up for ever.

Stop for a moment and be amazed. He was enormously successful on radio - not only with Dudley Moore - indeed, he made figures such as E.L.Wisty so real that half the nation was certain that they existed, and as for Wisty, the man who wanders about in a dirty raincoat muttering about Spotty Muldoon, it was difficult not to believe that his characters were real. When he did commercials they were so delightful that nobody would believe that his characters were real.

When he did commercials they were so delightful that nobody would believe he was doing it for the money, which is true; he was not broke, but he needed to keep his hand in - or rather he didn't need to keep his hand in but he convinced himself that he had to. He played in many films not just in tiny parts; he was, for a very long time, one of the stalwarts of Private Eye. And he was a genuinely funny man; whenever I met him his talk was shot through with laughter - for both of us - and I would go away feeling refreshed, hoping that he was doing the same.

But the fear never left him. He was probably married three times (some say that he could never tell you the number himself), but the loyalty his ladies showed him was a sign that he was no means the fly-by-night that he seemed.

And he wasn't. I knew him enough to know that, and (I wish the damned word had never been invented, so worn it is) Pete had in him real genius. Try this, from an interview - it was entirely spontaneous from beginning to end and was poured out without pause:

"Did you know that I am the long-lost son of Elvis Presley - by Gracie Fields? Otherwise why should he have called his Memphis home Gracelands? Yes, Gracie was my mother. She still guides me by psychic messages.

"I'm also in charge of the Archie Pitt Memorial Fund, you know, in honour of her first husband. It was he who taught her everything.

"The people of Rochdale, the ingrates, haven't raised much towards Gracie's memorial statue, have they?

I've got a lot of fund-raising to do. It's a religion, you know.

"By the time I'm 50 I should be in charge of the world's third-largest religion, and it will be based in America. It's guidelines will be revealed to me in mid-air on my way to do The Two of Us.

"I was intrigued to see in the state of Utah that the head of the Unification Church of Jayne Mansfield, in answer to questions, said: 'I would be evasive if I said that huge mammary glands were not part of our faith. Our gimmick will be large kneecaps.'"

Easy, you would say? Try it, without pausing, as he did. The man poured laughter as he poured drink, and that was copiously. And yet the fear would not go away. He wouldn't talk about it, that fear; indeed, it was plain to see that he convinced himself that it wasn't there. Towards the end, when he was so often fuzzled by dope or booze or both, he was a sorry sight, but I can remember him, and I will, with laughter, always with laughter.

Sometimes, of course, the laughter was tinged with melancholy, yet never straying from the path of laughter. Pete said: "I suppose the old days were the best for me. Dudley and I were one of the hottest comedy acts in Britain. There was fame, plenty of money and work I thoroughly enjoyed. I doubt that I will ever do anything better." But Pete had no envy in him. Listen to this: "I do not envy Dudley his success going it alone in the States. He is very talented and hardworking and deserves it. He was always more motivated than I was and liked the limelight more."

I can hear his tones clearly, and there is no resentment in them. Once, I said to him the old words: "You go up ladders; you go down snakes." He nodded, without malice, without envy, without untruth. But half a minute later he was laughing.

And how could I forget that laughter, nearly 40 years ago now, when Pete was one of that unforgettable foursome in Beyond the Fringe? I was a theatre critic in those days, and as the first night laughter-waves rose higher and higher, I was afraid that I would be drowned in my own hysteria. Only when I came to know Pete did he tell me the story of my first-night laughter at Beyond the Fringe. It will stand another outing.

The four players and the director had assembled an emergency meeting in the interval. Down in the stalls, I had been screaming in my mirth so loud that it was feared backstage that other patrons could not hear the players. The emergency was to decide whether to take round a note to me, asking me to laugh more quietly; the dilemma was because I might take umbrage at such behaviour they decided to let me scream on, and got a rave review.

Pete had, of course, an expert ear; whenever we met he would relive my screaming, preferably on a crowded pavement. There'll be laughter in Heaven this night.