Leader of the mirthmakers

Peter Cook was a comedian's comedian. All the younger brighter wits I know would laugh helplessly when his name came up.

There are those today whose party pieces are recitals of the monologues he seemed to invent on the spot in his timeless double acts with Dudley Moore.

The one about the visits to the two old men on the bench of Hollywood's film lovelies; the one about the brain surgeon; the one where Dud arrived hopping on his only leg to be interviewed by Pete for the part of Tarzan.

Peter Cook's deadpan expression in that scene as he explains that the minimum requirement for Tarzan is two legs and that he has nothing against Dud's right leg (but then, neither had Dud), matches Buster Keaton and was surely a role model for Paul Merton.

He also made "jolly rude" tapes with Dud. There was a good old Elizabethan earthy side to Cook - the booze, the bars, the fags, the football. He arrived on the London stage at the end of the Fifties.

From 1959 to 1964 in London and New York Beyond the Fringe catapulted Cook, Moore, Jonathan Milller and Alan Bennett into fame. Everybody wanted to know them.

They took the surrealism of the Goons through the customs of Oxbridge.

Many of our finest comedy names - John Cleese, Richard Curtis, Stephen Fry - would cite Cook as a guiding light.

His loyalty was rarely better shown than in his defence of Private Eye when the wrath and money of Sir James Goldsmith threatened to shut it down.

As a major shareholder, Cook was a target for pressure. Had he given in it would have resulted in closure.

But Private Eye was run by pals. It was where he could have some fun. That mattered perhaps more than anything.

He did several TV series, particularly Not Only... But Also, and there were films. But it was with Dudley Moore he made his enduring mark.

He had an ability to pluck almost any subject out of the air and spin a web of lunatic logic.

Perhaps this began to bore him. Certainly when I met him I was aware of a quicksilver mind desperate for someone who could keep up. There are those who point to the success of his fellow Fringers and see Cook as the one left behind.

Why did he not capitalise more successfully? Was it the self-destruct tradition of so many brilliant gifted artists?

Was he frightened of fully committing himself away from his pals? Or was it the demon drink? Others who know him better can judge.

Clips from Pete and Dud still crack me up. I'm just grateful I had the luck to know him a little and to know a very decent gentle, funny, funny, man.

Melvyn Bragg