Peter Cook, Indolent comic genius,dies in hospital

Mike Ellison on a trail-blazing satirist, who never quite exploited his brilliance to the full.

Peter Cook, revered by generations of comedians for a talent he preferred not to exploit, followed his ambition to the grave yesterday.

"I think I ran out of ambition at 24," he once said. "Indolent. I see nothing wrong with that." Cook, the mythical Lord Gnome of Private Eye, was 57 when he died of a gastrointestinal haemorrhage.

The comedian, who supported Torquay United and later Tottenham Hotspur with a passion reserved otherwise for drink and cigarettes, was acknowledged as the most brilliant of the four Cambridge students who took their satirical Beyond The Fringe show to the West End and Broadway in the early 1960s.

Of the others Alan Bennett became one of the country's foremost playwrights, and topselling diarist; Dr Jonathan Miller ranged across the arts, producing Cosi Fan Tutti, opening at Covent Garden next week, and Rigoletto at the Coliseum the week after; and Dudley Moore became a movie star with Hollywood hits 10 and Arthur.

Cook, whose American television series flopped, gave the slip to the prospect of such fame in much the same way as he had sidestepped National Service.

He saved himself recently for television chat shows and a video, Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls. He listed his recreations in Who's Who as gambling, gossip and golf.

Cook, who was married three times, was admitted to hospital in the middle of the night a week ago and said: "I'm a bit poorly and I've been in for checks."

Moore said yesterday: "I remember being moved to tears when Peter said: 'I know I was funny but I know I won't improve, I won't get any better'. I was lucky to be around when he was at his peak. Verbally he was the most witty man that I have ever come across and strangely inventive."

Ned Sherrin, the director and radio presenter, said "Obviously, he was the first, he was the Governor. Right from the start with those very precocious sketches for the Cambridge Footlights and through Beyond the Fringe, he was an exceptional talent."

"Every 10 years or so you always get a new generation of comedians but they all acknowledge their debt to Peter."

Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye in which Cook had a 66 percent share, said: "It's a great loss to British comedy. He was, I always thought, the funniest man alive."

"He was the great hands-off proprietor of all time, but he used to come in occasionally and make a few jokes, and of course he was very involved in the early days."

Richard Ingrams, Hislop's predecessor, said: "He and Spike Milligan were the two great original funny men. He was always improvising jokes which would make you laugh often for no reason at all."

Michael Palin, the former Monty Python member, said: "He's one of those people who is completely and utterly irreplaceable. One of the things he did was to form the basis of what one would call the new comedy of the 1960s and 1970s. His achievement is absolutely extraordinary."

Cook had opened the Establishment, London's first satirical club, by the age of 21, and had a show on in the West End while still an undergraduate. A similar club in New York was dragged down by a magazine he invested in. "I lost interest in business as soon as I went out of business."

Not Only But Also, his television series with Moore, brought mainstream success, and the lavatorial and genitalia humour of their Derek and Clive Live secured cult status.

Cook appeared in about 20 films but would not go beyond rating one or two as quite good.

"The most ordinary thing like appearing on Clive James fills me with panic, I don't much enjoy being on television. I'd rather be sarcastic to myself. I'd rather do it for a few people socially, but it would be a bit rude to take up a collection after dinner."

Another outlet was Sven, a Norwegian fisherman whose character Cook invented to call radio phone-ins. He opened Sven's heart for two years to the listeners of an early morning show on LBC.

The writer and comedian Eric Sykes said: "Of course, Alan Bennett has done very well, and Dudley Moore has done very well, and Dudley Moore has done very well, and Peter didn't. But I think that was because he was not prepared to do what other people wanted. He wanted to do what he wanted."