Biography Of Peter Cook

by Harry Thompson

Dud:

  ’Course, you know, Pete . . .

  . . . And off he went again. The sequence perfectly demonstrated the essence of the Pete and Dud chemistry: how an audience laughed with Peter and at Dudley. Looking back, Dudley insists that ‘I didn’t intend to spit sandwich at him, but it was so hilarious that we just had to go on improvising from that point.’ Joe McGrath remembers that ‘Peter did about a minute extra on this happening, then shot a glance at the camera (me!), remarking that he wasn’t surprised Dud was choking because the sandwiches were terrible.’12 Eventually the pair went their separate ways, Peter pondering whether the bottoms would divide up amongst themselves in their efforts to follow both men around the room. Dudley Moore believes that it was their finest sketch ever.

  One reason that Peter found himself able to toy with Dudley more effectively from the third show onwards, was that the shooting method had been altered to his advantage. After only half the series he was becoming blasé about the amount of graft he needed to put in, and was not bothering to learn his lines properly. If he got into difficulties he was sufficiently confident of his ability to strike out in a different direction and improvise his way out of trouble; but while this method might have suited a monologue, it would not work in a two-hander where his partner had assiduously memorised every line. Joe McGrath solved the problem of Peter’s increasing laziness by putting the script on to a teleprompter where he alone could see it: ‘He’s actually sitting reading the lines. You can see his eyeline sometimes. In the art gallery there’s a Victorian loveseat, and I sat them like that facing each other so we could get a camera right in behind Dudley, and Peter could look straight into the lens as though he was looking at Dudley. This aide memoire helped Peter a lot, because then he could leave the script and come back to it at will. Of course in those days the teleprompters were giant, they were bloody monsters, so there could be absolutely no movement out of the cameras.’ In another happy accident, the need for a teleprompter machine and its lack of mobility had inadvertently helped create the effect that McGrath was trying to achieve.

  Following on from the Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling suit-buying scene in the previous programme, the third show also included a generation gap misunderstanding sketch, something that was to become a regular feature of the series, often concentrating on father-and-son relationships of awkward mutual incomprehension. On this occasion Peter played a respectable middle-aged father lunching with Reg, his unsuitable prospective son-in-law (played by Dudley) for the first time:

  Peter:

  As a father, I have certain responsibilities towards my daughter, and I have to find out certain things about you. For example, where you went to school. Not that it matters, but it is important.

  It transpires that Reg, who fidgets endlessly and irritatingly, wants to move in with his daughter.

  Reg:

  I thought we might squeeze in, Squire, After all, we’re not prudes, are we, Squire?

  Peter:

  Yes, we are prudes, Reg.

  Peter’s sketches always displayed a mastery of wordplay, but the distinguishing feature of his wordplay is that it was subversive of verbal convention, and therefore frequently of conventional attitudes into the bargain.

  The remaining item in the show was Incidents in the Life of my Uncle Arly, an Edward Lear poem performed by Dudley, with Peter appearing as ‘Uncle Arly’. Peter’s daughter Lucy, who had been born on 4 May 1964, and to whom Dudley Moore was godfather, made her screen debut, while Barry Humphries cropped up again as a grave-digger. Humphries, like Bill Wallis, was startled by the nature of the Cook–Moore relationship: ‘It was an extraordinary friendship those two men had. It was impossible to get a word in, really, because they were constantly improvising, not just on camera, but all the time. One felt sometimes that Peter – not so much Dudley, but Peter – was not going to stop being funny for a minute, in case you got a little bit too close to him. This was the carapace that he had constructed for himself.’

  Among the viewers who’d been enjoying the new series was Peter Sellers, who now rang up and asked if he could come on as a guest. McGrath and Fuest nipped in and wrote two sketches for him, and he appeared in the fifth show as a boxer who uses his gloves to create abstract paintings, and in a blind tasting sketch entitled The Gourmets. Eric Sykes featured in the last show as a film star, and in a sketch about freemasons. Old J. J., the initials sketch, also made a reappearance in one of the later programmes. All these items have since been destroyed. All that now remains of the second half of the series are the few soundless film fragments of the fourth show: a sketch in which a political canvasser knocks on Dracula’s door, a title sequence with the words Not Only . . . But Also plastered on the side of a London bus, an attack on cigarette advertising (‘Guards’ cigarettes being replaced by ‘Privates’ cigarettes for legal reasons), and an ingenious item in which Dudley, blacked up, gets into a shower singing Old Man River in an Al Jolson accent, which gradually changes into his normal voice as he becomes pinker and cleaner. This last item was the cause of another sizeable row between Dudley and Peter. ‘Peter didn’t want to use it,’ says Joe McGrath, ‘because it was simply Dudley on his own. To me it was wonderful how Dudley did it, it was so simple, you could see the black going down the plug hole like Psycho: but Peter put the kybosh on it. They didn’t include me in the debate, they would have their rows and arguments on their own, and then they’d say “We don’t want to use that bit”. Dudley told me, “He doesn’t want to use it. I think it’s w betwrful, but he doesn’t want to use it.”’ Peter was now completely in charge.

  Of the other two sketches that made up the fourth show, one was later reshot for an Australian special, and concerned a young man (Dudley) who has burned his bridges and come to London to start a new job, dining with his employer (Peter), who gradually reveals that he has changed his mind about the job offer after all. It was very funny but also very cruel, and ended with Dudley having to empty his plate of spaghetti on to his own head as a mark of humiliation. The show’s musical guest, Mel Tormé, begged for and got the job of playing the waiter who hands him the plate load of spaghetti. The other sketch was a Pete and Dud conversation about failing to pick up girls on buses – the script of which survives in book form – which had particular poignancy for Dudley as it was based on a real event of his youth: ‘It was a dreadful thing I remembered from my school days – of a girl I could never bring myself to speak to, whom I was dreadfully in love with.’13 The sketch was littered with the real names of girls, streets, and places from Dudley’s childhood, usually subject to the merest of disguises. It began lightheartedly enough:

  Dud:

  Right, Pete. Let’s go and sit up the front, eh?

  Pete:

  No, mustn’t sit up the front, Dud, that’s the least safe part of the bus. You ought to sit at the back, like you do in an aeroplane, that’s where you’re safe.

  Dud:

  Why, what’s wrong with the front?

  Pete:

  Well, see, if there’s a fatality, if the bus is involved in a fatal accident of any kind, it’s the people up the front who get killed first, and the people up the back who get killed last.

  Soon, though, Dudley is only one step away from a session at the psychiatrist’s:

  Dud:

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  Here, did I tell you about that bird, Joan Harold? About fourteen years ago?

  Pete:

  Joan Harold. Spring of 1948.

  Dud:

  You know she used to get the 5.45, 25B? ’Course she used to come out at 5.45 and I used to leave work about five, nowhere near where she was. So what I used to do, I used to get on a 62A up Chadwell Heath, then I used to get the 514 trolley down to the Merry Fiddlers, then I used to have to run across that hill down by the railway bridge, over that field where the turnips were, over by the dye works, then I used to leap over the privet hedge and hurl myself onto the 25B as it came round Hog Hill. There wasn’t a bus stop there but it used to
have to slow down because it was a very dangerous curve. I used to lie down in the middle of the road sometimes if it was going too fast. I used to leap on to the platform and spend about twenty minutes trying to get my breath back. ’Course I never spoke to her. Actually, once she got off and I got off in front and I said ‘’Ere’ – I thought I’d tease her a bit, coax her – and I said ‘Chase me’, and I started running off, but I was half way across Lymington Gardens before I realised she hadn’t budged an inch.

  Chadwell Heath and Hog Hill were Chadwell Heath Lane and Hog Hill Road in Romford. Lymington Gardens was Lymington Road in Dagenham. Dudley’s comedy was often directly, soul-searchingly autobiographical in this manner, and almost all the names he used belonged to real people (with the exception of his nymphomaniacal but non-existent Aunt Dolly). Even the characterisation he brought to the part of ‘Dud’ was, he said, ‘drawn from various inoffensive, compliant men I’d known, including myself’.14 The principal inspiration was ‘A guy at my father’s church – St Peter’s Becontree – this very self-effacing man, who looked as if he felt he should know a lot, but didn’t.’15 Every week during the series Dudley would almost religiously return to this world, for uncommunicative Sunday lunches with his parents. ‘First,’ he explained, ‘I’d have two helpings of roast lamb. Then I’d have some beer, and my father would have orangeade. Then I’d have jelly with fruit in it. Then we’d all sit in armchairs, and after fifteen minutes my mother would say: “What about a cup of tea?” Then we’d have the tea, and we’d walk round the garden. Then I’d have a packet of liquorice all sorts. Then it’d be time to go.’16 The pain of nostalgia and unexpressed affection and mutual incomprehension seemed to inform Dudley’s every waking moment. When his mother finally watched an episode of Not Only . . . But Also, she cffensivented him: ‘You put me right off to sleep dear, it was lovely.’

  Peter, unlike his partner, often claimed not to use his background in his material, but to draw his inspiration from a vein of English fantasy running back to the work of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear; but this was said partly from a desire to protect his own privacy and his family’s feelings. His humour was certainly informed by his background, even infused with it; but any genuine facts present had been stretched, twisted, pulled this way and that, and made completely unrecognisable before they reached the screen. Dudley mocked his own early self in specific autobiographical detail. Peter mocked his early experiences with broad, surreal, parodic brushstrokes.

  This was just one of many areas of their professional relationship in which they complemented each other like Jack Spratt and his wife. Peter’s demeanour suggested breeding, Dudley’s did not. Peter presented an icy calm, Dudley was fidgety and agitated. Peter’s humour was mainly verbal, Dudley’s principally visual. Peter onscreen was aloof, even cold, Dudley came across as eager, anxious and warm. Peter was tall and Dudley was short. Most important of all, Peter was a natural leader and Dudley was a natural follower. This aspect of their relationship was as significant in real life as it was on screen. Peter was inherently a loner both as a performer and as a writer, with a strong idea of what he wanted, so only someone prepared to defer to him could have stayed the course successfully. ‘I don’t know quite how Dudley managed it at times,’ says John Bird, ‘because Peter was not an easy person to perform with. Even if the script was one that you’d written between you and everything had been fine during rehearsal, when the red light came on a glazed look would come into his eyes and he’d be gone. He wouldn’t look at you, and you would be trying to keep up. Sometimes it was a nightmare working with him from that point of view.’

  Dudley admits: ‘I followed Peter around like some sort of Chihuahua, with great obeisance, loving everything that Peter did and said. That was probably the way with me and my mother. So, Peter, you were a mother figure. He was the dominant one, without a doubt.’17 He describes their on screen relationship as a continuing dialogue between ‘a know-all and a yes man’; off screen, as well, ‘Pete was a real know-it-all, just like his character. He did know about almost everything. He wasn’t in the habit of regaling you with his knowledge, but there were times when you couldn’t understand some of the things he said.’18 Asked whether he was scared of Peter, Dudley admits only that he was ‘scared of everybody to a certain extent.’

  There is no doubt that Peter had a great deal of respect and affection for Dudley. ‘I thought Dudley was so wonderful,’ he said much later. ‘He had the twitching face and projected this tremendous eagerness to show knowledge and of course humility, tinged maybe with a bit of generosity, and a little bit of savoir-faire, and all the other condiments of the elite. By God he was funny. Compared to him, even comedians like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan seem like interlopers. Some of the funniest things we ever did – in pubs, on our way to football matches – just floated away into the atmosphere.’19 But Dudley did not always get to witness this respect and affection. Peter needed to win admiration, and became irritated when it was too freely given. Face to face, he could often be cruel to those – like Dudley or David Frost – who doted on him.

  ‘I used to call him a club-footed dwarf,’ admitted Peter. ‘I think it was good for him. Everyone else used to pussyfoot around his problem.’20 Joe McGrath recalls: ‘Even Dudley’s ability to play the piano – Peter used to say, “I wish I’d been forced to learn an instrument as a child.” So there was no talent, it was just that Dudley had been forced to learn. And that used to really infuriate Dudley, he used to mutter, “I’ll fucking kill him”.’ There were ceaseless jokes at Dudley’s expense, particularly at his penchant for psychiatry. Dudley took this incredibly seriously, and once told a group of cameramen that the reason he had trouble producing scripts was because of inadequate potty training. Peter used to remark, ‘I don’t know why Dudley took so long to find himself. I found him years ago.’ Once, a TV Times reporter accused Peter of openly being cruel to his partner. ‘You think I’m cruel to Dudley?’ he replied. ‘My dear, being beastly to Dudley is the only thing that keeps me going.’21 There was, of course, one other salient reason that Peter kept up the jibes at Dudley’s expense: it was funny. In fact, it was as funny when he pushed him around off screen as it was when he gave him the runaround on screen, and Peter could never resist making people laugh.

  Naturally, Peter adored making Dudley himself laugh most of all. ‘His main aim seemed to be to contort me into as many strange positions as he could,’ says his partner. Joe McGrath remembers that ‘Peter would suddenly do something totally unexpected, quite wickedly, and Dudley would break up. Dudley used to try and make Peter break up, but he hardly ever did. I think that was the whole pleasure of the relationship, the pleasure they took from playing with each other like that.’ It was transfixingly enjoyable to watch Peter, his face an impassive mask, going in for the kill. The sight of Dudley giggling, wriggling and unable to escape has led some people to assume – quite erroneously – that he was the untalented one, the expendable half of the equation, that any decent comedy performer could have taken his part. Nick Luard even referred to him as ‘Cook’s creation’. The cartoonist Gerald Scarfe caricatured Dudley as a glove puppet, perched on the end of Peter’s right arm.

  In fact Dudley Moore elevated Peter’s previous standards of performance quite dramatically, by bringing to them the pure essence of the one thing he had previously been unable to supply himself: audience sympathy. Audiences had lavished Peter with laughter and admiration by the bucketload, but until the arrival of club-footed Dudley his manifestly innate superiority had not found a victim for the audience to feel sorry for, a permanent underdog for them to side with. According to John Wells, ‘No-one should underestimate Dud’s contribution to the partnership. The same wealth of strangely warped observation that compelled silence when Peter was inventing one of his monologues made the role of straight man in the dialogues extremely hard. Many of us tried it on Private Eye sound records. If you intruded on Peter’s imaginary world it sounded cheap and flat by compar
ison, and Dudley Moore succeeded by patient repetition and support, only occasionally allowing himself a sure-fire plonker of his own.&squo;22 Jonathan Miller confirms that Dudley was ‘subordinate to Peter in terms of invention, but I think that he was an equal partner, and it’s very hard to imagine the success of the show without Dudley’s talent as a performer’. Peter understood this as much as anyone. Asked about his own favourite comedy double acts, he described Ernie Wise as ‘fantastic’, and with reference to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, said: ‘Most people think, oh, Jerry Lewis is the funny man – what does Dean Martin do? The answer is, he makes Jerry Lewis funny.’23

  So bonded to Peter had Dudley become that he even began to imitate his lifestyle: ‘I followed him, I suppose, I don’t know. He said that when he got married I got married, when he got divorced I got divorced, when he moved to Hampstead I moved to Hampstead. Maybe that’s true.’ Despite the element of mutual dependence in their relationship, however, Peter did not share Dudley’s ability to unburden himself emotionally. He remained as much of a closed book to his performing partner as he did to his other friends: ‘I suppose I got close to Peter in the same way he got close to me – which was barely at all. You couldn’t get out of him what he felt about certain things. I remember I phoned him up in trouble once; it was the only time I ever phoned anybody up in trouble. And I said, “I really don’t know what to do”, and he said, “Well . . .” and gave me some very general chat. It was a very stuttering reply. He didn’t confide in me.’