Early career
Cook was himself 'establishment' educated, at Radley and Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he scan French & German, & it was at a latter that he number one performed & wrote comedy sketches as a member of the prestigious Cambridge Footlights Club (of which Peter Cook became President in 1960).

In graduation, he wrote professionally for Kenneth Williams for whom he created the famous "Not An Asp" sketch, prior to choosing fame within his have correct as a star of the satiric stage indicate, Beyond the Fringe, with Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore.

Using his star firmly in the ascendant he opened A Establishment Club around Soho which allowed him to associate with a large stars of the day. He became the friend & supporter of Australian comedian & actor Barry Humphries, who began his British career at a Establishment Club, & Dudley Moore's acclaimed jazz trio (which involved Australian-born drummer Chris Karan) played there regularly for many years in the Sixties.

Not Only... But Also and other '60s television
Within 1962 the BBC licensed the pilot for a television series of satirical sketches according to A Establishment Club however it was non picked higher straight away & Cook & a more regulars attend Up to date York for a year. After he returned Cook found that a pilot got been refashioned when That Was The Week That Was and had mass produced the star away from David Frost. A Sixties satire boom was coming to a close & Cook quipped that Britain would "sink into the sea under the weight of its own giggling".

Cook married a well-connected Wendy Snowden in 1963 with whom he got 2 girl. A marriage ended inside divorcement around 1970 due to Cook's various affairs.

Along by having others like Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune, he broadened the scope of television comedy and pushed out a thus far restricted boundaries of the BBC.

Peter Cook's foremost regular television spot get on Granada_Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured maybe his virtually all enduring amusing character, a static, dour, & monotone E. L. Wisty.

His comedy partnership with Dudley Moore, led to the popular and critically feted television show Not Only... But Also. Applying couple of props, & by owning musical interludes performed by Moore, it created the up to date style of dry absurdist television which noticed the place in the mainstream. On text Cook showcased characters prefer Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and Pete and Dud. More memorable sketches include "Superthunderstingcar", the send-pasquinade of the popular Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows and Cook's parody of film star Greta Garbo.

Although a indicate is currently recognised when one of a classics of TV comedy, a BBC erased virtually all of the videotapes of the series. This was most common UK television practice at a instance, while agreements by using actors' & musicians' unions intended that single a certain total of repetition in the limited timescale were permitted, & the VHS or DVD home sales market was decades away. When videotape was expensive & took higher space to store, tapes would typically become wiped & re-utilized.

While Cook learned a series was to become destroyed he offered to find a tapes of a series from either the BBC however was refused due to right of first publication. Cook then offered to find freshly tapes for a BBC so that it would does'nt require to overtape however this wwhen as well turned down by management as there was there are no constituted procedure at the BBC for this.

Of the series, eight away from twenty-xxii complete episodes last. Occasionally of the soundtracks, which were commercially freed in record, likewise survive. A BBC recovered a few of the episodes by approaching television networks inside more countries & repurchase copies which experienced non been subjected to such rigorous destruction policies. A living episodes comprise a entire foremost series sustaining a exception of a fifth & seventh episodes; a 1st & endure episodes of the 2nd series; & the Christmas favorite. There are no complete episodes of the third series hold up, however various film inserts wash however survive. A compilation of captain hicks half-30 minutes programmes, ''The Right Of... What's Left Of... Non Just... However Likewise'' was shown around televisiin in 1990, & highlights were freed on VHS.

Within 1968 Cook and Moore switched to Lew Grade's ATV to produce the series of 4 of these hour programmes Goodbye Again according to a "Pete and Dud" characters. Cook & Moore knew it were a principle for a series & following neglected suggestions from either a series Director & more cast - following sketches were typically drawn bent fill the heading instance. Cook would likewise rely in prompt boards & following garbled area of the script, forcing Moore to ad-lib. the series does contain a select few notable things including a reprise of the Pete & Dud 'Greta Garbo' routine & a sketch where Cook & Moore mostly play themselves discussing the breakdowns of their various marriages. the series was non a popular profits due around a select few a portion to the ITV list magazine TV Times being suspended due to a strike. John Cleese was a supporting cast member & elements of the series may be seen in the early Monty Python series of the next year.

Each Peter Cook & Dudley Moore acted around films, and Cook worked by owning Moore inside such films when A Wrong Pack (1966). Their better functiin on film was probably a cult comedy Bedazzled (1967), now widely repute a classic. Directed by Stanley Donen, it wwhen co-written by Cook & Moore and asterisked Cook as George Spigot (A Devil) world health organization tempts defeated short-sequentially cook Stanley Moon (Moore) by owning a promise of gaining his heart's want -- the love of the undoable Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) -- around exchange for his soul, however repeatedly tricks him inside a kind of ways. A film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries ('Envy') & Raquel Welch ('Lust'). Moore's trio backed Cook on the theme, the parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivers within the monotonous, impassive voice, & which includes his classic putdown "You fill me with inertia". Moore went in to Hollywood stardom in the 1970s and 1980s, which prompted occasional barbed comments from Cook.

1970s
Inside 1970 Cook took over the design initiated by David Frost for a satiric film all about an opinion poll taker world health organization rises to get President of Nifty Britain. Under Cook's counsel a character became modelled in Frost himself; a resultant film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer was not a great commercial profits however is notable for the cast containing several notable list of the period of time.

Peter Cook as well provided funding for the satiric magazine, Private Eye, supporting the publication across the total of hard periods, particularly once the magazine was punished financially in the wake up of a total of high-profile libel trials. Cook two invested his have money & solicited for investment from either his indicate business friends & colleagues. For a period a magazine was produced from either the premiss of The Establishment Club.

Towards a prevent of the sixties Cook's getting alcoholism placed a strain in his home & broker relationships. Cook & Moore fashioned sketches from either 'Does'nt Sole....However Likewise' & 'Goodbye Again' by owning freshly poop when a stage read 'Behind a Fridge' that toured Australia around 1972 prior to transferring to Just released York inside 1973 when 'Full Evening'. In a period of the extended stageshow diarrhea Cook oftentimes appeared in stage inebriated & incapable to the alarm of Dudley Moore. inside spite of this 'Full Evening' won a pair Tony & Grammy Awards. After a rerun of 'Effective Evening' finished Moore announced he was staying in the The states to pursue the solo career. Inside 1973 Cook married a actress Judy Huxtable but this also ended around divorcement.

Late, a further blue humour of the Pete and Dud characters was taken to excess on long-playing records whereon the list "Derek and Clive" were used. A number one 'Derek & Clive' recording was initiated by Cook to relieve a tedium of an extended Broadway rerun of 'Dependable Evening' & utilized a bit of poop conceived years prior to for Pete & Dud however was as well outrageous. One of these sound recording was likewise filmed & a hanker heading tensions between a duo come seen to rise to the surface. Originally meant for their have amusement Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends and it gained the cult as punishment. 3 Derek & Clive albums of varying quality were freed.

Consequences
A bit of fans sense that one of Cook's right comedy projects in the Seventies, that is regrettably little known in todays world, was his tour de click performance swimming multiple roles on the 1976 conception album Symptoms, written & by previous 10CC members Kevin Godley and Lol Crème.

The mixture of spoken-word comedy & progressive rock music with an environmental subtext, Consequences began retired as a only that Godley & Creme planned to produce to demonstrate their recently invention, an electric guitar effect called The Gizmo. the plan step by step grew into a triple LP boxed placed. A comedy sections of the album were originally meant to exist as performed by an everthing-star cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but fallowing meeting Peter Cook, Godley & Creme realised that he may perform virtually all of the area himself.

A plot line centres on the at h& divorcement of uneffective Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French married woman Smasher (Judy Huxtable). When meeting by having their several attorney – a sottish Mr Haig & authoritarian Mr Pepperman (each played by Cook) – the redeeming come interrupted by the series of flakey & mysterious natural event that come somehow attached by owning Mr Blint (Cook), the musician & composer sleep in the flat beneath Haig's professional, & which is attached thereto by the big hole in the floor.

the tremendously challenging triple album was the aggregate commercial failure & was savaged per critics, however it gathered (& retains) a microscopic however dedicated cult as a consequence. Interestingly, a script & plot line contain numbers of elements that come out to parallel Cook's have life – his 2nd married woman, actress Judy Huxtable, plays Walter's wife Peach; a voice & accent Cook utilized for the character of Walter come remarkably similar thereto of Cook's previous Beyond A Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett. Cook's have alcoholism is mirrored around Haig's constant swallowing, & there is a clear parallel between a fabricated divorcement of Walter & Smasher & Cook's have mussy divorcement from either his foremost married woman Wendy.

Inside June 1979 Cook performed at the Secret Policeman's Ball, the third of the almost-annual comedy galas for Amnesty International. Cook got as well appeared inside the number one 2 shows in 1976 & 1977. The read of the foremost nighttime of the quaternity-nighttime rerun in the Daily Telegraph complained that it was mostly recycled "Beyond the Fringe" & "Monty Python" lesson. This read appeared inside print in the morning of the third of the quaternity nights. As the response, for the third nighttime Cook wrote & performed a savage irony of the dishonorably coloured summing-higher per Judge (Mr Justice Cantley) in the only-concluded test of previous Liberal person leader Jeremy Thorpe. A Niner-microscopic piece was mayhap one of a finest works of Cook's career. These are considered the comedy classic by critics & fans similar. Cook & indicate producer Martin Lewis rushed out the recording of the track as a Dozen" single together with 3 specially-recorded additional tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.

Hollywood
In 1980, spurred by Dudley Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood. He appeared as an uptight English butler in a short-lived sitcom and made cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films. Always a favourite on the chat show circuit, his own effort at hosting a chat show lasted two programmes. In 1986 he played the role of sidekick to Joan Rivers on her UK chat show - a role that disappointed many of his fans who felt that the position did not benefit Cook.

In 1987 Cook appeared in The Comic Strip's Mr Jolly Lives Next Door and spent time working with producer Martin Lewis on a political satire about the upcoming 1988 US presidential elections. The project was written for HBO. Co-writer was John Lloyd producer of "Does'nt A Ennead O'Clock News" "Black Adder" and "Spitting Image." (The HBO script remained unproduced.) During a trip to Los Angeles to work on the script, Lewis suggested that Cook team up with Dudley Moore for the US "Comic Relief" telethon for the homeless. Cook and Moore successfully reunited and performed their classic "1 Leg As well Couple" skit about a one-legged aspirant Tarzan. Contrary to popular misconception and media speculation, close friends recall that Cook and Moore maintained contact through the years and though there was always sparring between them the bond was unbroken. Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London in May 1995 and Moore and Lewis teamed up to present a two-night memorial for Cook in Los Angeles the following November - scheduled to mark the anniversary of Cook's birth.

Cook was an avid media follower, reading nearly all the British newspapers every day and following TV and radio programmes with vigour. He even gained a regular slot on a night-time London radio programme, where he would phone in using a pseudonym (Sven from Swiss Cottage) and entertain listeners with his complaints and musings. In the last few years of his life, Cook had a much lower public profile but maintained a robust social life with his friends. He was more concerned with enjoying his life than in pursuing traditional career goals. "I personally ran away from ambition at a age of Xxvii..." he famously said.

Revival
In 1989 Cook married Lin Chong. This marriage brought a change in the direction of his life, as he reduced his drinking and for a time was teetotal. Cook returned as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life In Pieces. The series of twelve ten minute interviews saw Sir Arthur recounting snippets of his life loosely based on The Twelve Days of Christmas. Another set of interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in the fall of 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother on BBC Radio 3, less than a year before Cook's death. The interviews were unscripted. In a later interview [http://stabbers.truth.posiweb.net/stabbers/html/spiggott/morris.htm], Morris described them as follows:

"It was the super different style of improvisation from either what We'd been wont to, working sustaining population such as Steve Coogan, Doon MacKichan and Rebecca Front, because those On The Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish the character in the situation, & Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' & 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or even ridiculous scenes flipping back in themselves, & it was amazing. We mean, We held out there is no groovy hopes that he wouldn't exist as the drunken old sack of lard by using his hair falling retired & scarcely entity for the phrase out, because he hadn't given great deal grounds to believe that that wouldn't become a example. However, around point of fact, he stumbled in by owning the Safeways bag good of Kestrel lager & loads of fags so proceeded to ignore astir mentally by owning the lightsomeness of a grasshopper. Really quite extraordinary."

In 1994, Cook appeared with Clive Anderson showcasing four completely new characters. Many hoped this marked the beginning of a revival for Cook; but before the end of the year his mother died, and his own death in 1995 at the age of 57 was officially reported as resulting from internal haemorrhaging.

Legacy
Cook is an acknowledged influence on a long stream of comedians who have followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh festival and from thence to the radio and television studios of the BBC. Notable fans include the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and, more recently, the aforementioned Chris Morris.

Many people feel that, like Spike Milligan, Cook broke so much new ground in the 1950 to 1965 period that later comics had relatively little ground left to break. Some have seen Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance he exhibited in his youth did not lead to the recognition many thought he deserved. In his lifetime Cook himself was aware that some thought that he had not achieved his early potential. He was disdainful of this view and had no drive to achieve sustained career success as traditionally measured. Cook measured his happiness by the quality of his friendships and his enjoyment of life. A constant refrain from his friends is that he was as funny off-camera as he was on-camera.

In January 2005, he was ranked number one in a list entitled ''The Comedian's Comedian, a poll voted for by fellow comedians and comic writers and shown on Channel 4 in the UK. He finished ahead of other important, legendary comics such Groucho Marx, John Cleese, Eric Morecambe, Laurel and Hardy, Bill Hicks and Woody Allen. Coincidentally, the same week the Comedians' Comedian programme was shown, Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always'', a television movie dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Welsh actor Rhys Ifans portraying Cook.