Goodbye, Mr Cooke
I wrote what I wanted to say about Alistair Cooke when he announced, not very long ago, that he didn’t feel he could continue to write his ‘Letter from America’ any more.
Well, (to steal a favourite Cooke sentence-opener), AC died today, so the ‘Letter’ really is done forever, and there’s no hope of a reprise.
Still, I’d note that he BBC has a little page over here where people can leave their tributes to AC; also that I’m sure the old guy would have been tickled pink by the idea that so many Americans would leave messages there indicating that he’d given them a marvellous education about their own country that seemed unobtainable elsewhere.
posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2004 at 9:41 pm
Loved AC on Masterpiece Theater, and his series on America made want to be a historian when I was a kid. Like losing a kindly, wise uncle. I will miss him. Have his broadcasts ever been collected on tape?
I heard Radio National is running a “Best Of” series. At the usual time, Sunday 11:45, I think.
I remember him from Omnibus in the mid-fifties, when he introduced me to Leonard Bernstein, William Saroyan and Peter Ustinov (not, thank goodness, all at once). I’d have to say he had a pretty good run.