{"id":4264,"date":"2015-01-09T15:30:57","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T15:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4264"},"modified":"2015-01-13T13:32:49","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T13:32:49","slug":"peter-cooks-pact-with-the-devil-for-dudley-moore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4264","title":{"rendered":"Peter Cook\u2019s pact with the devil for Dudley Moore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cook<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a general view that comic genius Peter Cook, who died 20 years ago today, was a bitter and unhappy man who resented the film success of his former partner Dudley Moore. That\u2019s not how he appeared to me when I spent time with him in Hollywood in 1981.<\/p>\n

Cook, who was the funniest person I\u2019ve known in my lifetime, was in Los Angeles to make a sitcom titled \u201cTwo For the Road\u201d in which he played the English butler to an American family.<\/p>\n

I spoke to him as one of a small group of members of the Television Critics Association, had lunch with him at a smart restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, and spent an afternoon with him at CBS Studio Center in Studio City, where his series was recorded.<\/p>\n

He was surprised at the TCA in a discussion about what language was not allowed in US sitcoms when he remarked that the restrictions didn\u2019t bother him and I said, \u201cDerek and Clive wouldn\u2019t agree, would they?\u201d Cook hadn\u2019t expected anyone at the TCA to know those names.<\/p>\n

Derek and Clive were the scurrilous alter egos of Pete and Dud (pictured below), the two lummoxes whose banter was a regular bit on the celebrated 1960s Cook and Moore TV series \u201cNot Only \u2026 But Also\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"peter-cook-dudley-_2690010b\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The pair recorded \u201cDerek and Clive Live\u201d in 1973 but it was available only in bootleg editions until 1976. Cook said that he and Moore, and not the record label, were responsible for the delay: \u201cWe were a bit worried about our image, whatever the hell our image was. Pete and Dud were nice for the mums and dads but Derek and Clive are fairly unpleasant, shocking characters, really. I mean, in the right mood I find them very funny; a change of pace, to say the least. We finally put it out when we overcame being so chicken about the whole thing. It did sort of fit into the 1970s, which I thought was a shitty era: these two awful yobs, kind of apt for the \u201970s, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook was relaxed and pleasant over a beer at lunch \u2013 “Nothing English. I’ll have a Beck’s” \u2013 as he had been when I met him backstage in Detroit in 1973 after a performance of \u201cGood Evening\u201d, the Tony and Emmy Award-winning revue starring Cook and Moore. It had been titled \u201cBehind the Fridge\u201d in the UK as a sort of sequel to \u201cBeyond the Fringe\u201d, the 1960 show that made Cook and Moore famous along with Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett. Contrary to their reputations, it was Dudley Moore who appeared out of sorts and had no interest in meeting two reporters from across the river in Windsor.<\/p>\n

Unlike, say Robin Williams, Cook never appeared to turn on as a comic, he was just naturally funny. I mentioned to him that John Cleese had said he was a genius: \u201cWhat was he on? I think he\u2019s talking about a certain context where it\u2019s working well, an ad-lib context, mainly in social things with friends. You\u2019re basically making things up and showing off. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s talking about us as performers in the public sense. My great body of work has been done at parties. You know, when you get in a certain mood, you can do things that are actually funnier than anything you could ever do in performance and it will never come out as funny again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a><\/p>\n

Cook said he\u2019d never had a master plan for his career, which included stage and TV shows, films and recordings, and owning Private Eye, which he said was his proudest achievement: \u201cI\u2019ve never had career goals. I\u2019ve written stuff, and hoped that things would work out \u2013 and a number of things have happened, obviously not purely by chance. But I haven\u2019t thought of my life in terms of a career that should have some peak to which it should aspire, or any depths to which it should sink, for that matter. It just seems to have gone along.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and Moore did not ruminate on the way their careers had gone, he said: \u201cWe sit around and laugh most of the time. I saw him last Friday, actually. He seems very well indeed. I haven\u2019t seen his movie [\u2018Arthur\u2019] yet. I hear it\u2019s very good. I hear John Gielgud is an excellent butler, allowed to say a line I won\u2019t be allowed to say on network TV. It sounds to me, not having seen it, like, \u2018Let\u2019s have Sir John talk filthy\u2019. I thought Dudley was very good in \u201910\u2019 but I didn\u2019t particularly like the movie. I thought he was very good but it\u2019s just that the subject of a millionaire who worries about leaving Julie Andrews and screwing somebody else didn\u2019t grab me enormously, but he was excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook said he believed that he was instrumental in Moore landing his star-making role in \u201c10\u201d. In 1967, he wrote a terrific comedy titled \u201cBedazzled\u201d, directed by Stanley Donen. He plays the Devil, a.k.a. George Spiggott (pictured below), who beguiles gullible Stanley Moon (Moore) with the eight original temptations of man: \u201c\u2018Bedazzled\u2019 was a lousy title; I still can\u2019t think of a good one. It was difficult as all the puns and wordplays involving the devil seemed wrong. I know what the ideal title was. I wanted to call it \u2018Julie Andrews\u2019. Big star, still is. I wanted it to say, \u2018Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Julie Andrews\u2019, but apparently this is illegal, or it was feared it might be illegal. It was a catchphrase throughout the movie, and then it came true, you see. I did it for Dudley. I organised it. He had eight wishes, so I got him \u201910\u2019. A pact with the devil is how he got it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett There\u2019s a general view that comic genius Peter Cook, who died 20 years ago today, was a bitter and unhappy man who resented the film success of his former partner Dudley Moore. That\u2019s not how he appeared … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263,15,16],"tags":[2303,2302,2304,2305,2301,2300],"class_list":["post-4264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-television","category-theatre","tag-beyond-the-fringe","tag-good-evening","tag-not-only-but-also","tag-two-for-the-road","tag-dudley-moore","tag-peter-cook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4264"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4300,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions\/4300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}