Thomas Frederick "Tommy" Cooper was a British prop comedian and magician.
Cooper was a member of the Magic Circle, and respected by traditional magicians. He was
famed for his red fez, and his appearance was large and lumbering, at 6 feet 4 inches
and more than 15 stone in weight. On 15 April 1984 Cooper collapsed and died
soon afterwards from a heart attack in front of millions of television viewers, midway
through his act on the London Weekend Television variety show Live From Her Majesty's, transmitted
live from Her Majesty's Theatre. His stage persona required that his act intentionally
go wrong for comic purposes, leading to some initial uncertainty about whether this collapse
was real.
Biography Born in Caerphilly, Glamorgan, South Wales,
at 19 Llwyn Onn Street, Trecenydd, Cooper was delivered by the woman who owned the house
in which the family was lodging. His parents were Thomas H. Cooper, a Welsh-born recruiting
sergeant in the British Army, and Gertrude, his English-born wife from Crediton, Devon.
To escape from the heavily polluted air of Caerphilly, his father accepted the offer
of a new job and the family moved to Exeter, Devon, when Cooper was three. It was in Exter
that he acquired the West Country accent that became part of his act. The family lived in
the back of Haven Banks, where Cooper attended Mount Radford School for Boys. He also helped
his parents run their ice cream van, which attended fairs at weekends. When he was eight
an aunt bought him a magic set and he spent hours perfecting the tricks. His brother David
opened a magic shop in the 1960s in Slough High Street called D. & Z. Cooper's Magic
Shop. Cooper was influenced by Laurel and Hardy,
Max Miller, Bob Hope, and Robert Orben. Second World War
After school Cooper became a shipwright in Hythe, Hampshire, and in 1940 he was called
up as a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He served initially in Montgomery's Desert
Rats in Egypt. Cooper became a member of a NAAFI entertainment party and developed an
act around his magic tricks interspersed with comedy. One evening in Cairo, during a sketch
in which he was supposed to be in a costume that required a pith helmet, having forgotten
the prop, Cooper reached out and borrowed a fez from a passing waiter, which got huge
laughs. Development of the act
When he was demobbed after seven years of military service Cooper took up show business
on Christmas Eve, 1947. He later developed a popular monologue about his military experience
as "Cooper the Trooper". He worked in variety theatres around the country and at many of
London's top night spots, performing as many as 52 shows in one week.
Cooper had developed his conjuring skills and was a member of the Magic Circle, but
there are various stories about how and when he developed his delivery of "failed" magic
tricks: He was performing to his shipbuilding colleagues
when everything went wrong, but he noticed that the failed tricks got laughs.
He started making "mistakes" on purpose when he was in the Army.
His tricks went wrong at a post-war audition, but the panel thoroughly enjoyed them anyway.
To keep the audience on their toes Cooper threw in an occasional trick that worked when
it was least expected. Career
In 1947 Cooper got his big break with Miff Ferrie, at that time trombonist in a band
called the Jackdaws, who booked him to appear as the second-spot comedian in a show starring
the sand dance act Marqueeze and the Dance of the Seven Veils. Cooper then began two
years of arduous performing, including a tour of Europe and a stint in pantomime, playing
one of Cinderella's ugly sisters. The period culminated in a season-long booking at the
Windmill Theatre, where he doubled up doing cabaret. One week he performed in 52 shows.
Ferrie remained Cooper's sole agent for 37 years, until Cooper's death in 1984. Cooper
was supported by a variety of acts, including the vocal percussionist Frank Holder.
Cooper rapidly became a top-liner in variety with his turn as the conjurer whose tricks
never succeeded, but it was his television work that raised him to national prominence.
After his debut on the BBC talent show New to You in March 1948 he started starring in
his own shows, and was popular with audiences for nearly 40 years, notably through his work
with London Weekend Television from 1968 to 1972 and with Thames Television from 1973
to 1980. Thanks to his many television shows during the mid-1970s, he was one of the most
recognisable comedians in the world. Cooper was a heavy drinker and smoker, and
experienced a decline in health during the late 1970s, suffering a heart attack in 1977
while in Rome, where he was performing a show. Three months later he was back on television
in Night Out at the London Casino. By 1980, however, his drinking meant that Thames Television
would not give him another starring series, and Cooper's Half Hour was his last. He did
continue to appear as a guest on other television shows, however, and worked with Eric Sykes
on two Thames productions in 1982. John Fisher writes in his biography of Cooper:
"Everyone agrees that he was mean. Quite simply he was acknowledged as the tightest man in
show business, with a pathological dread of reaching into his pocket." One of Cooper's
stunts was to pay the exact taxi fare and when leaving the cab to slip something into
the taxi driver's pocket saying, "Have a drink on me." That something would turn out to be
a tea bag. By the mid-1970s alcohol had started to erode
Cooper's professionalism and club owners complained that he turned up late or rushed through his
show in five minutes. In addition he suffered from chronic indigestion, lumbago, sciatica,
bronchitis and severe circulation problems in his legs. When Cooper realised the extent
of his maladies he cut down on his drinking, and the energy and confidence returned to
his act. However, he never stopped drinking and could be fallible: on an otherwise triumphant
appearance with Michael Parkinson he forgot to set the safety catch on the guillotine
illusion into which he had cajoled Parkinson, and only a last-minute intervention by the
floor manager saved Parkinson from serious injury or worse.
Death on a live television show On 15 April 1984 Cooper collapsed from a heart
attack in front of millions of television viewers, midway through his act on the London
Weekend Television variety show Live From Her Majesty's, transmitted live from Her Majesty's
Theatre. An assistant had helped him put on a cloak
for his sketch, while Jimmy Tarbuck, the host, was hiding behind the curtain waiting to pass
him different props that he would then appear to pull from inside his gown. The assistant
smiled at him as he collapsed, believing that it was a part of the act. Likewise, the audience
laughed as he fell, until it became apparent that he was seriously ill. At this point Alasdair
MacMillan, the director of the television production, cued the orchestra to play music
for an unscripted commercial break and Tarbuck's manager tried to pull Cooper back through
the curtains. It was decided to continue with the show. Dustin Gee and Les Dennis were the
act that had to follow Tommy Cooper, and other stars proceeded to present their acts in the
limited space in front of the stage. For a long time a rumour circulated that Cooper's
size 13 feet protruded underneath the curtains. While the show continued efforts were being
made backstage to revive Cooper, not made easier by the darkness. It was not until a
second commercial break that ambulancemen were able to move his body to Westminster
Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His death was not officially reported
until the next morning, although the incident was the leading item on the news programme
that followed the show. Cooper was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium in London.
The video of Tommy Cooper suffering a heart attack on stage has been uploaded to numerous
video sharing websites. YouTube drew criticism from a number of sources when footage of the
incident was posted on the website in May 2009. John Beyer of the pressure group Mediawatch
UK said: "This is very poor taste. That the broadcasters have not repeated the incident
shows they have a respect for him and I think that ought to apply also on YouTube." On 28
December 2011 segments of the Live From Her Majesty's clip, including Cooper collapsing
on stage, were screened on Channel 4 in the UK, on a programme titled The Untold Tommy
Cooper. Personal life
From 1967 until his death Cooper had a relationship with his personal assistant, Mary Fieldhouse.
She wrote about it in her book, For the Love of Tommy. His son Thomas died in 1988 and
his wife, Gwen, died in 2002. Legacy
A statue of Cooper was unveiled in his hometown of Caerphilly, Wales, in 2008 by fellow entertainer
Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is patron of the Tommy Cooper Society. The statue was sculpted
by James Done. In 2009 for Red Nose Day, a charity Red Nose was put on the statue, but
the nose was stolen. In a 2005 poll The Comedians' Comedian, Cooper
was voted the sixth greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. He
is commonly cited as one of the best comedians of all time, with several polls placing him
at number one. He has been cited as an influence by Jason Manford and John Lydon.
In 2012 the British Heart Foundation ran a series of adverts featuring Tommy Cooper to
raise awareness of heart conditions. These included posters bearing his image together
with radio adverts featuring classic Cooper jokes.
Jerome Flynn has toured with his own tribute show to Cooper called Just Like That. In February
2007, The Independent reported that Andy Harries, a producer of The Queen, was working on a
dramatisation about the last week of Tommy Cooper's life. Harries described Cooper's
death as "extraordinary" in that the whole thing was broadcast live on national television.
The film subsequently went into production over six years later as a television drama
for ITV. From a screenplay by Simon Nye, Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This was directed
by Benjamin Caron and the title role was played by David Threlfall; it was broadcast 21 April
2014. Being Tommy Cooper, a new play written by
Tom Green and starring Damian Williams, was produced by Franklin Productions and toured
the UK in 2013. Hip-hop duo dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip wrote
the song "Tommy C", about Cooper's career and death, which appears on their 2008 album,
Angles. In 2014, with the support of The Tommy Cooper
Estate and Cooper's daughter Victoria, a new tribute show Just Like That! The Tommy Cooper
Show commemorating 30 years since the comedian's death was produced by Hambledon Productions.
The production moves to the Museum of Comedy in Bloomsbury, London from September 2014.
Recordings "Don't Jump Off the Roof Dad", words and music
by Cy Coben, single, Palette Records PG 9019 "Country Dreaming" – 12" LP
"Ginger" – 7" single "Happy Tommy" – 7" single
"Just Like That" 7" single "Masters of Comedy" – CD
"My Name Is Tommy" – 12" LP "No Arms Will Ever Hold You" – 7" single
"Sweet Words of Love" – 7" single "Tommy Cooper Very Best Of" – CD, DVD
"Walkin' Home From School" – 7" single "We'll Meet Again" – 7" single
References
External links
The Tommy Cooper Society