Tommy Cooper

Born Thomas Frederick Cooper, in Caerphilly, Wales, he was delivered by the lady who

owned the house in which the family was lodging. Cooper parents were army recruiting

sergeant father Tom, and his Crediton, Devon born mother Gertrude. In light of the

heavily polluted air and the offer of a job for his father, the family moved to Exeter,

Devon when Cooper was aged three and gained the West Country accent that was part

 of his act.

The family lived in a house at the back of Haven Banks, where Tommy attended the

 Mount Radford School for boys, and helped his parents run their ice cream van, which

 attended fairs on the weekend. At the age of 8 an aunt bought Cooper a magic set and

he would spend hours perfecting all the tricks.

 World War Two

After school, Cooper became a shipwright in Hythe, and in 1940 was called up to serve

in the British Army in World War Two. He served initially in Montgomery's Desert Rats

 in Egypt. Cooper became part of the NAAFI entertainment party, and developed an act

 around his magic tricks interspaced with comedy. One evening in Cairo, during a sketch

 in which he was supposed to be in a costume which required a pith helmet, having

forgotten the prop Cooper reached out and borrowed the fez from a passing waiter which got huge laughs.

 Act development

After being demobbed, Cooper took up show business on Christmas Eve, 1947 - he would later add a popular monologue about his military experience as "Cooper the Trooper." Cooper worked variety theatres around the country, and at London's Windmill Theatre he performed 52 shows per week.

Cooper had developed his magic skills and was a member of the Magic Circle, but there are various versions as to where he developed his act delivery of "failed" magic tricks:

Performing to his ship building colleagues when everything went wrong. Devastated, Cooper still noted that the failed tricks got laughs

During his British Army career

At a post-war audition, at which his tricks went wrong, but which the panel thoroughly enjoyed

To keep the audience on their toes, Cooper threw in the occasional trick that worked when it was least expected.

Career

 

"The Plank"Cooper rapidly became a top-liner in variety with his turn as the conjuror whose tricks never succeeded, but it was his television work that catapulted him to national recognition. After his debut on the BBC talent show New to You in March 1948, he soon started starring in his own shows, and was popular with audiences for four decades, most notably through his work with Thames Television from 1968 to 1980.

In 1961 Cooper had a minor hit record in Britain with "Don't Jump off the Roof, Dad" on Palette Records.

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. However, just three months later he was back on television in Night Out at the London Casino. By 1980, though, 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 guest on other television shows, however, and worked with Eric Sykes on two Thames productions in 1982: The Eric Sykes 1990 Show and It's Your Move.

 Legendary meanness

John Fisher writes in Cooper's biography, "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."

Friends remember how he would con strangers into a drink using his magician's cunning. He would stand at a bar and, when he made eye-contact with a stranger say 'Yes?'. to which the stranger would reply, "Can I get you a drink?". Cooper would then reply 'What are you drinking?' to which the stranger would think they were being offered a drink only for them to state their preference and Cooper to rejoin, "I'll have one as well." Another stunt was to leave a taxi, slipping something into the taxi driver's pocket saying, "Have a drink on me." That something turned out to be a tea bag.

He was also known for meanness of nature. In 1964 he was due to be the opening act at the Royal Variety Performance but was desperately short of material. He asked Billy Mayo, a retired variety pro who had seen better days, for help. Mayo had a think then scuttled off to a hardware store where he purchased a paraffin heater which he presented to Cooper telling him to walk on at the beginning, put it down in front of the audience and say, "They told me to go out there and warm them up." Cooper did, and the gag stormed. A few days later he met Mayo along with some fellow performers in Soho where he received much praise for his performance but offered not one word of thanks to Mayo. At leaving time Mayo asked a favour of Cooper, "My legs are not so good at the moment. Would it be possible for your driver to drop me off at my flat?" Cooper replied by saying, "I'm not a taxi service."

Examples of Cooper's humour

His friend and biographer John Fisher has said of Cooper's humour: 'On anyone else's lips, it would have been hopeless. Delivered by Tommy, with all his childlike innocence and charm, it would make an audience roar.' Bob Monkhouse recalls seeing Cooper in a dressing room dangling a bath tap on a piece of elastic, he asked what he was doing. "It's a gag," Cooper said, explaining that he was going to come on, dangle it up and down a few times and then say to the audience, "Tap dance!" Monkhouse advised him the idea was terrible, the worst joke he'd ever heard and strongly advised him to refrain from performing it. Cooper went ahead and brought the house down.

Another aspect of Cooper's comedy was that he carried it over to his private life. He once went into a tailor's shop to buy a suit, trying it on he asked a member of staff if he could take it for a walk round the block. When they consented he took a block of wood from his pocket, put it on the floor and walked around it before saying, "Fine. I'll take it." He continued this in his home-life with his wife Gwen reporting frequent instances of rubber spiders, snakes that sprang out of tins and books that burst into flames. A visitor to his house recalled chatting to him when screams from the maid reverberated down the stairs, she had just discovered a 'severed hand' in the laundry basket. Cooper was a caring father and used his comedy to shrewd effect in this sphere of his life. There was the time his son was caught having stolen a ball of string and pen-knife from the local Woolworths. Gwen was distraught but Cooper maintained a complete silence until the evening when he took his son aside and said, in his fiercest tones, "If you ever, ever steal again .... get me a packet of my favourite cigars." The boy never re-offended.

Cooper even turned his comedy to his illnesses. He had chronic indigestion and his daughter Vicky has described how he would drink milk of magnesia then jump up and down because he had forgotten to shake the bottle. And despite being beside himself when his wife Gwen was taken ill, the flowers he presented to her squirted water in her face.

A selection of Cooper's jokes

I slept like a log last night. I woke up in the fireplace

Man walks into a bar. Didn't half hurt. It was an iron bar

I've got the best wife in England. The other one's in Africa

I had a ploughman's lunch the other day. He wasn't half mad

My dog took a big bite out of my knee the other day and a friend of mine said, "Did you put anything on it?" I said. "No, he liked it as it was."

I think inventions are marvellous, don't you? Wherever they put a petrol pump they find petrol

I'm on a whisky diet. I've lost three days already

 Honours

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.

Jerome Flynn has toured with his own tribute show to Cooper called Just Like That.

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