0:00:02 > 0:00:08Good evening. Both Britain and the United States have been given a black eye in the past week
0:00:08 > 0:00:14by things so seemingly slight as a bridge game and a boxing match.
0:00:17 > 0:00:18For more than half a century,
0:00:18 > 0:00:23Alistair Cooke painted pictures of America for radio listeners in words.
0:00:24 > 0:00:29But when he died, a remarkable new record of his life was discovered.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33In long-forgotten boxes, and down in the basement of his apartment block,
0:00:33 > 0:00:37150 reels of 8mm film.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46Home movies telling the story of a journalist's adventures and revealing the man.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50They capture his discovery of America,
0:00:50 > 0:00:53his passions,
0:00:53 > 0:00:55and his friendships.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04They uncover the real Alistair Cooke -
0:01:04 > 0:01:07worldly, creative, ambitious.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11The storyteller with a filmmaker's eye.
0:01:11 > 0:01:16Come with me. You are, or imagine yourself to be,
0:01:16 > 0:01:21in the passenger seat of a 1933 Model A Ford.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25In the driver's seat would be me.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27These early travels with his camera
0:01:27 > 0:01:31are a flickering archive of his American journey,
0:01:31 > 0:01:37and they open one door on the unseen life behind the polished words.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50Alistair Cooke arrived in America in 1932.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52Before a year had passed,
0:01:52 > 0:01:57he had befriended and filmed the most famous man in the world.
0:01:58 > 0:02:03No other footage of Charlie Chaplin is so intimate, nor so relaxed.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07How did this 24-year-old Englishman,
0:02:07 > 0:02:10bred in Blackpool, the son of an iron-fitter,
0:02:10 > 0:02:15find himself in Hollywood, so close to those distant stars?
0:02:15 > 0:02:17He told the story of coming
0:02:17 > 0:02:21to this country in several ways, but what he always emphasises
0:02:21 > 0:02:25is that his first impression of Americans
0:02:25 > 0:02:30was having American soldiers billeted in the house in Blackpool,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33and he thought they were extraordinarily open and gregarious
0:02:33 > 0:02:40in ways that that even as a child, he sensed were very different from how English people were.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43# That the Yanks are coming
0:02:43 > 0:02:45# The Yanks are coming
0:02:45 > 0:02:48# The drums rum-tumming everywhere... #
0:02:48 > 0:02:50When the Americans came into the war,
0:02:50 > 0:02:53Blackpool was 20 miles of sand, and the entire American army,
0:02:53 > 0:02:59it seemed to me as a boy, came and trained there, and everybody had to take some in, and we took in -
0:02:59 > 0:03:02I don't know, four, five, six, seven Americans.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05I think that really decided my life.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11He was born in 1908 and christened Alfred Cooke.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15His mother ran a boarding house in Blackpool.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18It was a devoutly Methodist home.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23As he began to grow up, young Alfred found it restrictive.
0:03:23 > 0:03:29I think he essentially turned his back on his view of God
0:03:29 > 0:03:31and of the church,
0:03:31 > 0:03:36in anticipation of the church turning its back on him, and he used to say he did it for three reasons -
0:03:36 > 0:03:42one because he had a cowlick and he had to put grease in his hair to keep his cowlick down,
0:03:42 > 0:03:48and that would of course be vanity, and he also loved music,
0:03:48 > 0:03:52particularly American jazz, which was even worse.
0:03:52 > 0:03:58Of course, third, he thought girls were the cutest things ever made,
0:03:58 > 0:04:03and if God only knew what he had in mind, God would certainly damn him
0:04:03 > 0:04:09to eternal hell, so he kind of said goodbye to religion, goodbye to God
0:04:09 > 0:04:10and goodbye to Blackpool,
0:04:10 > 0:04:15and off he went to Cambridge to kick up his heels and find his fortune.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18CHOIR MUSIC PLAYS
0:04:26 > 0:04:31In 1927, he won a scholarship to study English Literature at Jesus College, Cambridge.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35He was one of only two secondary school boys in his year.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38We have a single sheet in his file
0:04:38 > 0:04:42which records the whole of his college career.
0:04:42 > 0:04:46Cooke's file contains comments from his supervisor, Dr Tillyard.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50The first one in 1927 says,
0:04:50 > 0:04:55"Well-read, quick, keen, industrious.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58"I doubt if he has any real originality."
0:04:58 > 0:05:01The later one, 1928,
0:05:01 > 0:05:09Dr T reports, "Satisfactory, but a journalist's mind."
0:05:09 > 0:05:16So he took part one of the Tripos in 1929 and got a first,
0:05:16 > 0:05:21and took part two in 1930 and got an upper second.
0:05:21 > 0:05:27The college commented that this was really because he'd been spending far too much of his time on other
0:05:27 > 0:05:30activities, such as drama, which we know is perfectly true.
0:05:32 > 0:05:38He founded the first Cambridge drama society that allowed women members.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40And he did something else.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42On his 22nd birthday in 1930,
0:05:42 > 0:05:48he changed his name from Alfred, which he'd never liked, to Alistair.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50He drew cartoons, played jazz,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53became editor of the magazine Granta.
0:05:53 > 0:05:59But even after five years in Cambridge, his tutors hadn't lost their grudging tone.
0:06:01 > 0:06:07"He has even more drive and much more of a certain kind of ability than I gave him credit for.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10"I still believe that he's not really a first-class man,
0:06:10 > 0:06:15"but there's no doubt that he has an extraordinary capacity for impressing himself on others.
0:06:15 > 0:06:21"He is, I am sure, very much out for himself, and I should sum him up as a clever careerist."
0:06:21 > 0:06:26He did have quite a lot of ability, but he wasn't really applying that
0:06:26 > 0:06:30ability to the sort of subjects they thought were really important.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39Not the ideal reference for the research work or teaching job that he wanted.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43But in 1932, he won a generously-funded fellowship
0:06:43 > 0:06:48for two years' study on the other side of the Atlantic.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51He was off and away.
0:06:55 > 0:07:00The magical journey into New York harbour made a deep impression on Cooke.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Later, he tried to recapture the moment on film.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11Even in the midst of the Depression that had descended on America,
0:07:11 > 0:07:12it was a land of wonders.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17I'd had this imaginitive build-up all my childhood.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21America was Bobby Jones, the great golfer, was Douglas Fairbanks,
0:07:21 > 0:07:24was the moving pictures, was the pretty girls, and jazz.
0:07:24 > 0:07:26You see, I was mad for jazz.
0:07:28 > 0:07:29To Americans, the Blackpool boy
0:07:29 > 0:07:33seemed something of an English gent, with a cut-glass accent.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36Here's how he sounded when he arrived.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39I came in September 1932.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44I went to the Yale School of Drama,
0:07:44 > 0:07:48and the intention was that I should pursue my research there
0:07:48 > 0:07:50in direction and in criticism.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53But after I'd been there about three months,
0:07:53 > 0:07:56I discovered that, though it was a very fine student school,
0:07:58 > 0:08:04it didn't really provide for the sort of experimental research I was wanting to do.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07Yale wasn't the right place for him,
0:08:07 > 0:08:12but Cooke's fellowship provided the opportunity he was looking for.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15You were obliged by the terms of accepting this fellowship
0:08:15 > 0:08:18to buy a second-hand car, which I did,
0:08:18 > 0:08:25for 45, and drive round the United States on your summer holiday.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30He flew to Chicago and began his first drive westward,
0:08:30 > 0:08:33armed with a 22 cine camera.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35One of the things you see in his movies
0:08:35 > 0:08:40is his great love of the American landscape, in all of the cross-country trips,
0:08:40 > 0:08:46from the very first one that he made in the summer of 1933, where he veered up
0:08:46 > 0:08:50above the northern border of the United States into Canada,
0:08:50 > 0:08:53and came down through Oregon and California.
0:08:55 > 0:09:01He was fascinated by the country itself, by the land and the topography and the geography.
0:09:01 > 0:09:08He was just in love with the vast beauty, I think, of the country and the potential.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19Some of America was really backwoods in those days.
0:09:19 > 0:09:20You didn't get to see
0:09:20 > 0:09:23what it was like unless you went and looked at it,
0:09:23 > 0:09:25and he was very curious.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28He was just hungry to know everything.
0:09:30 > 0:09:35Curiosity was one of his driving emotions.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44He was so intrigued
0:09:44 > 0:09:48by America's people, by the diversity.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58That first tour, in the summer of 1933, was a revelation for the young traveller.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06Here was a land quite different from the idea of America that he'd grown up with.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11Nothing could be more satisfying to a romantic young man bred in cities
0:10:11 > 0:10:17than the semi-desert landscape that covers so much of the west.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19It is as empty as the horizon
0:10:19 > 0:10:25and gleams with splendid melancholy lights and haunting shapes.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33Instead of spending another year at Yale studying theatre,
0:10:33 > 0:10:35he went to Harvard to study
0:10:35 > 0:10:39the American language, and he had begun his studies of America.
0:10:39 > 0:10:45He was quick to make the most of the social life that Harvard offered.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48Maybe his Cambridge tutor had been right.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51He was moving in elevated circles.
0:11:02 > 0:11:06In Harvard's exclusive and self-regarding Hasty Pudding Club,
0:11:06 > 0:11:09he composed songs for and directed
0:11:09 > 0:11:13an all-male show called Hades The Ladies.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19But Cooke wasn't going to stay in the theatre now.
0:11:19 > 0:11:26That 1933 road trip had given him much more than a sightseer's introduction to America.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32A young man used an old trick to find a way into Hollywood.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41He wanted to work for The Observer and he wanted to meet Charlie Chaplin.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44Neither of which he had under his belt at the time.
0:11:44 > 0:11:49So he called up The Observer and said, "I can get you an interview with Charlie Chaplin.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52"Do you want me to do this? I could go do that."
0:11:52 > 0:11:55Out of what in New York is called chutzpah,
0:11:55 > 0:12:00I'd had the audacity to write to the editor of this Sunday paper,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02suggesting that, on my summer trip,
0:12:02 > 0:12:05since I should be stopping by Hollywood,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09how about my writing a series of six pieces on the movies?
0:12:09 > 0:12:15Beginning with an interview with Charlie Chaplin, then with the celebrated German director, Lubich.
0:12:15 > 0:12:20Of course, I knew none of these magnificoes.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25At the same, he wrote to them claiming that he did have a commission from The Observer.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28And they agreed to be interviewed.
0:12:28 > 0:12:33He did stretch the rules but he got what he wanted, and I think that
0:12:33 > 0:12:39that ambition and that energy and that gall essentially set him off in America.
0:12:41 > 0:12:49So, in August 1933, Alistair Cooke arrived at the Chaplin Studios to conduct his interview.
0:12:49 > 0:12:50There's a sense of
0:12:50 > 0:12:52very immediate bonding.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56And Chaplin was obviously fascinated by Cooke
0:12:56 > 0:13:00and Cooke's ability with words, particularly.
0:13:00 > 0:13:06How that happened is very hard to guess, but it clearly happened
0:13:06 > 0:13:11instantly from the moment Alistair arrived at the Chaplin Studio, and they connected.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Daddy was just crazy about Charlie Chaplin.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19He admired his talent so much.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21Then he revealed that he'd been on his yacht
0:13:21 > 0:13:27with him and Paulette Goddard, and made his own movie of them!
0:13:27 > 0:13:31So we thought that was incredibly cool.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36He later described the scene in a book of portraits.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42"On a still and brilliant midsummer morning,
0:13:42 > 0:13:44"I sat on the deck of a yacht,
0:13:44 > 0:13:48"anchored 20-odd miles south-west of the Los Angeles Harbour,
0:13:48 > 0:13:54"looking across the shimmering water to the small mountainous island called Catalina.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00"There were five of us aboard. Chaplin, then 44,
0:14:00 > 0:14:04"Paulette Goddard, an enchanting 22-year-old brunette,
0:14:04 > 0:14:06"as trim and shiny as a trout,
0:14:06 > 0:14:09"whom Chaplin had known for little more than a year.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12"Andy, the skipper, a former Keystone Cop.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15"And Freddy, a Japanese cook.
0:14:15 > 0:14:20"And there was I, a lean, black-haired 24-year-old Englishman
0:14:20 > 0:14:22"on a two-year fellowship at Yale.
0:14:27 > 0:14:30"I had just bought an 8mm movie camera, and with his
0:14:30 > 0:14:34"extended thumbs touching and his palms at the parallel,
0:14:34 > 0:14:36"he would fix the frame for me and retreat
0:14:36 > 0:14:40"to mime a range of characters he picked up from the headlines
0:14:40 > 0:14:43"of the only newspaper we'd brought aboard.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48"Jean Harlow had just eloped.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51"A famous female impersonator
0:14:51 > 0:14:55"had been given a friendly push and drowned.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58"The Prince of Wales was seen making a speech.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04"Chaplin was so relaxed on that cruise,
0:15:04 > 0:15:07"so naturally restless and inventive, that in retrospect,
0:15:07 > 0:15:10"I can see he was revealing himself,
0:15:10 > 0:15:15"as if describing an endless series of Rorschach ink-blot tests."
0:15:21 > 0:15:24Alastair was a great conversationalist.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27He was a good communicator,
0:15:27 > 0:15:30and certainly Chaplin was too.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36That was a nice friendship.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45Back on the east coast, Cooke met Ruth Emerson,
0:15:45 > 0:15:50the grand-niece of the great American writer and sage, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54Here was this tall, gorgeous model,
0:15:54 > 0:15:58affiliated with one of the most prestigious,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02intellectually upstanding families in America.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06It was sort of like a dream come true, I think, for him, and I don't know that he ever would have
0:16:06 > 0:16:09admitted it that way, but I've wondered about that.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16He was bright and fun.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18He was a nice man.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28We had a lot of fun on 52nd Street.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33We went nights to listen to jazz jam sessions.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36That was great fun.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39I didn't know much about jazz. He did.
0:16:46 > 0:16:47He certainly educated me.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53I got a lot of education with him!
0:16:55 > 0:16:59One day in 1934, Chaplin wrote to me -
0:16:59 > 0:17:02a miracle, that, he rarely wrote to anyone -
0:17:02 > 0:17:08asking me to go out to Hollywood and help him with the script of a projected film on Napoleon.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18So that summer, he set off with Ruth and a college friend
0:17:18 > 0:17:20to drive once more across America.
0:17:20 > 0:17:25They planned to marry near Hollywood, in Pasadena, California.
0:17:28 > 0:17:33Cooke asked Chaplin to be his best man, and he said yes.
0:17:37 > 0:17:39But when the wedding day came,
0:17:39 > 0:17:44Cooke and Ruth waited and waited, but Chaplin didn't appear.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46As Cooke always told the story,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50it was a terrible shock, but it was less of a surprise to the bride.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54Chaplin was going to be the best man
0:17:54 > 0:17:58at the wedding. Paulette was Chaplin's girl at the time,
0:17:58 > 0:18:02and she liked to have a drink.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05She was very made-up.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07What else, what do you say?
0:18:07 > 0:18:10I didn't imagine my father admiring her.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17I had a crazy idea that I could tell Chaplin we didn't want Paulette there!
0:18:17 > 0:18:19That was pretty nutty.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22He said it was all right,
0:18:22 > 0:18:25you could say he was there and even if he didn't come,
0:18:25 > 0:18:27that was supposed to solve the problem.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35There were problems, too, with the planned film about Napoleon.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40One day I went up to the house for dinner and we sat and played
0:18:40 > 0:18:42as a duet the song Titina,
0:18:42 > 0:18:47which he was then going to use in Modern Times, and did.
0:18:52 > 0:18:58He broke off for a telephone call or something, and when he came back,
0:18:58 > 0:19:00I remember, he had a toothpick.
0:19:00 > 0:19:05He stretched out on a sofa and picked away.
0:19:05 > 0:19:07"By the way," he said,
0:19:07 > 0:19:12"the Napoleon thing, it's a beautiful idea...for somebody else."
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Nothing more was said, ever.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18A week later I packed,
0:19:18 > 0:19:19and took off east.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41The newlyweds travelled back across America by train.
0:20:07 > 0:20:09It was time to be practical.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Cooke knew that he needed a proper job -
0:20:12 > 0:20:16preferably one that exploited his new-found knowledge of Hollywood.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20I was walking in a street and I saw a newspaper headline which said,
0:20:20 > 0:20:25"PM's son fights BBC", I bought it, of course.
0:20:25 > 0:20:26He was the BBC film critic.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28He had a row with the BBC.
0:20:28 > 0:20:33The last sentence said, "So now the BBC is looking for another film critic" and I said,
0:20:33 > 0:20:35"That's it...that's what I want to be!"
0:20:36 > 0:20:43He got the job, and in autumn 1934, he and Ruth arrived in London.
0:20:45 > 0:20:52At the BBC, Cooke won over audiences with his conversational style.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56If I were inclined at all to talk about the acting of individuals...
0:20:56 > 0:20:59which should always make you suspect a movie critic,
0:20:59 > 0:21:03I'd be inclined to say that Katherine Hepburn's performance
0:21:03 > 0:21:06was just about as high as any actress came last year.
0:21:06 > 0:21:11I don't care if her acting was created by a sensitive fellow with a pair of scissors,
0:21:11 > 0:21:16standing knee deep in celluloid, or if it was her own unaided posing...
0:21:16 > 0:21:20- What shall we talk about, Arthur? - About you?
0:21:20 > 0:21:24Oh, no! Don't let's talk about me, let's talk about you.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26What kind of man are you?
0:21:26 > 0:21:30He also made pioneering music features.
0:21:30 > 0:21:36But he frustrated the BBC with his unwillingness to provide the script in advance...
0:21:36 > 0:21:40He used to come in with a few notes, into the studio.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44And then he'd play the first record, say what he was going to talk about.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49While they were playing, he would be looking as to what he was
0:21:49 > 0:21:51going to say about the next record
0:21:51 > 0:21:55and he'd be turning over quickly and he'd absorb it in his mind
0:21:55 > 0:22:00and then speak it at the microphone as though he'd studied it for years, you know.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03He said he'd like to take me out to dinner, so I said, that'll be nice.
0:22:03 > 0:22:10So we went to a very posh restaurant in Regent Street and there he ordered me fish and chips because
0:22:10 > 0:22:13he thought as I was a Cockney, fish and chips was what I wanted.
0:22:13 > 0:22:19On the way back in the taxi, He said, "Have you ever thought of emigrating to America?"
0:22:19 > 0:22:21So I said, no, why?
0:22:21 > 0:22:23He said, "Well I would if I were you."
0:22:23 > 0:22:27I said, why? He said, "there's going to be a terrible war and if you
0:22:27 > 0:22:31"don't want to be in it, become an American, you know, move over."
0:22:31 > 0:22:37That rather impressed me, that two years before it happened, he knew it was going to happen.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50In 1937 came the chance that would mould the rest of his life.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53While he was with the BBC in London,
0:22:53 > 0:22:57he had also broadcast a weekly programme called London Letter
0:22:57 > 0:23:01for NBC in the United States. When King Edward VIII abdicated
0:23:01 > 0:23:05in 1936 to marry his American divorcee,
0:23:05 > 0:23:11Cooke reported the events live to an eager American audience.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14The money he earned allowed him to go back there,
0:23:14 > 0:23:18determined on a career that might let him span the Atlantic.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23With war in Europe on the horizon,
0:23:23 > 0:23:27Cooke took his fourth tour across the country.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30It was his last with Ruth.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34Heading south, they drove through Virginia and the Carolinas,
0:23:34 > 0:23:37then down to Louisiana, across to Texas
0:23:37 > 0:23:39and on to California.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57In the heatwave Summer of 1939, he filmed the journey in colour,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01revelling in the natural and the man-made wonders.
0:24:03 > 0:24:09From the Hoover Dam to Yosemite National Park.
0:24:34 > 0:24:38Hello England, Hello England. This is Alistair Cooke.
0:24:38 > 0:24:42Living in New York, he continued to work for the BBC.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46A live jam session broadcast home was a particular success.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50These noises are coming to you from the roof of the Saint Regis Hotel in NY city.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55It's a beautiful, hot sunny day outside, and way up in the mid-70s...
0:24:55 > 0:24:59but we'd be plenty hot in here if it was midwinter.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01We've managed to get together somehow
0:25:01 > 0:25:04under great doubts and difficulties,
0:25:04 > 0:25:07a collection in one room of about a score
0:25:07 > 0:25:11of the greatest swing players who have ever been assembled anywhere.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14On saxophone, Bud Freeman.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17On straight soprano saxophone, Sidney Bechet.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20Bass, Art Shapiro.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25Piano, Jess Stacey, Joe Bushkin and Fats Waller.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29For the first number, they're already swapping places.
0:25:29 > 0:25:30Onto the rostrum seven players.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34Yes, seven of them are going up there.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37And they're going to play Keep Smiling At Trouble.
0:25:51 > 0:25:56Six days before the United States entered the Second World War in 1941,
0:25:56 > 0:26:01Cooke got the American citizenship that he'd decided he wanted.
0:26:03 > 0:26:05And soon, he set off on another
0:26:05 > 0:26:11five-month journey across the country to document life on the home front,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14in words and in still photographs.
0:26:31 > 0:26:36He was edging his way into journalism, but it kept him away from his family.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40While he travelled, Ruth was left to look after their one-year old-son,
0:26:40 > 0:26:44Johnny, at her parents' house on Long Island.
0:26:48 > 0:26:53After his travels, Cooke rented an apartment in New York City.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55His landlady was Jane Hawkes.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58She was married, with two children,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01Stephen and Holly.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03Well, my mother was a glamourpuss
0:27:03 > 0:27:05and she was a bit of a, a tootsie...
0:27:05 > 0:27:11as she would put it and, and he used to call her Tootsie.
0:27:12 > 0:27:17Cooke found himself falling in love with this bohemian artist.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20Then Jane's husband died in the war.
0:27:20 > 0:27:23Alistair and Ruth divorced a year later.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27In 1946, Jane and Alistair married,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30a partnership that would last for 58 years.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35Steven, my son, was five years old, so was his son, of course,
0:27:35 > 0:27:37they were both the same age.
0:27:37 > 0:27:42I can remember Steven rushing out as we came out
0:27:42 > 0:27:47of the registry office and turned around and said to Alistair,
0:27:47 > 0:27:49"Hi, Daddy", it was very cute.
0:27:51 > 0:27:58And then it was very sad because they didn't in fact have a very good relationship.
0:27:58 > 0:28:03Alistair wasn't very good with the boys, you know, he just
0:28:03 > 0:28:07warmed to the girls and was distant with the boys.
0:28:14 > 0:28:19I have one vivid memory from when I was quite small,
0:28:19 > 0:28:21maybe five or six years old,
0:28:22 > 0:28:25I had my electric train set up on the floor
0:28:25 > 0:28:29and he got down on the floor and he filmed my electric trains,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32as much as possible making them look like real trains.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36And I had a chance to see that reel of film recently,
0:28:36 > 0:28:43and I was astonished to find that it is all footage of the trains and there's not a frame of me.
0:28:43 > 0:28:46And I thought, if I were visiting my six-year-old boy,
0:28:46 > 0:28:49I would shoot the boy as well as the trains.
0:28:50 > 0:28:56Cooke had certainly not taken the breakdown of his first marriage lightly.
0:28:56 > 0:29:02I think making a break was a very scary thing to do for him.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06I mean when, you consider the way he'd been brought up and everything
0:29:06 > 0:29:10and all that, sort of, Puritanism in his background,
0:29:10 > 0:29:11it must have kicked in.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15I never really thought about it before but, um,
0:29:15 > 0:29:19I think it must have, you know and he must have felt very guilty
0:29:19 > 0:29:21and whenever he felt guilty,
0:29:21 > 0:29:26he would always, sort of, hide his feelings, I mean, he was rather like that.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32I had two years of psychiatry
0:29:32 > 0:29:37and I learned a great deal from old man Freud.
0:29:37 > 0:29:41One of them was, trust your unconscious.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44It has a logic all its own.
0:29:44 > 0:29:46It gave me the courage
0:29:46 > 0:29:53to devise a form of doing the talks which was to sit down and write them.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56Whatever came to mind.
0:29:56 > 0:29:59The 'talks' were of course the Letters From America,
0:29:59 > 0:30:02After the seriousness of wartime reporting,
0:30:02 > 0:30:04his idea was to broadcast something lighter
0:30:04 > 0:30:09about "the springs of American life, rather than the bright headlines themselves", as he put it.
0:30:09 > 0:30:15The BBC liked the idea, and in 1946, Letter From America began.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18I want to tell you what it's like
0:30:18 > 0:30:24to come back to the United States after a sobering month in Britain
0:30:24 > 0:30:29and say what daily life feels and looks like by comparison.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34I hope the next Letter will be more cheerful than this one
0:30:34 > 0:30:39but I thought you'd like to know how it feels to have left austere,
0:30:39 > 0:30:47shivery, old England and got back to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!
0:30:47 > 0:30:51Letter From America, which started less than a year
0:30:51 > 0:30:53after the end of the second war,
0:30:53 > 0:30:59is a job he invented for himself - I think that probably gave him more
0:30:59 > 0:31:01satisfaction than anything.
0:31:01 > 0:31:06We all would like to find a job for which we're perfectly suited and he did it.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09What impressed me about his journalism was his...
0:31:11 > 0:31:14..his uncanny commitment to...
0:31:14 > 0:31:17exactly 2,200 words to describe a situation.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22It didn't matter what the historical perspective was,
0:31:22 > 0:31:26Give him a typewriter and he could give you 2,200 words
0:31:26 > 0:31:29which is exactly the length of time of his broadcast.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32If you could start at the beginning
0:31:32 > 0:31:36and read through them all, 2,869, I believe,
0:31:36 > 0:31:42you would know this country so well, because it wasn't just politics,
0:31:42 > 0:31:47it was talking about everyday things.
0:31:47 > 0:31:52He had a marvellous capacity to find interest in what happened today,
0:31:52 > 0:31:56he didn't have to reach into history though he knew history consummately,
0:31:56 > 0:32:00but I think in that sense, he was a true journalist.
0:32:01 > 0:32:03I think he was able to convey
0:32:03 > 0:32:07the essence of the country as a whole and not just
0:32:07 > 0:32:10the Washington scene or the New York scene.
0:32:10 > 0:32:16He was able to show that there's an America beyond
0:32:16 > 0:32:20which is hugely important and very little understood.
0:32:20 > 0:32:25In the Letter, he tried to travel through America in many ways,
0:32:25 > 0:32:30either physically through America or in thought or in events.
0:32:42 > 0:32:48For me, he does not reveal himself very much in these letters,
0:32:50 > 0:32:54he doesn't reveal his thoughts...
0:32:55 > 0:33:00He's telling it how he sees it but it doesn't tell you what he thinks of it.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09He became Chief American correspondent of the Manchester Guardian in 1947,
0:33:09 > 0:33:13and there too, he conformed to a strict code of neutrality.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21For someone who made his career in reporting the news in particularly
0:33:21 > 0:33:24political events and figures,
0:33:24 > 0:33:29he was very close to the chest about his own inclinations
0:33:29 > 0:33:35and was very proud of never telling us whom he was going to vote for.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40He did have some people in American politics
0:33:40 > 0:33:42whom he really admired -
0:33:42 > 0:33:49he had great fondness for Adlai Stevenson and great admiration for him,
0:33:49 > 0:33:55I can't tell you whether or not he voted for him, I suspect he did.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59Well, Alistair was a newspaper man you see, so he interviewed him
0:33:59 > 0:34:02and he was a very charming newspaper man
0:34:02 > 0:34:08and I was a devoted volunteer for Stevenson, I worked very hard on it.
0:34:08 > 0:34:13He broke his rule in supposedly about not consorting with politicians,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16he broke that rule as far as Adlai was concerned
0:34:16 > 0:34:20because Adlai was so much, I think, in the sort of
0:34:20 > 0:34:23same social circle as he travelled in.
0:34:25 > 0:34:31Bogie and I were campaigning with Adlai Stevenson,
0:34:31 > 0:34:34for Adlai Stevenson in 1952
0:34:34 > 0:34:36when he was running for president.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39And that's when I met Alistair Cooke who was covering
0:34:39 > 0:34:42Adlai for the Guardian,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46and, er, we just became instant friends.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52When Bogie and I were on Adlai Stevenson's train going from Boston to New York
0:34:52 > 0:34:56and I remember Bogie and I were sitting in some compartment
0:34:56 > 0:35:00and the door opened and Alistair stuck his head in and said,
0:35:00 > 0:35:03"Was it Christ who said 'Be ye perfect'?"
0:35:05 > 0:35:11And Bogie and I thought, is he really asking us this question?!
0:35:11 > 0:35:16Well, I wish I could help you, guv, but sorry!
0:35:16 > 0:35:19But I mean, it's that kind of mentality that...
0:35:19 > 0:35:22They also think that you know as much as they know,
0:35:22 > 0:35:27I mean, you get caught up in that, you are captured by it.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32He was always great with women as you may or may not know,
0:35:32 > 0:35:35and most charming of men.
0:35:35 > 0:35:42Betty Bacall called Alistair Aristotle and he called her Laureen
0:35:42 > 0:35:44just to tease!
0:35:44 > 0:35:49We were just a great match, the four of us,
0:35:49 > 0:35:55because there was no... how you say, 'BS'!
0:36:02 > 0:36:06The Bogarts became a fixture on the Cooke's frequent trips to California.
0:36:06 > 0:36:11He filmed one of the visits with Bacall.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27Back in New York, he had a strict but enjoyable routine.
0:36:27 > 0:36:29Work stopped in time for the 'cocktail hour',
0:36:29 > 0:36:32and evenings were kept for pleasure.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35I was ready for bed, I'd been up with the children since
0:36:35 > 0:36:39I'd gotten them off to school, but I never said no, I'd go.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58I used to love it because they'd bring little souvenirs
0:36:58 > 0:36:59from their night clubs
0:36:59 > 0:37:03and there'd always be a photograph of them together
0:37:03 > 0:37:08on the table in the hall for me to see on my way to school.
0:37:08 > 0:37:10And I just remember, you know,
0:37:10 > 0:37:15the, sort of, smell of liquor and perfume and cigarettes!
0:37:20 > 0:37:24The Cookes moved into a spacious apartment on Fifth Avenue,
0:37:24 > 0:37:27they would stay for more than 50 years.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33The view over Central Park flavoured many of the Letters From America -
0:37:34 > 0:37:39I look up and out as usual at the rolling park and am almost blinded
0:37:39 > 0:37:45by the ice blue sky, the blazing sun and the landscape of snow.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49And chuckle at this deceptive picture,
0:37:49 > 0:37:54since the temperature outside is 18 degrees...
0:37:54 > 0:37:5514 below freezing,
0:37:55 > 0:38:00and no place for yours truly to patter into.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13Visits to family in England were brief and infrequent.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16Holly and Susan only went to Blackpool once.
0:38:18 > 0:38:23Mummy and Daddy and I went to Blackpool in the early summer,
0:38:23 > 0:38:29I think, and it was not like anything else I had ever seen in my life.
0:38:29 > 0:38:34My grandmother, who was a very intelligent
0:38:34 > 0:38:39and strong and to me, humourless woman...
0:38:40 > 0:38:44you know, laid out a great fare for us.
0:38:44 > 0:38:49When we were going up on the train, Daddy was a chain smoker and he
0:38:49 > 0:38:55was sitting around fidgeting because he couldn't smoke cos he didn't want her to smell the cigarettes on him.
0:38:55 > 0:39:01I had this recollection that Mummy and I were sort of trying and that
0:39:01 > 0:39:06I don't remember where Daddy was during that visit, I mean, where was he?
0:39:07 > 0:39:13Then he said, "I think I'll take Holly out to see the tower."
0:39:15 > 0:39:20It emerged very quickly that what he really wanted to do was go walk along the seaboard
0:39:20 > 0:39:26and have a few cigarettes in order to fortify himself for the rest of the evening.
0:39:34 > 0:39:39I have wondered why he didn't attend either of his parents' funerals.
0:39:39 > 0:39:42You know, I think there are many reasons, um, not the least of which
0:39:42 > 0:39:46is that he felt guilty for not having been before,
0:39:46 > 0:39:49that he would only show up at the funeral.
0:39:49 > 0:39:54He also, I think, didn't want to go and be the figurehead -
0:39:54 > 0:39:59"Oh, here comes the Cooke boy made good, back to Blackpool",
0:39:59 > 0:40:02I don't think he relished that role
0:40:02 > 0:40:08and he could excuse it and he was very good at self-delusion,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11say "Oh, I can't, I have a lecture engagement I have to go to here,
0:40:11 > 0:40:14"whatever, I don't have time to go back",
0:40:14 > 0:40:19and he could dismiss it and really put on blinders.
0:40:19 > 0:40:23He was very busy - alongside the Letter and the Guardian reporting,
0:40:23 > 0:40:26in 1952, a TV producer, Robert Saudek,
0:40:26 > 0:40:31asked him to present a new America arts programme called Omnibus.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37I think it was Sunday nights, the event,
0:40:37 > 0:40:39Omnibus, that was the event.
0:40:39 > 0:40:40Such a great show.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43Omaha, Omelette, Omnibus.
0:40:44 > 0:40:49A large number of subjects, all at once. Comprising the same.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53Of all forms and kinds of exceeding variety.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57Omnis, from omnis all, to or for all.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00Well, that's it. Omnibus - something for everybody.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03My impression is that he really enjoyed it
0:41:03 > 0:41:05because it wasn't the same every week.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09# Brightly dawns our wedding day
0:41:09 > 0:41:11# Joyous hour, we give thee greeting
0:41:11 > 0:41:15# Whither, whither Art thou fleeting? #
0:41:15 > 0:41:17About that, now look...
0:41:17 > 0:41:20You know, he got Leonard Bernstein to conduct...
0:41:25 > 0:41:29He got very good actors to perform plays
0:41:29 > 0:41:31and the best thing that I thought,
0:41:31 > 0:41:34was when he interviewed Frank Lloyd Wright.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37My dear Alistair, it isn't using its own form...
0:41:37 > 0:41:40That was just incredible cos Frank Lloyd Wright
0:41:40 > 0:41:44was such an old lion and such an old personality
0:41:44 > 0:41:48and my stepfather was very interested in his architecture and interested in him.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52It would cost you less to be free than to be stupid and confined.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55Well, in terms of hard cash, which I think...
0:41:55 > 0:42:00But it got going and the director or the cameraman, no-one could stop them
0:42:00 > 0:42:03so they had to just roll the credits right over them
0:42:03 > 0:42:08and it's the only time that Daddy ever lost control of someone he was interviewing.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12But I think he didn't really mind because he was such a great man.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18Well, there you have the performer finally being fulfilled
0:42:19 > 0:42:22in many ways. He knew how to use the camera, no question.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very privileged
0:42:26 > 0:42:29to be allowed to look you in the eye for once...
0:42:29 > 0:42:36He spoke to the camera as though he was speaking to one person as I am speaking to you,
0:42:36 > 0:42:42and that is something that a lot of people do not understand about camera.
0:42:42 > 0:42:47If you look into the camera and talk to it
0:42:47 > 0:42:50as though it's a person,
0:42:50 > 0:42:54you connect immediately, and he totally connected.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56Well, let me tell you the setup,
0:42:56 > 0:43:01there's a camera, needless to say, but it looks like no camera that you can buy.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05It has three big black eyes and if I want to look you right in the eye,
0:43:05 > 0:43:08I look at the bottom one which is a big black circle.
0:43:08 > 0:43:13Now the emotional effect of this on somebody like me who's talking to an empty room,
0:43:13 > 0:43:19is to be talking at a man at three feet who's wearing a black patch on his eye, and if he has another eye,
0:43:19 > 0:43:24it's closed, and he stands like that and says "Go on, impress me".
0:43:25 > 0:43:30Omnibus ended in 1961, when the sponsorship dried up.
0:43:30 > 0:43:35Now in his 50s, Cook focused once again on his journalism.
0:43:35 > 0:43:38But the 1960s weren't his best years.
0:43:38 > 0:43:43He had a period, when his career was really,
0:43:43 > 0:43:45you know, sort of stuck in the mud.
0:43:46 > 0:43:50There was some tension with Alistair Hetherington,
0:43:50 > 0:43:52his editor at the Guardian.
0:43:52 > 0:43:57Hetherington was a completely different animal.
0:43:57 > 0:44:00Hetherington was a very reserved,
0:44:00 > 0:44:08rather shy Scot who had very little time for Alistair's flamboyance
0:44:08 > 0:44:11and, you know, his, sort of, obvious bonhomie.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15He didn't appreciate the following that Alistair had, you know,
0:44:15 > 0:44:18he wanted straightforward reporting.
0:44:19 > 0:44:25Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
0:44:25 > 0:44:29Hetherington's criticisms centred on one topic - civil rights.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31And Cooke's insistence that, even there,
0:44:31 > 0:44:33a reporter should be impartial.
0:44:33 > 0:44:38I think, you see, to be a foreign correspondent, you've got to report all sides.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40Now this may be just a function of your character,
0:44:40 > 0:44:44that you're essentially a coward, certainly a fence-sitter.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48It's often occured to me maybe I am, physically, an incredible coward.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52The only way, then, is to try and be as fair as possible to all sides,
0:44:52 > 0:44:54however outlandish they may be.
0:44:54 > 0:44:58I personally find the civil rights movement, the negro problem,
0:44:58 > 0:45:00is so immensely complex,
0:45:00 > 0:45:03so tragic, the conflicts are so tragic,
0:45:03 > 0:45:07that the only people who make me mad are the people who have the answers.
0:45:09 > 0:45:13I think he thought of himself as being a pretty left-wing moderate
0:45:13 > 0:45:17and because he did not take a stand
0:45:17 > 0:45:22and because he was, I think, surrounded by left-wing democrats,
0:45:22 > 0:45:26he became the apologist for a more conservative view.
0:45:26 > 0:45:32He got on the see-saw and balanced out all of those around him.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38The politics of the age also caused discord at home.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41There were arguments over Vietnam.
0:45:41 > 0:45:43And then, a more personal disaster.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49One time that was particularly difficult for him,
0:45:49 > 0:45:54was a time in the 60's when I was visiting my sister in London
0:45:54 > 0:45:57and she at the time had been involved
0:45:57 > 0:45:59in what was later called a cult,
0:45:59 > 0:46:05a religious cult, it was an offshoot of Scientology called The Process.
0:46:05 > 0:46:10And they were real marksmen at brainwashing
0:46:10 > 0:46:14and she had became involved in it, as did I that summer.
0:46:14 > 0:46:18Informing my parents that I was not going to come home,
0:46:18 > 0:46:19that I was going to stay there.
0:46:19 > 0:46:26And it became necessary for them to come and fetch me back from London,
0:46:26 > 0:46:30which was impossible for my father to do -
0:46:30 > 0:46:32he was so upset, he couldn't do it,
0:46:32 > 0:46:37he lay in his bed, curled in a foetal position,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40or pacing the halls of the apartment,
0:46:40 > 0:46:46he simply couldn't do it, he was so terrified and so worried.
0:46:46 > 0:46:51In the end, my mother and my brother came and got me.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59The road trips across America had stopped.
0:46:59 > 0:47:01There were no more home movies.
0:47:04 > 0:47:10But he didn't lose his urge to explain and describe the country to the world.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12And from the traumas of '60s America
0:47:12 > 0:47:16came some of his finest journalistic moments -
0:47:16 > 0:47:17I was never anywhere,
0:47:17 > 0:47:21except suddenly, in the dreadful year of 1968,
0:47:21 > 0:47:23I found I was everywhere...
0:47:28 > 0:47:32He found himself, in particular, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles
0:47:32 > 0:47:35on the 5th of June 1968.
0:47:36 > 0:47:41He was for once travelling with, with Bobby Kennedy.
0:47:41 > 0:47:46For him, Bobby Kennedy had been, I think, a far more important
0:47:46 > 0:47:49political figure than his brother.
0:47:51 > 0:47:55I think he really felt Bobby had greatness in him.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57GUNSHOT RINGS OUT
0:47:57 > 0:48:00He was there in the pantry behind the stage
0:48:00 > 0:48:04where Bobby Kennedy was shot a few seconds after it happened.
0:48:04 > 0:48:08There were flash lights by now and the button eyes of Ethel Kennedy turned to cinders.
0:48:08 > 0:48:13She was slapping a young man and he was saying "Listen, lady, I'm hurt too".
0:48:13 > 0:48:16And down on the greasy floor was a huddle of clothes
0:48:16 > 0:48:20and staring out of it, the face of Bobby Kennedy,
0:48:20 > 0:48:24like the stone face of a child, lying on a cathedral tomb.
0:48:25 > 0:48:28I think it was the fear,
0:48:28 > 0:48:33the intensity of it and the necessity for him at that moment,
0:48:33 > 0:48:37that night, with a pencil and a rough piece of paper,
0:48:37 > 0:48:41to try and scratch out the meaning of this event
0:48:41 > 0:48:45and all he could do was talk about the way he'd seen it.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49He spoke about the woman screaming in the kitchen,
0:48:49 > 0:48:53he spoke about the look on Bobby Kennedy's face,
0:48:53 > 0:48:58he talked about Ethel Kennedy in a way that... Most of us would have gone,
0:48:58 > 0:49:00"Oh, it was chaotic, it was awful",
0:49:00 > 0:49:04and he didn't ever tell it, he showed it.
0:49:04 > 0:49:07He was a great writer because he could see.
0:49:12 > 0:49:17It had always been Cooke's jewelled observer's eye that set him apart.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20Now, almost 40 years after he first arrived at the BBC,
0:49:20 > 0:49:25he was given the chance to tell America's story on television.
0:49:25 > 0:49:32And then he got that America series and whoof, you know, he took off
0:49:32 > 0:49:38like a rocket, and became this star, this television star!
0:49:39 > 0:49:43It encapsulated his work for so many years in the sense
0:49:43 > 0:49:46that he had always tried to show that there is more to America
0:49:46 > 0:49:49than the east coast and Washington -
0:49:49 > 0:49:50this was his opportunity,
0:49:50 > 0:49:54really, to show it and to describe it and I think he was very, very proud of that.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59Cooke began to build his journey through American history
0:49:59 > 0:50:05around the favourite haunts from those first early trips across the country.
0:50:06 > 0:50:10Once again, he was back on the road.
0:50:16 > 0:50:20Well, this may seem to be a very strange place of pilgrimage.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24Here in a bar in New Orleans.
0:50:26 > 0:50:31He became the interpreter of America, not just to Britain but to Americans themselves.
0:50:31 > 0:50:35The book of the series was a phenomenal best-seller.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38And he started the job for which he would become
0:50:38 > 0:50:41best known to Americans, as the host of Masterpiece Theater,
0:50:41 > 0:50:47introducing British period dramas to American audiences on the public television network.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51He was, to them, the quintessential English gentlemen,
0:50:51 > 0:50:54famous enough to appear on Sesame Street!
0:50:54 > 0:50:57Pip-pip and good evening.
0:50:57 > 0:51:00Alistair Cookie here.
0:51:00 > 0:51:05Me delighted to welcome you to Monsterpiece Theater.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14I really don't think that he cared much about fame,
0:51:14 > 0:51:19that's not to say that he didn't quite enjoy it when it came his way.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27People would come up to us when we were in an airplane or something,
0:51:27 > 0:51:29he didn't mind, I minded!
0:51:30 > 0:51:36He liked it, he liked being famous, he did.
0:51:37 > 0:51:39Good evening...
0:51:39 > 0:51:42Oh, I'd better not advertise the brand...
0:51:42 > 0:51:47He was approached by many big advertising organisations
0:51:47 > 0:51:51to use the voice and his presence to advertise product.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54Always refused.
0:51:54 > 0:52:00In the '70s, he was offered at the time, 250,000,
0:52:00 > 0:52:03which was real money then, you know,
0:52:03 > 0:52:06to do commercials for one of these big banks and turned it down.
0:52:08 > 0:52:13He was one of the most morally upstanding people I've ever met,
0:52:13 > 0:52:16he believed that interest was usury.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19"Keep your money in a checking account
0:52:19 > 0:52:23"because if you get any interest, that's morally wrong."
0:52:23 > 0:52:30His security was in his sense of propriety and ethics and yet,
0:52:30 > 0:52:35no-one enjoyed a good time better than he did so he lived in that conflict
0:52:35 > 0:52:42and, you know, was that the forbidden fruit, is that what makes it so appealing? It probably is.
0:52:42 > 0:52:47I think that inside every conservative there is, if not an anarchist,
0:52:47 > 0:52:53there is a hellion who'd like to get out and raise a little dust!
0:52:53 > 0:52:57He did have quite a number of younger people that he liked to,
0:52:57 > 0:53:01surround himself with, and his idea of good night out
0:53:01 > 0:53:07or maybe a good night in, depending on how you look at it, was following a routine.
0:53:07 > 0:53:13He would have a little 45-minute nap and then get up in time for
0:53:13 > 0:53:18the news and getting the ice, because cocktail time was coming.
0:53:22 > 0:53:24He was a wonderful host -
0:53:24 > 0:53:28of course you couldn't get a word in edgewise, because he held the floor.
0:53:28 > 0:53:33One was kind of greedy to hear what he said,
0:53:33 > 0:53:36he was always so amusing, so enlivening.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38He talked all the time,
0:53:38 > 0:53:44he was a terrific talker, not a silent partner!
0:53:46 > 0:53:50He had an encyclopaedic store of conversation pieces,
0:53:50 > 0:53:53for example, about his passion for golf.
0:53:53 > 0:53:58He loved golf, oh, did he love to play golf!
0:54:00 > 0:54:03It was his 50s before he started playing golf.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06I thought it was a great thing because he...
0:54:06 > 0:54:11was not from a generation that took up exercise for one's own betterment.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17Jane once said, "He doesn't like the out of doors"!
0:54:17 > 0:54:20How extraordinary!
0:54:27 > 0:54:30It's absolutely typical of my father
0:54:30 > 0:54:34that once he's started learning to play the game of golf,
0:54:34 > 0:54:36he would immediately learn its entire history
0:54:36 > 0:54:39and thereafter, write about it authoritatively.
0:54:40 > 0:54:44In 1992, he retired from Masterpiece Theater,
0:54:44 > 0:54:47the end of a 40-year television career.
0:54:47 > 0:54:50But it was not the end of his picturing of America.
0:54:50 > 0:54:54In hundreds of photographs from his office window and with words,
0:54:54 > 0:54:57in his weekly Letter, where he painted his own pictures,
0:54:57 > 0:55:00patiently and passionately.
0:55:01 > 0:55:07As he got older, the Letter was the focus and he sat down every night
0:55:07 > 0:55:09and watched the news and read the papers,
0:55:09 > 0:55:12all in preparation for the Letter,
0:55:12 > 0:55:15to be thinking about what he might like to write about,
0:55:15 > 0:55:17what was piquing his interest
0:55:17 > 0:55:20and that was the focus of the week.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24The Letter really was Alistair's life
0:55:24 > 0:55:27and he said on many occasions,
0:55:27 > 0:55:31that the day he stopped doing the Letter
0:55:31 > 0:55:38would be the day that he died or was no longer capable or able of recording.
0:55:42 > 0:55:44These were from 2004, I believe,
0:55:44 > 0:55:49when the news of his retirement from Letter From America
0:55:49 > 0:55:52was made known, and lots of people wrote to him
0:55:52 > 0:55:54to say how much they would miss
0:55:54 > 0:55:57hearing him on Friday night or Sunday morning.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00It's amazing that they reached him.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02"Alastair Cooke, overlooking Central Park,"
0:56:02 > 0:56:09"Alastair Cooke, Letter From America, apartment overlooking the park, New York."
0:56:09 > 0:56:16"The famous letter writer, Alastair Cooke, an apartment overlooking Central Park."
0:56:16 > 0:56:24It's amazing that the postal service knew who he was, they must have seen these many, many times.
0:56:25 > 0:56:30Alistair Cooke announced his retirement in 2004,
0:56:30 > 0:56:31at the age of 95.
0:56:32 > 0:56:34Four weeks later, he was dead.
0:56:36 > 0:56:41He did ask that his ashes be sprinkled in Central Park.
0:56:43 > 0:56:45I took that to heart and I realised that, of course,
0:56:45 > 0:56:47this was probably not something
0:56:47 > 0:56:50that you applied to the City for permission to do.
0:56:50 > 0:56:56So when the family was all gathered, I sent them all around the corner
0:56:56 > 0:57:02to Starbucks and I said go and fetch 11 white coffee cups with lids.
0:57:03 > 0:57:08There we all were on an afternoon and no-one thinks anything about a bunch of people in black
0:57:08 > 0:57:11walking with a coffee cup around New York.
0:57:12 > 0:57:20My brother John sang a little ballad and I said a prayer and a psalm
0:57:20 > 0:57:25and...we scattered the ashes right there.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29It's nice to go back now and run past
0:57:29 > 0:57:34and wonder at why those particular asters have such vigour!
0:57:37 > 0:57:42ALISTAIR COOKE: And so, I just want to say to all those men and women,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45a very grateful thank you.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49So good night and goodbye.
0:57:53 > 0:57:59Just a neat little postcard-sized machine.
0:57:59 > 0:58:00Aww.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03A la recherche du temps perdu.
0:58:06 > 0:58:09# Oh, blue skies
0:58:09 > 0:58:12# Smiling at me
0:58:12 > 0:58:15# Nothing but blue skies
0:58:15 > 0:58:19# Do I see... #
0:58:49 > 0:58:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:52 > 0:58:56E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk