Veteran BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke died on 30 March
2004 at his New York home.
Since 1937 Alistair Cooke
wrote and broadcast on every facet of American life.
He
was special correspondent on American affairs for The Times and
then, for 25 years, The Guardian's chief American correspondent.
But it was his Letter
From America, the longest-running one-man series in the history
of broadcasting, that gave him a special place in people's hearts worldwide.
Alistair
Cooke was born in Manchester in November 1908. Educated in the north
of England, he went on to Cambridge where he took first class honours
in English at Jesus College.
Then, on
a Commonwealth Fellowship, he spent two years in the United States (one
at Yale, one at Harvard), after which he returned to England to become
the BBC's film critic, his first job.
He
did many radio programmes on America and in 1937 returned to the
United States and began his lifetime career on American life.
In
1952, he became known to American audiences for the first time as
writer and host of the pioneering, cultural, 90-minute television
programme, Omnibus.
Twenty
years later, he summed up his knowledge of the American experience
in a 13-hour television series - America: A Personal History of
the United States.
This
BBC production was seen simultaneously in the United States, first
on NBC and then the public television system, and subsequently in
32 countries.
In
1973 he greatly expanded the television scripts into a book, Alistair
Cooke's America, which remained at the top of the bestseller list
for almost a year. It sold two million copies in hardback alone.
In
2002 it was published again by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the
UK and Carroll & Graf in the US.
In
between Alistair Cooke served for 21 years as the host of Masterpiece
Theatre, where he introduced American audiences to British television
drama.
Cooke
describes the experience as, "a very agreeable bit of moonlighting
in old age."
Among
Cooke's many other books are: A Generation on Trial: The USA v.
Alger Hiss; Six Men, Fun & Games; The Patient has the Floor;
Memories of the Great and the Good; One Man's America; Talk About
America; The Americans and America Observed.
In
1973, to honour "his outstanding contribution over many years
to Anglo-American mutual understanding", Alistair Cooke was
made an honorary KBE.
Cooke married
the portrait painter Jane White and lived in New York City.
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