Elisha Cook, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Elisha Cook, Jr. | |
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| Born | Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. December 26, 1903 San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Died | May 18, 1995 (aged 91) Big Pine, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1930–1988 |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Lou Cook (1929-1942) |
Elisha Vanslyck Cook, Jr.[1] (December 26, 1903[2][1] – May 18, 1995) was an American actor who made a career out of playing cowardly villains and neurotics in dozens of films. He was noted for his portrayal of the "gunsel" Wilmer, who tries to intimidate Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.[3]
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[edit] Career
Cook started out in vaudeville and stock by age 14. He was a traveling actor in the East and Midwest before arriving in New York City, where Eugene O'Neill cast him in his play Ah, Wilderness!, which ran on Broadway for two years.[3]
In 1936, Cook settled in Hollywood and, after playing a series of college-aged parts, began a long stint playing weaklings or sadistic losers and hoods. His acting career spanned over sixty years. Cook's characters usually ended up being killed off (strangled, poisoned or shot); he was arguably Hollywood's most notable fall guy for many years. He made a rare appearance in slapstick comedy in the cameo role of The Screenwriter in Hellzapoppin', 1941. In Universal's Phantom Lady, he portrays a slimy, intoxicated nightclub-orchestra drummer.
Other notable roles included Wilmer the "gunsel" in The Maltese Falcon(1941), a henchman of the title character in Born to Kill, Harry Jones in The Big Sleep (1946), the pugnacious ex-Confederate soldier Torrey in Shane (1953), and George Peatty, the hen-pecked husband to Marie Windsor, in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). He also starred in William Castle's classic horror film House on Haunted Hill, released in 1959.
Cook played a private detective in a 1953 episode of Adventures of Superman TV series titled Semi-Private Eye. He played lawyer Samuel T. Cogley in the Star Trek episode "Court Martial", Isaac Isaacson on the Batman TV series, and later had a long-term recurring role as Icepick on Magnum, P.I.
He also played Elliott Ness in the final season of "The Odd Couple", in a flashback episode entitled "Our Fathers," in which Jack Klugman and Tony Randall portray their characters’ fathers in Roaring ‘20s Chicago. He shows up in a cameo towards the end of the episode, when he saves the lives of the fathers from some Chicago gangsters. When they ask him who he is, he replies, "Ness...Elliott Ness."
[edit] Personal life
Cook was born in San Francisco, the son of Elisha Vanslyck Cook, Sr. (1870-?), a pharmacist.[4] He grew up in Chicago.
Cook married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Lou Cook in 1929, but they divorced in 1942. His second marriage, which lasted until his death, was to Peggy McKenna Cook in 1944. He had no children, although he spent time raising a niece. He lived in Bishop, California, typically summering on Lake Sabrina in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
According to John Huston, who directed him in The Maltese Falcon:[5]
"[Cook] lived alone up in the High Sierra, tied flies and caught golden trout between films. When he was wanted in Hollywood, they sent word up to his mountain cabin by courier. He would come down, do a picture, and then withdraw again to his retreat."
Cook died on 18 May 1995 in Big Pine, California.[3]
[edit] Filmography
[edit] References
- ^ a b California Death Index
- ^ Social Security Death Index
- ^ a b c Thomas Jr., Robert McG. (May 21, 1995). "Elisha Cook Jr., Villain in Many Films, Dies at 91.". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5D91531F932A15756C0A963958260. "Elisha Cook Jr., whose intense, bug-eyed portrayal of Wilmer, the psychotic, baby-faced killer in "The Maltese Falcon," made him a cult figure to a generation of moviegoers, died on Thursday at a nursing home in Big Pine, California. He was 91. He was the last surviving cast member of John Huston's 1941 film noir classic, whose company included Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor."
- ^ 1900 US Census
- ^ Huston, John (1994), An Open Book, Da Capo Press, p. 79, ISBN 9780306805738, http://books.google.com/books?id=pqbsPJlscyYC&pg=PA79&dq=%22Elisha%20Cook,%20Jr.%22
Dark Passage (1947)
He also appeared in an episode of TV comedy Alf as uncle Albert
[edit] External links
- Elisha Cook Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
- Elisha Cook Jr. at the TCM Movie Database
- Elisha Cook, Jr. at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
- Find-A-Grave profile for Elisha Cook Jr.
