Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. (December 26, 1903 – May 18, 1995) was an American character actor famed for his work in film noir. According to Bill Georgaris of They Shoot Pictures, Don't They,[citation needed] Cook appeared in a total of 21 films noir, more than any other actor or actress. He played cheerful, brainy collegiates until he was cast against type as the bug-eyed baby-faced psychopathic killer Wilmer Cook in the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon. [1] He went on to play deceptively mild-mannered villains. Cook's acting career spanned more than 60 years, with roles in productions including The Big Sleep, Shane, The Killing, House on Haunted Hill, and Rosemary's Baby.
Born in San Francisco, California, and raised in Chicago,[1][2] Cook was the son of Elisha Vanslyck Cook Sr., a journalist and sometime playwright,[3][4][5] and actress Helen Roslyn Henry.[2][6][7][8] He first worked in theater lobbies selling programs, but by the age of 14 he was already performing in vaudeville and stock.[4] In 1933, Eugene O'Neill cast him in the role of Richard Miller in his play Ah, Wilderness, which ran on Broadway for two years.[1]
Cook enlisted in the United States Army in Los Angeles, California, on August 15, 1942.[9] According to his enlistment record he stood 5-feet-5-inches tall and weighed 123 pounds.[10] Cook's military record documents his level of education at "3 years of high school,"[9] received at St. Albans School for Boys in Sycamore, Illinois.[11][12]
In 1930, Cook traveled to California, where he made his film debut in Hollywood's version of the play Her Unborn Child, a motion picture directed by Albert Ray and produced by Windsor Picture Plays Inc.[13]
AtTwentieth Century-Fox, Cook made an impression as a bespectacled college freshman with radical ideas in the musical comedy Pigskin Parade (1936). He was also featured in the unofficial sequel, Life Begins in College (1937). Cook remained at Fox for two years, and then began freelancing at other studios. He did return to Fox occasionally in prominent roles: as a songwriter in the Alice Faye-Betty Grable musical Tin Pan Alley (1940), and as a mobster disguised as an old woman in the Laurel and Hardy feature A-Haunting We Will Go (1942). Typical of his early, bookish roles was his turn as a meek screenwriter in the madcap Olsen and Johnson comedy Hellzapoppin (1941).
After The Maltese Falcon, Cook became typecast again, as weaklings or sadistic losers and hoodlums, who in the plots were usually murdered, either being strangled, poisoned or shot. In Universal's Phantom Lady (1944), he portrays a slimy, intoxicated nightclub-orchestra drummer to memorable effect. He received excellent notices for his portrayal of a happy, breezy disc jockey who turns out to be a homicidal maniac in The Falcon's Alibi (1946). He also had a substantial, though uncredited role as Bobo in the 1953 film noir production I, the Jury.[citation needed]
Cook appeared on a wide variety of American television series from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. He played a private detective, Homer Garrity, in an episode of Adventures of Supermantelevision series titled "Semi-Private Eye," airing for the first time on January 16, 1954. That same year, on April 12, he guest-starred on NBC's The Dennis Day Show. In 1960, he was cast in the episode "The Hermit" of the ABCsitcomThe Real McCoys with Walter Brennan. He appeared too in 1960 as Jeremy Hake in the episode "The Bequest" of the ABC western series The Rebel, which starred Nick Adams. He also portrayed the character Gideon McCoy in the 1966 episode "The Night of the Bars of Hell" on The Wild Wild West. He performed as well in the second episode of ABC's crime drama The Fugitive.
Cook made two guest appearances on the CBS courtroom drama series Perry Mason. In 1958, he played Art Crowley in "The Case of the Pint-Sized Client", and in 1964 he played Reelin' Peter Rockwell in "The Case of the Reckless Rockhound". Cook portrayed lawyer Samuel T. Cogley in the Star Trek 1967 episode "Court Martial",[14] Isaac Isaacson on the Batman television series, Weasel Craig in Salem's Lot, and later had a long-term recurring role as Honolulu crime lord "Ice Pick" on CBS's Magnum, P.I. In October 1969 Cook appeared as Frankie in episode 33 of The Ghost & Mrs. Muir. In 1974 he made a surprise guest appearance on The Odd Couple as government agent Eliot Ness. That same year, he guest-starred as Herbie on Mannix in the 1974 episode "The Green Man."[15] He appeared too in The Bionic Woman episode "Once a Thief" in 1977.[16]
Toward the end of his life, Cook often played dimwitted or cranky elderly characters. He played a bum in an episode of The A-Team as well as an elderly uncle in an episode of Alf, which was one of his last roles prior to his retirement entirely from acting in 1988, followed by his death seven years later.
Cook was married to singer Mary Gertrude Dunckley (known professionally as Mary Lou Cook of the popular vocal quartet The Merry Macs) from 1928 until their divorce on November 4, 1941.[17] He then married Illinois native Elvira Ann (Peggy) McKenna in 1943. The couple were married for twenty-five years until they formally divorced in Inyo County, California, in February 1968. They remarried on December 30, 1971.[18] Their second marriage lasted another nineteen years until Peggy's death on December 23, 1990. Various references about Cook state that he had no children from his marriages; yet, his army enlistment record of 1942 documents his marital status as "Divorced, with dependents," which suggests he may have had a child or children with his first wife, or been responsible for the well-being of others.[9]
Cook never became part of the Hollywood social scene, which he held in low regard. His slight build and calm demeanor belied his offscreen status as a rugged outdoorsman. He resided for many years in Bishop, California, but he typically spent his summers at Lake Sabrina in the Sierra Nevada.[1] According to John Huston, who in 1941 directed him in The Maltese Falcon:
[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.[19]
^ abcdeThomas Jr., Robert McG. (May 21, 1995). "Elisha Cook Jr., Villain in Many Films, Dies at 91". The New York Times. 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. [...] A native of San Francisco who grew up in Chicago, Mr. Cook was a traveling actor in the East and Midwest before going to New York, where Eugene O'Neill picked him to play the juvenile lead in "Ah Wilderness!," which ran on Broadway for two years.
^ abGoodman, Mark (April 1983). "Give 'em the Gunsel". Gentleman's Quarterly. p. 44. ProQuest2686009242. 'My mother was an actress out here,' he begins, 'by the name of Helen Henry. When I was 3 we left San Francisco to move to Chicago. That was two weeks before the quake, so I say I'm here on a rain check. Anyway, when I was growing up, Frank Bacon came to Chicago in Lightnin', at the Blackstone. He said, 'Want to go onstage, kid?' So he got me in by selling programs and doing walk-ons. I did pretty good, so later he says to me, 'Want to go to New York?' He was quite a guy, Mr. Bacon was. When he died in Chicago, his wife calls me up and says, 'He doesn't like to be alone,' so I went out and sat with his body for three days.
^ abc"United States World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938–1946: Cook Jr, Elisha V., enlistment date August 15, 1942, Los Angeles, California, United States; merged database with『Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938–1946,』Access to Archival Databases (AAD), National Archives and Records Administration (2002), National Archives, College Park, Maryland. Transcription of enlistment record available at FamilySearch, a free online genealogical database by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Retrieved July 30, 2017.
^"Her Unborn Child (1930)", Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Turner Broadcasting System, a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc., New York City, New York. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
^"Star Trek". TVGuide.com. Retrieved May 16, 2024.
^Long Beach Independent; May 30, 1944; Page 10; Find Liver Ailment Causes Singers Death
^"California Divorce Index, 1966–1984", divorce of Elvira A. McKenna and Elisha V. Cook, February 1968, Inyo County, California. California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, CA. Transcribed document available on FamilySearch, a free online genealogical database provided as a free public service by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Retrieved July 30, 2017.
Young, Jordan R. (1986) [First published 1975]. "Elisha Cook Jr.". Reel Characters : Great Movie Character Actors (softcover) (Sixth ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Moonstone Press. pp. 13–28. ISBN978-0-940410-79-4.
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