Fun & Games with Alistair Cooke
On Sport and Other Amusements
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- $179.00
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- $179.00
Descripción editorial
From Duke Ellington to Churchill Downs, championship golf to Greta Garbo, Alistair Cooke reports on the popular sports and entertainments he loved the most
This delightful anthology, drawn from Alistair Cooke's Letter from America BBC broadcasts as well as his reporting for the Guardian, showcases the legendary journalist's wide range of sporting pleasures, which include golf, tennis, baseball, and horse racing, and records memorable fun he had with favorite movies, theater productions, and jazz performances.
Included here are perceptive portraits of sports personalities such as Gabriela Sabatini, Arnold Palmer, and Sugar Ray Robinson, whom Cooke regarded as the best fighter in the history of boxing. "A Mountain Comes to Muhammad" captures Muhammad Ali in victory; "Come-Uppance for the 'Onliest Champion' " portrays him in defeat. A "Revised (Soviet) History of Baseball" humorously details Russian misconceptions about America's pastime, a.k.a. beizbol. In "The Road to Churchill Downs," Cooke captures the sights and sounds of Kentucky's crown jewel and delights in the joy that his young daughter, Susan, who appears with her father on the cover of this edition, takes in the sport of kings.
Sharing the spotlight are celebrities of the Hollywood variety, including Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Groucho Marx, and Charlie Chaplin. Filled with Cooke's infectious enthusiasm for fun and games of wide variety, the lighter side of the legendary journalist's output will be enjoyed by devotees of popular culture.
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Cooke, retired host of Masterpiece Theater, has compiled 49 of his short pieces, mostly written for the Manchester Guardian between 1940 and 1994, that cover the gamut from cricket to baseball. Boxing is given prime space, with two profiles of Sugar Ray Robinson, in his prime (``An Epic of Courage'') and in his decline (``Sugar Ray's Downfall''); and two of Muhammad Ali, in victory (``A Mountain Comes to Muhammad'') and defeat (``Come-Uppance for the `Onliest Champion'"). There are essays on tennis (``The Money Game'' and ``My Life with Gabriela Sabatini'') and the Kentucky Derby (``The Road to Churchill Downs''). Nineteen selections are reserved for golf, its heroes, tribulations and vicissitudes. Best, however, are the portraits that have hardly anything to do with sport. There are wonderful profiles-of Frenchman Eric Tabarly, who in 1964 sailed solo across the Atlantic in 27 days, one hour and 56 minutes to break Chichester's 1962 record; and of nightclub owner Max Cohen (``Oasis in Baltimore,'' 1940). Cooke's obituaries for Gary Cooper, Duke Ellington and Charlie Chaplin are touching and informative. A mixed bag.
