Alistair Cooke

British-born American journalist and broadcaster. Cooke was born in Salford, Manchester: his father was an iron-fitter and Methodist lay-preacher. He grew up in Blackpool where his parents ran a guest house. Here he first came into contact with Americans, in the form of GIs on their way to fight in World War One. He won a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he studied English. A fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund subsequently enabled him to study theatre at Yale and Harvard for two years. In 1934 he got his first broadcasting job, as a film critic for the BBC, but soon returned to the States and in 1941 became a US citizen. For a time he worked as a freelance journalist for The Times, reporting from New York. Then in 1945 he joined The Guardian as its US correspondent, a position he held until 1972. His first job was to cover the creation of the United Nations. In March 1946 he began a radio programme for the BBC called "American Letter". This was a series of 15-minute br