Tommy Cooper
Born in Caerphilly, South Wales, at 19 Llwyn Onn Street, Trecenydd, Cooper was delivered by the woman who owned the house in which the family was lodging. His parents were Welsh-born army recruiting sergeant father Thomas H. (Tom) Cooper, and his English-born wife Gertrude (née Gertrude C. Wright) from Crediton, Devon. In light of the heavily polluted air and the offer of a job for his father, the family moved to Exeter, Devon, when Cooper was three and gained the West Country accent that was part of his act. The family lived in the back of Haven Banks, where Cooper attended Mount Radford School for Boys, and helped his parents run their ice cream van, which attended fairs on the weekend. At the age of eight an aunt bought Cooper a magic set and he spent hours perfecting the tricks. Magic ran in his family—his brother David (born 1930) opened a magic shop in the 1960s in Slough High Street (then Buckinghamshire now Berkshire) called D. & Z. Cooper's Magic Shop. On 15 April 1984, Cooper collapsed and soon after died from a heart attack in front of millions of television viewers, midway through his act on the London Weekend Television variety show Live From Her Majesty's, transmitted live from Her Majesty's Theatre. His stage persona required that his act intentionally went wrong for comic purposes, leading to some initial uncertainty about whether this collapse was real.
Acting
Movie
The Plank
as Larger Workman
1967
Movie
It's Your Move
as Big Removal Man
1982
Movie
And the Same to You
as Horace Hawkins
1960
TV
An Audience with...
as Self
1978
TV
Cooper
as Self
1975
Movie
The Best of Tommy Cooper
as Self
2004
TV
Cooper - Just Like That
1978
TV
The Tommy Cooper Hour
as Self
1973
Movie
Parkinson at 50
as Self (archive footage)
2021
Movie
Tommy Cooper: In His Own Words
2018
Movie
The Cool Mikado
as Pooh-Bah, Private Detective
1963
Movie
Tommy Cooper - The Very Best Of
as himself
2006
Movie
An Audience with Joan Rivers
1984
Movie
Tommy Cooper - Tribute To A Comic Genius
2000
TV
It's Tommy Cooper
1970
TV
Life With Cooper
1966
TV
The Bruce Forsyth Show
1959
Movie
Tommy Cooper - Just Like That
Movie
Tommy Cooper: Master Of Comedy
1997
Movie
Tommy Cooper - The Missing Pieces
as himself
2006
Movie
Just Like That!
as Self (archival footage)
1989
Movie
Tommy Cooper - The Magic Touch
1993
Movie
Tommy Cooper - A Feztival Of Fun With Tommy Cooper
as Himself
2001
Movie
Tommy Cooper at the BBC
as Self (archive footage)