Michael Cooke Memorial

Assembled by Fayra Teeters

Tribute

by Elna Cooke

Our beloved Michael died on Thursday evening, October 2nd in Culver City. He took his last breath in peace surrounded by his family. We are saddened to lose him, but find solace knowing he is no longer suffering any discomfort from the multiple illnesses that ultimately took his life.

He is remembered as a most loving, charismatic, one-of-a-kind individual – an artist through and through. For those who also loved Michael, we will be holding a Celebration of Life on Saturday, November 8th in Marina Del Rey.

Impressions of Michael Cooke

by Fayra Teeters

I first met Michael in the 1980’s whenever my husband and I would venture into the Los Angeles/Venice region to visit Risa Toor at her duplex, where Michael was her tenant. Risa was responsible for my opening into Subud and served as the matron of honor at my wedding.

I noticed that Michael was ever-present in the Life at the duplex, and served as Risa’s mentor as she wandered through the maze of Hollywood traps and trip-ups as she pursued her new-found career as an actress. When Risa passed on from pancreatic cancer, Michael spoke eloquently at her memorial service, encapsulating the amazing friendship they had shared.

When I first joined the SICA-USA Board in 2022, Michael immediately contacted me to say “mazel tov”, thereby establishing himself as an honorary Jew who knew his “schtick”, and offering any assistance I might need. I replied, “Do you write as well as you speak?” And that was the beginning of Michael’s prolific stream of articles, short stories and musings, high-lights of which appear below:

Excerpt from “The Boy and The Icon”

This is Michael’s memoir of the years spent in the same apartment building as Marilyn Monroe

Finally, the door opened and the one we’d all been waiting for appeared. She paused a moment, radiant. The convocation audibly gasped, then hushed, then cheered, greeting her adoringly. Tentatively she took her first step onto the diamond-tiled lobby floor. She placed one foot after the other as if a tremor were affecting her balance. And then she just stood there a moment. Like the star without question she was, she held stage, and in that moment swept away the entire room. Slowly, she began to dramatically open her arms wide to her multitude, topping off her welcome with the dazzle of a sustained, unstoppable smile that only the one and only Marilyn Monroe could pull off.

Excerpt from “Autumn in New York”

Then magic took place, as if sublimely contrived. The bassist, having put to a halt the fussing of his equipment, leaned over and whispered an “OK” to Mr. Shearing and then readied himself – standing in repose, his arm casually embracing his bass in preparation for the next number. And then without warning, Mr. Shearing, as if there’d been no gap in the performance prior to this moment, glided into a slowly tempered, powerfully delicate, “block-chorded” rich rendition of Autumn in New York. And the breath, as they say, somehow evaporated as in almost ceased to exist from one’s system – suspended in the moment. The strains of the song’s melody and power permeated one’s consciousness as the gradual hearing of the tune in this backdrop generated something close to a near-mystical union of title, melody, harmony, and setting.

From “Transcendent Night at a Talk with Bapak”

The persistent silence was unrelenting, with every Subud member maintaining absolute stillness and quietude. Growing deeper and deeper, the quiet passed into a ten-minute time frame, that became fifteen, heading towards twenty minutes of perfect silence. The quiet and waiting were at the same time both blissful and excruciating.

Then by the unheard ticking on an invisible virtual clock which went well past twenty minutes’ time, the aura shifted. Bapak imperceptibly, ever so slightly, began to stir. . . An elusive sense of Bapak’s breathing in and out was indicated as the power of contact grew fuller, deeper. Bapak’s eyelids began to give way to a surrendered half-close. . . finally Bapak’s eyelids began to bit by bit widen and fully open. . .. Then eventually at Bapak’s calling, he slowly leaned forward towards the microphone and adjusted it – then in Bapak’s inimitable way, said words we may have heard quite an appreciative number of times: “Saudara-Saudara, Sekalian” And Bapak talked to us.

Michael My Dear, by Paul E Nelson

Click here to read this poem as a pdf.

Closing on a light-note of actor whimsey – here is a video of Michael relating the time he ran into Dudley Moore: