Pat Cooper obit

Pat Cooper, Comedian of Outrage, Is Dead at 93

He built his act on making fun of his Italian American heritage. He later publicly insulted stars he had worked with, including Frank Sinatra and Howard Stern.

He was not on the list. 

His father Michael Caputo was a bricklayer from Mola di Bari, Italy and his mother, Louise Gargiulo was born in Brooklyn, New York, where Cooper was also born and raised. Cooper often makes reference to his Italian heritage in his stand up comedy routines.

Cooper started performing in the 1950s, originally for primarily Italian-American audiences. His big break came in 1963 on The Jackie Gleason Show. Afterwards, he played top nightclubs such as the Copacabana, 500 Club, Latin Casino, Palumbo's, Atlantic City and Las Vegas Hotels and casinos. Cooper appeared on the same shows as Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Sergio Franchi, Sammy Davis Jr., Connie Francis, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Darin, Tony Martin, Liza Minnelli and many others.

On May 2, 1969, Cooper and singer Jimmy Roselli premiered in their two-man show at Broadway's Palace Theatre in New York. He has performed at many celebrity roasts at the New York Friars Club which he also played in an episode of Seinfeld titled "The Friar's Club" and was also a frequent guest on many radio shows, most notably The Howard Stern Show (where he had an open invitation to drop in whenever he wanted, and he eventually got so loud and angry he walked out of the studio), Imus in the Morning and Opie and Anthony.

Billboard gave his album Our Hero (1965) a special merit review and said that it "does for the Italian-American community what Jackie Mason did for the Jewish-American community." The following year it stated that his Spaghetti Sauce and Other Delights (1966), an album which consists of one side of spoken comedy and one side of parody songs, was stronger than Our Hero.

Cooper had a legendary appearance on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Coast To Coast show on March 6, 1981, in which he decried "headliners" in the club circuit who often worked with comics as their second act.

Cooper played fictional mobster Salvatore Masiello in the film Analyze This[1] and in the sequel Analyze That, as well as playing lawyer, John Bruno in the 2003 film This Thing of Ours. He has also guest-starred on television series such as Vega$ (episode: "Deadly Blessings"), Charlie's Angels (episode: "Stuntwomen Angels"), It's a Living (episodes: "You're Not Old, You're Fired" and "Horsing Around") and L.A. Law (episode: "Foreign Co-respondent").

Cooper was an occasional contributor to Colin Quinn's late-night show on Comedy Central, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn. In 2005, he released a DVD called You're Always Yelling and in 2010, he co-authored with Steve Garrin and Rich Herschlag his autobiography called How Dare You Say How Dare Me!.

Filmography

 

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1981    Uncle Scam    Agency Chief   

1982    Fighting Back    Harry Janelli  

1997    Silent Prew            Bartender        

1998    Code of Ethics            Mr. DeAngelo        

1999    Analyze This            Salvatore Masiello      

2000    The Boys Behind the Desk                      

2001    Ankle Bracelet            Milt Epstein

2002    Analyze That            Salvatore Masiello      

2003    This Thing of Ours            John Bruno