Alistair Cooke

[BurtWorm]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3581573.stm


Obituary: Alistair Cooke


Esteemed writer and BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke, famed for his programme Letter From America, has died aged 95. BBC News Online looks back at his long and respected career.

For more than half a century, Alistair Cooke's weekly broadcasts of Letter from America for BBC radio monitored the pulse of life in the United States and relayed its strengths and weaknesses to 50 countries.

His retirement from the show earlier this month after 58 years, due to ill health, brought a flood of tributes for his huge contributing to broadcasting.


...


Alistair Cooke made his first visit to the United States in 1932, on a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship which took him to both Yale and Harvard universities.

Following his return to Britain, he became the BBC's film critic and, in 1935, London correspondent for America's National Broadcasting Corporation.

He returned to the United States in 1937 to work as a commentator on American affairs for the BBC. He made his home there and, in 1941, became an American citizen.