With that voice, with those eyes, whatever Alistair Cooke is selling, you're buying. If you like bearnaise sauce, it's all right.' "
'Well, now, tonight we have this with the bearnaise sauce. Then he leans forward - the white sofa begins to form itself into a wing chair - and in his best "Masterpiece Theatre" voice, he continues with his explanation of a headwaiter selling a dish to a diner: "Here's what you say. Don't have it.' " And here he stops, breaking into laughter. You're not saying, 'This is an appalling piece of fish.
"That's where you really revert to your role as headwaiter. "The one I positively disliked was 'After the War.' Did not like that at all."Īnd, yes, of course, he says, it is harder to write an introduction to a piece you don't like. Other favorites, he says, include "To Serve Them All My Days," "Danger UXB" and "Therese Raquin."Īnd does he have a least favorite? "Oh, yes," he says amiably, leaning back into the cushion of a very un-winglike, overstuffed white sofa. Cooke, singling out a downstairs maid and upstairs master in the 55-part series. I mean, I've known everybody in 'Upstairs, Downstairs' - from Ruby up to Richard Bellamy," says Mr. It's so beautifully crafted and so true to those types of people and the way they talk and their view of life. I think 'Upstairs, Downstairs' is unique. But I looked at it again and it's not so. "For many years I've said that my favorite 'Masterpiece Theatre' was 'The Golden Bowl' - the Henry James, which was four parts. Cooke says he decided recently that "Upstairs, Downstairs" is his favorite. His explanations of the way things worked between the masters and servants in an Edwardian household held millions of Americans spellbound in 1972 when "Masterpiece Theatre" ran its Emmy-winning series, "Upstairs, Downstairs." He knows what Americans know and don't know, and what needs to be explained to an American audience." "He sort of invented that role, the role of presenter and recapper and putter-in-context - particularly putting things in context for Americans. "He's become our trademark," says the show's executive producer, Rebecca Eaton. What Alistair Cooke does on "Masterpiece Theatre" is what he's been doing for much of his long career: interpreting the English to their American cousins.
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