Charles "Cookie" Cook, a vaudeville tap and acrobatic dancer and teacher for more than fifty years, began performing as a child with Garbage and the Two Cans and Sarah Venable and Her Picks. In 1930, he and Ernest (Brownie) Brown formed the...
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Charles "Cookie" Cook, a vaudeville tap and acrobatic dancer and teacher for more than fifty years, began performing as a child with Garbage and the Two Cans and Sarah Venable and Her Picks. In 1930, he and Ernest (Brownie) Brown formed the headline dance and comedy team Cook and Brown. Their act, seen in such venues as New York's Cotton Club, combined tumbling, dance, and comedic patter. Cook was one of the members of The Copasetics, the fraternity of black entertainers that was influential in the revival of tap dancing in the late 1970s-1980s. Cook also performed in the film
Cotton Club, at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and at a 1990 tap festival in New York He died at age 77 in 1991. The Charles "Cookie" Cook Collection is actually a scrapbook that has been dismantled. The material focuses primarily on Cookie's later years with few primary source documents. There are several letters, telegrams, and postcards expressing appreciation for his performances, but no letters written by Cook. The collection also includes programs for performances in which Cook appeared, especially with the tap dance group The Copasetics in New York City, and other venues in the United States and Rome (1980-1995), as well as flyers advertising for a variety of performances in which Cook was featured (1961-1979). There are also programs for shows where jazz musicians, singers, and other artists appeared, in addition to news clippings discussing Cook, other tap dancers, and entertainers.
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