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Alexander Cooke
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexander Cooke (died February 1614) was a boy player and actor in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men.
Edmond Malone originated the hypothesis, still current though far from certain, that Cooke originated all of Shakespeare's principal female roles. That he played female roles is widely accepted, though specifics are scarce. He appears near the end of the list of "principal actors" included in the First Folio. He appears also in the cast lists for Ben Jonson's Sejanus (1603), in which he may have played Agrippina, and Volpone (1605), in which he may have been Lady Would-be. He is also named in the cast-lists for Jonson's The Alchemist (1610) and Catiline (1611) and for Beaumont and Fletcher's The Captain (ca. 1612).
Cooke appears to have been apprenticed to John Heminges, a King's Man who was also a member of the Grocers' Company, but he does not seem to have claimed freedom of this company; Heminges, along with Henry Condell, was named as trustee of Cooke's four children in his will. He resided in Hill's Rents, Southwark.
He became a shareholder in the King's Men in 1604, when the number of shareholders was expanded to twelve. He apparently ceased acting around 1612, and died in 1614.
- F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
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