He built his repertoire by poking fun at his Italian-American heritage. Later, he openly insulted stars he worked with, including Frank Sinatra and Howard Stern. Pat Cooper, a stand-up comedian who sparked outrage with his routines, spent over 50 years dressed in a tuxedo and Clark Kent-style glasses, delivering sharp-witted commentary on his roots, family, those who offended him, and nearly everything that concerned him. Read more about the life and career of this famous Brooklyn comedian on brooklynski.info.
A Not-So-Happy Childhood
Pasquale Vito Caputo was born on July 31, 1929, in Brooklyn and grew up in the Midwood and Red Hook neighborhoods. His father, Michele, was a bricklayer, while his mother, Louisa, was a homemaker. His childhood was far from joyful and carefree. He repeatedly attempted to leave home to join the Marine Corps, Air Force, or Navy, but was always turned away. In 1952, he was drafted into the Army and stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, but was soon discharged, partly due to his impossible behavior.
Returning to New York, he married a woman named Nola and had two children with her. All the while, he honed his skills as a stand-up comedian while earning a living as a taxi driver. Cooper Americanized his name when he began performing in the Catskills in the early 1960s, changing from Pasquale Caputo to Pat Cooper. This decision further angered his family.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, he is credited with introducing the term “Bada-bing,” first heard in a comedy routine called An Italian Wedding. However, Cooper never claimed to have coined the phrase himself.
Later, he appeared alongside Robert De Niro as a mobster in the hit comedy Analyze This and its sequel, Analyze That, which also starred Billy Crystal. Additionally, he featured in the famous documentary about the world’s dirtiest joke, The Aristocrats.
Cooper’s first marriage ended in divorce in 1961. He was almost completely estranged from his children, Michael and Louisa Caputo.
His second wife, singer Patti Del Prince, died of cancer in 2005. In 2018, he married his third wife, Conner. Besides her, he was survived by his children from his first marriage and a daughter from his second.
“We’re Comedians – We’re Not Dogs”
He developed a new style of performance that included sound effects while working in small clubs in Baltimore and New York during the 1950s. At the time, this was a novelty. The comedy scene was dominated by Jewish comedians who joked about their families and culture, but there were no Italian-American comics doing the same. Cooper was among the first, although many people in the entertainment industry initially assumed he was Jewish.
His big break came in 1963 with an appearance on The Jackie Gleason Show. Soon, he was opening for major performers like Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Tony Bennett, Jerry Lewis, and Sammy Davis Jr., in clubs and casinos, including Manhattan’s Copacabana and The Sands in Las Vegas. He made frequent appearances on TV shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Dean Martin, and Mike Douglas. He also released several comedy albums, the most famous being Spaghetti Sauce and Other Delights.
The title was a parody of Whipped Cream and Other Delights by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, whose cover featured a woman wearing nothing but whipped cream. Cooper’s album cover showed him covered in marinara sauce, seemingly naked behind a mound of spaghetti. Audiences laughed at the Italian-American stereotypes, but the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League did not. They even threatened to sue him, although no lawsuit was ever filed.
Despite his success, Cooper’s comedy had a devastating impact on his personal life. He became estranged from his parents, siblings, first wife Dolores Nola, and children. He believed they simply could not handle his success.
Feuds with Fellow Celebrities
Cooper’s sharp tongue and refusal to hold back led to multiple public feuds. At one of his final performances opening for Paul Anka, he walked onstage and accused Anka of never greeting him.
He also had a contentious relationship with Johnny Carson. Cooper once claimed that a drunken Carson urinated on his leg in a men’s restroom. After loudly confronting him about it, he was never invited back to The Tonight Show.
Another famous conflict involved Frank Sinatra. Cooper recalled a time when Sinatra asked him to cut some of his jokes before the singer went on stage. As Cooper later told The Daily News in 1997, he responded, “Hey, Frank, do I tell you what songs to sing?”
Howard Stern, who was drawn to Cooper’s abrasiveness, invited him onto his radio show dozens of times starting in the mid-1980s. On one occasion, Stern even brought Cooper’s estranged children, Michael and Louisa Caputo, along with his mother, onto the show, leading to an on-air argument.
Despite these feuds, Cooper continued performing in clubs and casinos, as well as participating in Friars Club Roasts, until he retired in 2012. Even in retirement, he insisted that the showbiz industry had treated him unfairly.