Beloved Italian-American comedian Pat Cooper passed away this week at the age of 93, leaving behind countless hours of hilarious, sterling rants. Cooper was known for his pissed-off onstage persona, but in real life, he also harbored a longstanding feud with shock jock Howard Stern, whose radio show Cooper frequented as a recurring guest.
Cooper was a mainstay on the New York comedy scene in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, pumping out hilarious albums, working the clubs relentlessly, and appearances on the Borscht Belt circuit.
Stern, who grew up admiring Cooper, began to invite the comic onto his juggernaut radio show in the ’80s for frequent interviews, delighting as Cooper spouted long, extemporaneous rants prompted by the news of the day.
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Cooper was prickly—when Stern told the comic, “You have an open invitation to come on anytime,” Cooper took this as a grave insult, because he felt he should be explicitly invited.
As his career progressed, Cooper’s combative comedic style eventually managed to alienate his parents, his wife, and his children, from whom he became estranged, and eventually Stern. When Stern brought Michael, Cooper’s estranged son, and Dolores Nola, Cooper’s former wife, on the air, Cooper refused to speak to his estranged family members and began ripping into Stern.
In Private Parts, Stern’s 1993 bestseller, the bad blood escalated when the radio host referred to Cooper as one of the funniest people ever, but left him off his list of favorite comics, naming only Sam Kinison, Eddie Murphy, and Jackie Mason. This, too, was unforgivably insulting to Cooper. Stern invited Cooper onto his show in 1994 to hash it out, leading to another spectacular on-air blowup from Cooper.
In 1995, Cooper made a grand return to the show and the two seemed to make up temporarily, but the detente was never going to last.
In 2001, a New York Magazine reporter overheard Cooper badmouthing Stern to Joy Behar, Patty Hearst, Jerry Orbach, and others at a Friar’s Club lunch in New York City.
At the time, Stern had forbidden radio hosts Opie and Anthony, who worked for Infinity Broadcasting, the same company as Stern, from uttering Stern’s name on their show. “I said, ‘Who are you to tell people what to say?’ ” Cooper said at the time. “How dare you?”
In 2006, Cooper returned once again to Stern’s show, where Stern said he hadn’t seen the comedian in nearly seven years. On this episode, Cooper told Stern to “start eating” because he was “too thin,” advising Stern to spend some of his “half a billion dollars” on food.
Stern then confronted Cooper about making comments about his children on other talk shows; specifically, Stern said, Cooper had said that his children had stopped loving him because some of the things he’d said on-air. Cooper, in turn, said Stern had taken his comments the wrong way.
In 2014, as a guest on Opie and Anthony, Cooper went on a 50-minute tear against Stern.
“I’m not trashing him, I’m telling you he’s full of shit,” Cooper declared. “He told everybody everybody was full of shit, he went after people’s families. You go after his family, he cried. He’s a fuckin’ baby. I’ll go after him 24/7. I was his best fuckin’ guest, the only one that did take his shit, and he’s a spy. He had people out there finding everybody’s personal life.”
“If you talked about his children, he went fuckin’ crazy,” Cooper went on. “Now, he don’t want nobody to even know he has children. You people in America who like him, that’s your privilege. But I learned a lesson. I quit, and I said Pat, it’s over.”
Stern has yet to publicly acknowledge Cooper’s passing, but another frequent guest, Artie Lange, shared this loving tribute on Twitter Wednesday.
