Baldwin Gardiner Cooke (1888-1953) was a vaudeville comedian who toured with Stan Laurel, establishing a friendship that later secured him roles in around thirty Laurel and Hardy pictures, including a number of the foreign-language versions. His first screen appearance was as one of the motorists in Two Tars (1928). The following year he was the angry neighbour who puts a brick through the Model-T’s windscreen in Perfect Day (1929).
Cooke acted in a couple of dozen features and around seventy shorts at the Hal Roach studio, including with the Little Rascals and Charley Chase. His final screen appearance was in Of Mice and Men (1940)/
‘Baldy’ Cooke was in five MGM musicals, four of which, unsurprisingly, featuring Laurel and Hardy: Hollywood Party, Babes in Toyland, The Bohemian Girl and Swiss Miss. The fifth was Ship Ahoy.
