Today in Star Trek history: Film noir actor Elisha Cook Jr. dies
Samuel T. Cogley (Elisha Cook Jr.) defends Captain Kirk (William Shatner) against the charge of murder in "Court Martial"
MAY 18, 2022 - When James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, is accused of murdering a member of his crew, he finds himself in need of a lawyer. That lawyer is Samuel T. Cogley, attorney-at-law. “Court Martial” is the second murder mystery episode of Star Trek (airing several weeks after “The Conscience of the King”), and the man who played the bibliophagic barrister had quite a bit of experience with that particular type of story.
Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. was born on December 26, 1903 in San Francisco, California. He began his career in theater as a child, selling programs in theater lobbies, but by the time he reached the age of 14, he was performing in vaudeville and stock companies. He arrived in New York City as a young man and debuted on Broadway in Hello, Lola in 1926. For the next nine years, he appeared in various productions, eventually being cast by Eugene O’Neill himself in his play Ah, Wilderness, in which he played Richard Miller for two years.
He continued to appear onstage throughout the 1930s, but the same year he was cast in O’Neill’s play, he debuted in Hollywood’s adaptation of the play Her Unborn Child, and his path was set. Cook played a bespectacled college freshman in the musical comedy film Pigskin Parade and appeared in its unofficial sequel, Life Begins in College and quickly found himself type-cast as a fresh-faced college student.
He eventually found himself cast in other roles, such as a songwriter in Tin Pan Alley and a mobster disguised as a woman in Laurel and Hardy’s A-Haunting We Will Go. He was somewhat relieved, as any actor would be, to vary his roles, but it wasn’t long before he became type-cast once again.
The Maltese Falcon, possibly the most famous film noir, was a 1946 adaptation of a Dashiell Hammett novel starring Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet, with a supporting role played by Cook. His character, Wilmer Cook, was Kasper Gutman’s (Greenstreet) lackey. Gutman sells Wilmer out to detective Sam Spade (Bogart), who needs a fall guy. In the novel, Gutman kills Wilmer, but in the film’s final reel, Spade lets him escape.
Cook appeared with Bogie again in The Big Sleep, adapting the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name. Cook’s character, Harry Jones, is “a big man in a small man’s world,” according to Bogart’s Philip Marlowe. This film and the novels of Raymond Chandler have another point of interest for Star Trek fans. The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Big Goodbye” and Captain Picard’s favorite hard-boiled sleuth, Dixon Hill, were inspired by them.
Cook’s career in film noir was just taking off. He also appeared in Phantom Lady, Born to Kill, and I, the Jury. He was usually a weakling, loser, or hoodlum, often with a sadistic streak. In Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, he plays George Peatty, a member of a gang set on stealing $2 million from the money-counting room of a racetrack.
In television, Cook was seen in everything from Adventures of Superman to The Dennis Day Show to the sitcom The Real McCoys to Batman, retiring after his appearance on the 1980s sitcom ALF. His appearance in Star Trek is a memorable one. When Kirk enters his quarters on Starbase 11, he is greeted with piles of books and a man he’s never met. When Kirk has the audacity to suggest a computer would take up less room than all the printed material, he gets an earful.
COGLEY: I’ve got my own system. Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn’t so important, I’d show you something. My library. Thousands of books.
KIRK: And what would be the point?
COGLEY: This is where the law is. Not in that homogenized, pasteurized, synthesizer. Do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language? Learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the tribunal of Alpha 3? Books.
With a little investigation on Spock’s part and some excellent lawyering on Cogley’s, Kirk is found innocent, the man who he purportedly killed having faked his own death, and Kirk is free to roam the galaxy once more.
Elisha Cook Jr., the last surviving member of the main cast of The Maltese Falcon, passed away from a stroke on May 18, 1995. He was 91 years when he died, but his legacy lives on in the television series and films in which he appeared.
Many thanks to Michael Kopko for bringing my attention to Elisha Cook Jr.’s involvement in film noir. Be on the lookout for more noir-adjacent articles in the coming weeks, including an exclusive interview with Brent Spiner on his book, Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir.
Further Reading
Wikipedia: Elisha Cook, Jr.
T is the Managing Editor for Daily Star Trek News and a contributing writer for Sherlock Holmes Magazine and a Shakespeare nerd. He may have been the last professional Stage Manager to work with Leonard Nimoy, has worked Off-Broadway and regionally, and is the union Stage Manager for Legacy Theatre, where he is currently working with Julie Andrews. after which he’ll be working on Richard III at Elm Shakespeare Company.
