The Two of Us aired from April 1981 until August 1982 on CBS.
Robert Brentwood ( Peter Cook) was a very proper English manservant thrust into a free-wheeling American household in this comedy of lifestyles. Nan Gallagher ( Mimi Kennedy) was a highly successful , divorced career woman, cohost of the New York City TV talk show "Mid-morning Manhattan." ( The other host was the unseen Reggie Philbis-a take off on real life Los Angeles talk show host Regis Philbin) Nan's blind spot was housekeeping. Basically she was a slob around the house, and she desperately needed someone to put her daily life in order. Enter Brentwood, quite by accident. Though initially repelled by the thought of working for a woman ( with a child yet!), he took the challenge. On the one hand sarcastic, sometimes overbearing , and always proper , he also happened to be a gourmet cook, a meticulous organizer, and conversant in several languages-skills which proved invaluable when Nan had to entertain diverse parade of guests. If only he were a little less pompous! Gabby ( Dana Hill) was Nan's teenage daughter and Cubby Royce ( Oliver Clark) was Nan's agent.
When The Two of Us returned in the fall of 1981 after a limited run in the spring, the name of Nan's cohost had been changed from Philbis to Cavanaugh and he was seen regularly in the person of actor Tim Thomerson. Reggie's ego was as big as all outdoors and he was so obnoxious that he had practically no real friends. Needless to say, Reggie and Nan were not the best of friends off camera.
On a sad note actress Dana Hill who played Gabby died at the age of 32 on July 15, 1996 from a stroke which grew from complications from diabetes.
A Review from The New York Times
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: April 6, 1981
On commercial television this evening, specifically on CBS-TV at 8:30, there is a new situation-comedy series called ''The Two of Us.'' Like ''All in the Family,'' ''Sanford and Son'' and countless other projects, this is an American version of a series that originated in Britain. The premise: what happens when a divorced, disorganized, breezily dizzy career woman hires a very proper English butler to oversee her chaotic household? Don't snicker. This is one of the most delightful first episodes to come off the assembly line in many a season.
Martin Starger, the executive producer for Marble Arch Productions, has been shrewd enough to surround himself with proven talent. The gentlemen's gentleman is played with wickedly threatening aplomb by Peter Cook, a co-author and star of the landmark satiric revue ''Beyond the Fringe.'' And Mimi Kennedy has the role of Nan Gallagher, who is co-host of a television talk show called ''Mid-Morning Manhattan.'' Miss Kennedy is a comic original, managing to suggest an unlikely combination of Nancy Walker, Beatrice Lillie and Gilda Radner. She has been delightful in such television efforts as ''3 Girls 3'' and ''Just Friends.'' This new venture may just provide the leap to stardom she deserves.
''The Two of Us'' does not rely on one-line zingers for its laughs. The comedy bounces off the characters as they cope in their very different ways. Mr. Cook and Miss Kennedy are an instant team, creating the remarkable impression that they have been flawlessly playing together for years. Charlie Hauck, the series producer, wrote the first episode, neatly skewering some of the more blatant lunacies of upper-middle-class survival in cosmopolitan New York. Miss Kennedy winds up greeting a delegation of Chinese visitors to her apartment with a heartfelt declaration of ''buenas dias.'' Asaad Kelada directed.
Here is Peter Cook's Obituary from The New York Times
Peter Cook, Madcap British Performer, Dies at 57
By MEL GUSSOW
Published: January 10, 1995
Peter Cook, one of the four creators of the ground-breaking satiric revue "Beyond the Fringe," died on Monday at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He was 57 and lived in London.
The cause was a gastrointestinal hemorrhage, his family said. He had entered the hospital on Jan. 3.
"Beyond the Fringe," a hit in London and then on Broadway (in 1962), established the reputations of Mr. Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore as writers and performers, and opened the door to a new, irreverent style of comedy. Mr. Cook was the tall actor of the quartet, the one who looked normal but turned out to have a wild, even fiendish sense of humor.
Mr. Cook went on to additional fame in partnership with Mr. Moore, writing and starring in "Good Evening," a long-running revue that opened on Broadway in 1973. The two were a symbiotic team, the long and short of British comedy.
"Good Evening" reached a height of hilarity when Mr. Moore interviewed Mr. Cook, playing the owner of the Frog and Peach, a restaurant with a limited menu where a young couple without much money could get "a really big frog and a damned fine peach." In another sketch, the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak, when Mr. Moore, playing a one-legged actor auditioning for the role of Tarzan, was quietly informed by Mr. Cook as a theatrical producer that he was "deficient in the leg division, to the tune of one."
Mr. Cook also wrote screenplays and appeared in films. He was a founder of the Establishment, a satirical nightclub in London, and was a partner in the Off Broadway version of the Establishment, which was both a club and a revue. In addition, he was a publisher and editor of the satiric magazine Private Eye.
He was born in Torquay, England, and graduated from Cambridge, as did Mr. Miller. Mr. Moore and Mr. Bennett went to Oxford. Of the four, Mr. Cook began with the most theatrical experience, having contributed sketches to London revues. They first appeared together in 1960 at the Edinburgh Festival. "Beyond the Fringe" went on to become an international success. For it, the troupe won a special Tony Award and a special citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle.
When the "Fringe" company disbanded, each went his own way. Mr. Bennett became a playwright, Mr. Miller a director and Mr. Moore a film actor. Mr. Cook had a more limited career, but one that was always highlighted by his reunions with Mr. Moore on stage and in films. They appeared in the British television comedy "Not Only but Also," made record albums and, in 1993, did a video as the boorish characters Derek and Clive.
Mr. Cook and Mr. Moore both acted in the film "The Wrong Box" (1966), playing Ralph Richardson's greedy nephews. Among Mr. Cook's other movies were "Bedazzled" (1967), for which he wrote the screenplay; "The Bed-Sitting Room" (1969); "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1977), with Mr. Cook as Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Moore as Dr. Watson; "The Secret Policeman's Other Ball" (1982), with the Monty Python troupe, and "Yellowbeard" (1983), for which he and Graham Chapman were co-writers.
In the television series "The Two of Us," Mr. Cook played a very proper English butler, and he was the Mad Hatter in Jonathan Miller's television version of "Alice in Wonderland." Recently he made a golfing video, "Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls."
He is survived by his third wife, Lin Chong Cook, and two daughters from his first marriage.
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