Pasquale Caputo (Pat Cooper) was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1929 to Italian parents Michael Caputo, from Mola di Bari, Italy, and Louise Gargiulo. Cooper started performing stand-up in the 1950s, originally for primarily Italian-American audiences. In 1963, he got his big break on The Jackie Gleason Show. After this, he played top nightclubs and Vegas casinos, with famous stars such as Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Sergio Franchi, Sammy Davis Jr., and more.
On May 2, 1969, Cooper and singer Jimmy Roselli premiered in their two-man show at Broadway’s Palace Theatre, New York. He has performed at celebrity roasts and was also a frequent guest on many radio shows, such as The Howard Stern Show. Billboard Magazine gave his album Our Hero (1965) a special merit review and said that it “does for the Italian-American community what Jackie Mason did for the Jewish-American community.”
In addition to his stand-up, Cooper has acted in the films Analyze This and This Thing of Ours, and guest-starred in multiple television series. Pat Cooper has been married three times and has two biological children.