John McCook: Father Knows Best
Soap Opera Weekly: As a child, how did you spoil your dad on Father’s Day?
John McCook: I didn’t honor Father’s Day much. You have to understand, my father was a laborer in the oil fields. He was a hard hat, and from the time I was little, he was almost deaf. It was both genetic and from his work, because the machinery was very loud, so he and I weren’t able to communicate verbally very much. He was funny and very loving. I had a good, positive relationship with my father, but not “involved.” We didn’t celebrate Father’s Day at all, and I’m sorry for that, because he was a wonderful, sweet man. By they time I was doing music, singing and theater, he was literally not able to hear what I was doing. He got to see me, that’s all. He would go see me do West Side Story, and at the end of it, he’d say, “That girl was beautiful. Good.” He wasn’t well-educated or sophisticated about the literature I was doing or the music I was playing. My mother was. He very much approved of what I was doing. He didn’t think it was a silly thing to do, though my mother did. She disapproved of me wanting to be in the arts, but he thought it was great.
Weekly: How do you celebrate it now?
McCook: My kids and my wife make way too much of it. They wake me early and we do French toast and coffee and juice in bed. It’s the same thing we do for (his wife) Laurette on Mother’s Day. Things are getting different, because now we’re not all at home. My kids think it’s funny and fun to make a big deal out of it. On Mother’s Day, if we don’t make a big deal, Father’s Day a month later is a very unhappy time!
Weekly: The best gift so far?
McCook: They always bring me funny battery-powered barbecue things, like a big spatula. You squeeze it and it turns over by itself. Well, it doesn’t work. You do it, and [the burger] goes on the floor. I’m so tired of getting all these things! I made it clear to them I don’t need any more. I never use it. But it’s always fun to have my kids with me.
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