Alexander Cooke (died February 1614) was an actor in the King's Men, the acting company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.[1]
Edmond Malone introduced the hypothesis, still current though far from certain, that Cooke originated Shakespeare's principal female roles. Cooke was not a sharer in the King's Men when the company received its royal charter early in 1603, yet before the year was out he is a "principal tragedian" in the cast list for Ben Jonson's Sejanus.[2] This might indicate that he was a young actor in a prominent female role, perhaps Agrippina. Cooke was also cast in Volpone (1605), in which he may have been Lady Would-be. He is also named in the cast-lists for Jonson's The Alchemist (1610) and Catiline (1611) and for Beaumont and Fletcher's The Captain (c. 1612).
Cooke became a shareholder in the King's Men in 1604, when the number of shareholders was expanded to twelve. Alexander Cooke had a brother John; John Payne Collier speculated that this John Cooke was the author of Greene's Tu Quoque.
Cooke appears to have been apprenticed to John Heminges; he refers to Heminges as "my master" in his last will and testament. That will named Heminges and Henry Condell as trustees of his children — his sons Francis (born in 1605) and Alexander (1614), and daughters Rebecca (1607) and Alice (1611). Cooke resided in Hill's Rents, in the parish of St. Saviour's, Southwark. His funeral took place on 25 February 1614.
In Gary Blackwood's 1998 novel The Shakespeare Stealer, Cooke is portrayed as the hero's best friend, Sander.