Memorial Day 2021 Issue

Vaudeville Star’s
Great-Grandson
Donates Items to
Lake Museum
It was built as a cottage, that quaint
term wealthy Americans used to
describe the elaborate homes they built
in resort areas like Lake Hopatcong.
Between 1880 and 1930, fueled by easy
rail access, Lake Hopatcong flourished as
a resort that featured grand hotels and the
cottages of the rich and famous, such as the
Lotta Crabtree home in Mount Arlington
and The Boulders in Hopatcong.
Wait, the what?
The Boulders. Impressive eastward views,
fabulous stone-walled great room, elegant
bedrooms and dining and living areas,
sloping lawn to the boathouse and lake. Built
in 1903, it shared that quiet corner of Davis
Cove with its neighbor, the Rossmore, built
in 1902.
So, when did they put in the golf course
with the ball return that earned the player a
free drink at the bar inside the house? Or
the phone that squirted water when a person
answered it?
And just like that, an elegant, meaningful
home with an equally elegant, meaningful
name became Sleepless Hollow, the gag-filled,
riotous home to comedian and vaudevillian
Joe Cook. It even has a theater where Cook
staged performances, including dressing rooms
and an unseen passageway which allowed “the
butler,” who greeted guests at the front door, to
suddenly appear onstage one level below.
Cook’s librettist, Donald Ogden Stewart,
once said that “Joe lived on a mad gag-infested
estate in New Jersey which bewilderingly
expressed his genius.”
Cook started in show business in 1908 and
became a vaudeville and Broadway superstar in
the 1920s and 1930s. The showbiz press of the
time praised his multi-skilled act that featured
songs and juggling, physical stunts and
inventive storytelling. He also had a successful
radio career.
But Cook is little known today because of
his aversion to Hollywood and the onset of
Parkinson’s disease in 1940, which ended his
career, said Marty Kane, president of the Lake
Hopatcong Historical Museum.
Cook died in 1959 at the age of 69.
14
Story by MICHAEL DAIGLE
Photos by KAREN FUCITO
LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Memorial Day 2021
Joe Cook with his four children, Josephine,
Doris, Leo and Joe Jr.
His
lack of
recognition today is also due in part to missing
out on the early television era that saw many of
Cook’s contemporaries transfer their vaudeville
and stage acts to the small screen, Kane said.
“Cook is one of the three most important
Lake Hopatcong figures,” Kane said.
The other two are Lotta Crabtree and
inventor and industrialist Hudson Maxim.
Cook often featured Lake Hopatcong in his
routine, Kane said, and was an active supporter
of local organizations.
The lake museum holds the most extensive
collection of Cook memorabilia, including
Photo courtesy of the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum
BARBARA ANNE DILLON, O.D., P.A.
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Thomas Helsel visiting
Sleepless Hollow in April.
more than 300 photos that show the wide
scope of Cook’s life, Kane said.
The collection also includes a piano with
signatures from hundreds of Sleepless Hollow
visitors who signed their names with a woodburning
tool.
And now, thanks to Cook’s great-grandson,
Thomas Helsel, the museum is in possession
of another prized instrument—Cook’s goldplated
trumpet.
Before Helsel, 51, of Sicklerville, N.J., a
senior research chef for Campbell Soup Co.,
turned to cooking and food service as a career,
he was an aspiring musician.
“Trumpet was my first instrument,” he said,
during a recent tour of Sleepless Hollow.
“The trumpet was handmade for Joe by
Vega Trumpet of Brooklyn,” Helsel said. That
nugget of information was discovered when
Helsel was in college and seeking a company
to repair the damaged instrument. “I was told
‘this is not a normal trumpet. It is brass covered
with 24-karat gold.’”
The repair was made in 1987, but finding
that the instrument was “beyond” special,
Helsel brought it home. A display case was
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