ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 7, 1997 TAG: 9704070113
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: JOSEPH DURSO THE NEW YORK TIMES
The high-profile owner of the Washington Redskins died of heart failure, just as his team was set to open in its new stadium.
Jack Kent Cooke, who started his career peddling encyclopaedias in Canada and went on to build empires in newspapers, cable television and sports, died Sunday in a Washington hospital. He was 84.
Cooke collapsed at his estate in Washington. He died shortly after arriving at the hospital of congestive heart failure resulting from heart disease, a spokeswoman said.
In a tumultuous lifetime, during which he owned the Los Angeles Lakers, the Washington Redskins and the Chrysler Building, Cooke set records for buying and selling properties and athletes while maintaining a lifestyle of perpetual motion.
Worth an estimated $825 million, he collected art, vintage automobiles, race horses and sherry. He signed legendary athletes to what were considered astronomical contracts, and he signed George Allen - the father of Virginia's current governor - to run the Redskins for record pay for a football coach. He was married four times, including one marriage that ended with a settlement of $41 million, a figure that landed him in the "Guinness Book of Records."
He was not one of the idle rich; as he entered his 80s, he became increasingly occupied with yet another large-scale project: a $160 million, 78,600-seat stadium for his Redskins in between Washington and Baltimore. After battling local government for a decade, he finally reached a deal to build the stadium in 1995. It is scheduled to open this season.
He once looked back on the frenzy in his life, and concluded: ``I retired once, which taught me never to do that again.'' When a writer sought to include him in a book about the world's five greatest salesmen, he declined with the comment: ``Sir, I am not one of five anything.''
Cooke was proud of his Canadian origins, his sports stakes in California and his high visibility in Washington. His luxury box at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium was regularly filled with such Washington figures as Sen. John Warner, Colin Powell, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy and George Will watching his Redskins.
Even if his deals had not changed skylines and landscapes, he would have gone down in sports history for a move that opened an entertainment era: He financed the first fight between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier in 1971 by setting up an extensive closed-circuit television network.
Jack Kent Cooke was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1912. His father lost his picture-frame business in the Depression, so Cooke gave up youthful pursuits such as football, hockey and playing the saxophone to sell encyclopaedias door to door. Three years later, he was working for a radio station in Stratford, Ontario, when he caught the attention of Roy Thomson, who was building an empire in communications. Cooke went to work for him and soon had major resources.
He began making his fortune by investing in dying radio stations and reviving them. He acquired newspapers and revitalized defunct magazines. He took over a plastics company and made it work. He was a millionaire at 31, and headed for what he called his ``second life'' in California. It quickly became a life of landmark deals that established him in major-league sports.
Cooke's four marriages often took twists worthy of the tabloids. His first marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Barbara Jean Carnegie, ended when she sued for divorce in 1979. Their sons died in 1989 and 1995.
In 1980, Cooke married Jeanne Maxwell Williams, a sculptor from Las Vegas, but the marriage ended in divorce within the year. In 1987, he married Suzanne Martin of Middleburg, who was 44 years his junior. The marriage lasted 73 days.
And, in 1990, he married Marlene Ramallo Chalmers of Bolivia, who was 40 years his junior and a friend of his third wife, and who had served 3 1/2 months in federal prison for conspiracy to import cocaine.
Cooke generally accepted the bad times with the good in a life of blurring activity. Once, citing his favorite author, he summed up his reaction to it all and said, ``My life is better than any F. Scott Fitzgerald novel you have ever read.''
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Cooke. color.by CNB