The secret life of Tommy Cooper  He was the nation's favourite
clown, but away from the television lights the jokes gave way to
drink and violence. David Randall on the dark side of a comic
genius  Most Tommy Cooper stories are funny, but this one isn't.
For behind the old Cooper magic and everything that made him the
best natural clown Britain ever produced was a secret life of
incessant boozing that several times threatened his marriage;
childish tantrums; flashes of violence; a lengthy affair he made
his children swear they'd never tell their mother about; and a
stinginess that was a showbusiness legend. And he once nearly
killed Michael Parkinson.  This Cooper, so different from the
gangling six foot four figure of chuckling affability whom
millions adored on their TV screens, emerges from a biography
published next month: Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing.
Its author, John Fisher, worked with Cooper as a television
producer, got to know him, has interviewed those closest to him,
and had access to