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Christopher Cook GILMORE

Male 1940 - 2004  (63 years)


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    Event Map    |    All    |    PDF

  • Name Christopher Cook GILMORE 
    Birth 3 Aug 1940  Washington, District of Columbia Find all individuals with events at this location  [1] 
    Gender Male 
    Residence May 1968  Paris, Seine, France Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Residence 1970  London, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Death 29 Jun 2004  Margate, Atlantic, New Jersey Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 3] 
    Person ID I7398  bmds
    Last Modified 14 May 2020 

    Father Eddy Lanier King GILMORE,   b. 28 May 1907, Selma, Dallas, Alabama Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 6 Oct 1967, London, Greater London, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 60 years) 
    Mother Margaret COOK,   b. 16 Oct 1910, Washington, District of Columbia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 5 Jan 2011, Margate, Atlantic, New Jersey Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 100 years) 
    Family ID F2120  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Sharon Irene STONE,   b. 16 May 1945, New Albany, Floyd, Indiana Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 79 years) 
    Marriage 1 Jan 1966  Margate City, Atlantic, New Jersey Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Age at Marriage Christopher : 25 years old | Sharon : 20 years old. 
    Divorce 30 Jul 1970  Richmond, Virginia Find all individuals with events at this location  [4] 
    Family ID F2811  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 2 Anita STEWART,   b. Abt 1962 (Age 62 years) 
    Family ID F2812  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 3 Aug 1940 - Washington, District of Columbia
    Link to Google MapsMarriage - 1 Jan 1966 - Margate City, Atlantic, New Jersey
    Link to Google MapsResidence - May 1968 - Paris, Seine, France
    Link to Google MapsResidence - 1970 - London, England
    Link to Google MapsDivorce - 30 Jul 1970 - Richmond, Virginia
    Link to Google MapsDeath - 29 Jun 2004 - Margate, Atlantic, New Jersey
    Pin Legend  : Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  • Notes 
    • Source: “A Real (beach) Bum”
         Say the phrase “beach bum” in Margate and the words “Christopher Cook Gilmore” come back faster than the echo of wave slapping a steel-hulled boat.
       “I take my measure of a man by how much time he spends on the beach,” Gilmore said recently. Gilmore, 58, is the son of the late Eddie Gilmore, who won a Pulitzer in 1947 for his dispatches from Moscow for the Associated Press. Christopher Cook Gilmore is a writer of note himself, having published six novels and hundreds of short stories and articles. If there is an occupation made for beach bums, it’s writer.
       But Gilmore has become many other things to support his beach habit. He is a carpenter, mechanic, substitute teacher and, occasionally, a sailing instructor for topless French women. When he’s not traveling abroad he rises at maybe 6 a.m., writes until 10 a.m. or noon and then is free to pursue that which interests him, and that which interests him usually involves something on the beach. His skills in the waves on his 14-foot Hobie catamaran are near legendary. Sometimes it’s the women walking by that interest him, and his skills with women are… well, never mind. Who knows what’s true and what occupies local storytellers? Suffice it to say that Gilmore appreciates natural beauty. “A day without love,” he said, “is a day without sunshine.”
       He has held only three “real” jobs, as an Associated Press correspondent for a year and, for two years, as a teacher in Absecon and as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, which was his way of honorably avoiding fighting in Vietnam.
       He was a lifeguard during high school, but he doesn’t count that because it wasn’t year-round. “That’s what ruined me for working during the summer,” he said. “After that I would never do anything that would keep me off the beach on a hot sunny day.”
      The best he can do now is to substitute teach for Ocean City High School. “I tell them don’t call me more than twice a week and only when it rains,” he said.
       He has learned to live simply. His car is a ’71 Triumph Spitfire. He lives in a wing of his mother’s house in Margate a block from the beach. He has no children and no ex-wives, but he does have a steady girlfriend. He owns a small motorboat, a garvey. He does have a cell phone, which he sometimes uses to order subs while he’s on the beach, which he gets delivered to the bulkhead.
       Come cold weather all he needs is an airline ticket to someplace warm - Bali, or Borneo or Madagascar or maybe Southeast Asia. Sometimes he brings his Hobie. For a time he lived in a tent on a beach on St. Martin, next to the boat, which was also next to a rasta bar, where his job was to give sailing lessons to topless French girls. He has a fondness for the French language, which he attributes to his ability to consort with the natives.
      “I’ve lived with a lot of French women,” he said. “I’ve lied in French, made love in French…”
       This is what being a beach bum can be like if you are really, really good - and dedicated. But this style of beach bumming cannot be pursued from an office in center-city Philly. It requires commitment, retraining and a willingness to give up the suits, the cars, the fancy houses, the kids, the spouses, the retirement, the security, the fancy boats… but, hey, we’re talking topless French women here.
       If there’s anybody who can explain what it is about the beach, it’s Gilmore.
       “It’s a Zen thing,” he said. It’s the confluence of the sea and land - where they meet, the synthesis of land and sea. When I’m there I feel the immense power of the sea. The thing is, all the problems we have happen on the land, and when we look out at the sea they vanish, and we realize the only thing that matters is the right now.”
       Thanks, Gilmore, thanks for giving us that look into a style of beach bumming that most of us will only dream about.

      Source:
      Christopher claims to have spent an entire winter writing short stories in a blue tent on top of a sand dune on the coast of southern Morocco - without getting a grain of sand in his typewriter. Christopher travels extensively, speaks six languages and hasn’t had a day job in years. He is the author of Atlantic City Proof, The Bad Room and Road Kills among others. He divides his time between his homes in Morocco and Atlantic City.

  • Sources 
    1. [S9] Social Security Death Index.

    2. [S4] Obituary.
      Christopher Cook Gilmore, one of the legends of the expatriate American writer scene in Paris, died at 12:30 PM on June 29th, 2004. He passed away peacefully in the arms of his longtime love and new wife, Anita, after a 2 month fight with a brain tumor at the young age of 63.
       Chris spent decades passing through Paris, usually staying at George Whitman’s Shakespeare and Company bookshop as the visiting “writer-in-residence”. Few who passed by there when Chris was in town were not captivated by his charm, wit, and humor. As he voyaged the world, whether summering in Fez, or forgetting a few weeks while in Amsterdam, Chris would always come to Paris to do a reading of one of his latest books or articles, or the latest additions to his ever-growing long song to the French capital, the poem “The Paris Blues”.
       The images of Chris, his long curly hair flowing past a narrow tied bandana, up on a table top reciting his verse as those around marveled at his painted fingernails and powerful delivery, will forever be etched in memory.
       Chris was born in 1940 and grew up in Margate, New Jersey. Chris was a Margate resident for life, although he did graduate from “Suntan U”, the University of Miami. He worked a brief stint for the Associated Press, and then went on to write magazine articles and finally novels, including “Atlantic City Proof” and “Hoover and the Kennedys”.
       Few who encountered Chris did not know of his love of the ocean and boating. His wooden Garvey was his pride and joy, though he did play with a Hobie Cat in his boat collection. He will be missed. He is survived by wife Anita, sister Shuler, and his mother, Margot.

    3. [S4] Obituary.
      Christopher Cook Gilmore, Local New Jersey legend dead at age 63 (August 3, 1940 – June 29, 2004)
       Cancer, that horrible plague of our times, claimed one more victim on Tuesday, June 29th, when Christopher Cook Gilmore, unquestionably the finest writer to have been born and raised on Absecon Island, succumbed at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is survived by his wife, Anita, who devotedly saw him through his final illness and who was with him at the end, and by his mother Margot, a well-known Margate artist, and by his half-sisters Schulyar, Suzanne, and Victoria, and by his many friends.
       Gilmore, who was descended from Captain James Cook on his mothers side and from poet Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) on his fathers, was a regular contributor to Atlantic City magazine, which featured him on its cover in January 1991, and he was a Contributing Editor to New Jersey magazine. His essays on aspects of South Jersey life were incisive in their depiction of sub-culture at the Jersey shore, and always glowed with the love Gilmore had for his native Margate.
       His published early novel, Atlantic City Proof, was a textured and charming tale of a vanished Atlantic City, and in his two later novels, The Bad Room and Road Kills, he dealt with violence and madness endemic to America, and he honed his writing style, influenced by favorites such as Hemingway and Kerouac, into a masterful verb-oriented precision.
       Gilmore also appeared to great advantage in a documentary film about George Whitman, owner of Shakespeare and Co. bookstore in Paris, where Christopher often stayed on his travels to and from Essaouira, Morocco, which was a home away from home for him for over 25 years. Often he would stop in Tangier and visit the great writer and composer Paul Bowles.
       A legendary character on the beaches, he was South Jersey’s most outstanding hobiecat racer, winning competitions into his early sixties, and he also sailed the inland waterways and back bays in his small wooden garvey, and recently he was interviewed on National Public Radio discussing boating, and the history of Absecon Island.
       A graduate of Atlantic City High, he did a B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Miami, and he worked as a lifeguard for many years in Margate. As a young man, he taught woodworking at the prestigious St Paul’s School in London, and locally he taught at Absecon High School. Later in life he worked part-time teaching at Ocean City High and at Atlantic County Community College.
       Gilmore was an accomplished performance artist and troubadour whose work was internationally known. In 2003, he represented the U.S. at the Swedish Academy’s International Poetry Festival in Göteburg. As one of his friends put it, “he was a lion of a man” who quested courageously and relentlessly for (as he himself wrote in one of his poems): the secret place / where the serpent never knows / the shadow of the rose.
      From Poetry Magazines (William D. Sherman).

    4. [S15] Internet.
      Source: Commonwealth of Virginia – Report of Divorce.