21 Facts About Hope Cooke

Hope Cooke was born on June 24,1940) was the Gyalmo (Tibetan:.

Hope Cooke was termed Her Highness The Crown Princess of Sikkim and became the Gyalmo of Sikkim at Palden Thondup Namgyal's coronation in 1965.

Five months later, Cooke returned to the United States with her two children and stepdaughter to enroll them in schools in New York City.

Hope Cooke wrote an autobiography, Time Change and began a career as a lecturer, book critic, and magazine contributor, later becoming an urban historian.

Hope Cooke's grandfather died when she was 12 and her grandmother died three years later.

Hope Cooke became the ward of her aunt and uncle, Mary Paul and Selden Chapin, a former US Ambassador to Iran and Peru.

Hope Cooke studied at the Chapin School in New York and attended the Madeira School for three years before finishing high school in Iran.

In 1959, Hope Cooke was a freshman majoring in Asian Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and sharing an apartment with actress Jane Alexander.

Hope Cooke went on a summer trip to India and met Palden Thondup Namgyal, Crown Prince of Sikkim, in the lounge of the Windamere Hotel in Darjeeling, India.

Hope Cooke was a 36 year-old recent widower with two sons and a daughter.

On March 20,1963, Hope Cooke married Namgyal in a Buddhist monastery in a ceremony performed by fourteen lamas.

Hope Cooke renounced her United States citizenship as required by Sikkim's laws and as a demonstration to the people of Sikkim that she was not an "American arm" in the Himalayas.

Hope Cooke was dropped from the Social Register but the marriage was reported in National Geographic magazine.

Hope Cooke's husband was deposed on April 10,1975 and confined to his palace under house arrest.

Hope Cooke studied Dutch journals, old church sermons, and newspaper articles to acquaint herself with the city and lectured on the social history of New York.

Hope Cooke wrote a weekly column, "Undiscovered Manhattan", for the Daily News.

Hope Cooke's books include an award-winning memoir of her life in Sikkim, Time Change: An Autobiography, an off-the-beaten-path guide to New York, Seeing New York, developed from her walking tours, and, with Jacques d'Amboise, she published Teaching the Magic of Dance.

Hope Cooke lived in London for a few years before returning to the United States, where she now lives in Brooklyn and currently works as a writer, historian, and lecturer.

Hope Cooke was a consultant for PBS's New York: A Documentary Film.

Hope Cooke has contributed to book reviews and magazines and lectured widely.

Hope Cooke faced controversy during her tenure as queen due to allegations of being an agent of the CIA, purportedly promoting American interests and opposing Sikkim's merger with India.