Gary Cooper
| Gary Cooper | |
|---|---|
Promotional image for Meet John Doe (1941) | |
| Born | Frank James Cooper (1901-05-07)May 7, 1901 Helena, Montana, U.S. |
| Died | May 13, 1961(1961-05-13) (aged 60) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
|
Cause of death |
Prostate cancer |
|
Resting place |
Sacred Heart Cemetery, Southampton, New York |
| Education | Dunstable Grammar School Gallatin Valley High School |
| Alma mater | Grinnell College |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1925–1960 |
|
Political party |
Republican |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Spouse(s) | Veronica Cooper (m. 1933–61) |
| Children | Maria (b. 1937) |
Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901 – May 13, 1961) was an American film actor.[1] Noted for his stoic, understated style, Cooper found success in a number of film genres, including westerns (High Noon), crime (City Streets), comedy (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town) and drama (The Pride of the Yankees). Cooper's career spanned from 1925 until shortly before his death, and comprised more than one hundred films.
Cooper received five Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning twice for Sergeant York and High Noon. He also received an Honorary Award in 1961 from the Academy.
Decades later, the American Film Institute named Cooper among the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, ranking 11th among males. In 2003, his performances as Will Kane in High Noon, Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees, and Alvin York in Sergeant York made the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains list, all of them as heroes.
Early life[edit]
Cooper was born in Helena, Montana, one of two sons of an English immigrant couple, Alice (née Brazier; 1873–1967) and Charles Henry Cooper (1865–1946). His father was a farmer from Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, who later became an American lawyer and judge, and his mother was from Kent.[2] His mother hoped for their two sons to receive a better education than was available in Montana and arranged for the boys to attend Dunstable Grammar School[3] in Bedfordshire, England, between 1910 and 1913.[4][5] Following the outbreak of World War I, Cooper's mother brought her sons home and enrolled them at Gallatin Valley High School in Bozeman, Montana.[6]
When Cooper was 13, he injured his hip in a car accident. He returned to his parents' ranch near Helena to recuperate by horseback riding at the recommendation of his doctor. Cooper studied at Iowa's Grinnell College until the spring of 1924, but did not graduate. He had tried out, unsuccessfully, for the college's drama club.[7] He returned to Helena, managing the ranch and contributing cartoons to the local newspaper. In 1924, Cooper's father left the Montana Supreme Court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles. Their son, unable to make a living as an editorial cartoonist in Helena, joined them,[8] moving there that same year,[9] reasoning that he "would rather starve where it was warm, than to starve and freeze too."[7]
Career[edit]
Unsuccessful as a salesman of electric signs and theatrical curtains, as a promoter for a local photographer, and as an applicant for newspaper work in Los Angeles,[8] Cooper found work as an actor in 1925.[9] Beginning as an extra in the film industry, usually being cast as a cowboy, he is known to have had an uncredited role in the Tom Mix Western Dick Turpin (1925).[10] The following year, he received a screen credit in a two-reeler, Lightnin' Wins, with actress Eileen Sedgwick as his leading lady.
After the release of this short film, Cooper accepted a long-term contract with Paramount. He changed his name to Gary in 1925, following the advice of casting director Nan Collins,[11] who felt it evoked the "rough, tough" nature of her native Gary, Indiana.[12]
"Coop", as he was called by his peers, went on to appear in over 100 films. With help from established silent star Clara Bow, Cooper broke through in a supporting role in the late silent Wings (1927), the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, following it with Nevada (1927) co-starring Thelma Todd and William Powell, based on the Zane Grey novel. (This was remade as an early Robert Mitchum vehicle released in 1944, the only time Cooper and Mitchum played the same role.) Cooper became a major star with his first sound picture, The Virginian (1929) which features Walter Huston as the villainous Trampas. The Spoilers appeared the following year with Betty Compson (which was remade in 1942 with Marlene Dietrich, who resembled Compson, and John Wayne in Cooper's role). Cooper followed this action film with Morocco (1930), starring Dietrich, in which he played a Foreign Legionnaire. Devil and the Deep (1932) featured Cary Grant in a supporting role with Tallulah Bankhead and Cooper in the leads alongside Charles Laughton. The following year, Cooper was the second lead in the sophisticated Ernst Lubitsch comedy production of Noël Coward's Design for Living. He was billed under Fredric March in the kind of fast-talking role Cooper never played again after Cary Grant staked out the light comedy leading man field with The Awful Truth four years later. The screen adaptation of A Farewell to Arms (1932), directed by Frank Borzage, and the title role in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) furthered Cooper's box-office appeal.
Cooper was producer David O. Selznick's first choice for the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.[13] (1939). When Cooper turned down the role, he was passionately against it. He is quoted as saying, "Gone with the Wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it'll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me."[14][15] Instead, in 1939 he played Michael Geste ("Beau") in the first "talkie" remake of the classic Beau Geste. Alfred Hitchcock wanted him to star in Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Saboteur (1942). Cooper later acknowledged he had made a mistake in turning down the director. For the former film, Hitchcock cast look-alike Joel McCrea instead.
Cooper cemented his cowboy credentials again in The Westerner (1940), with Walter Brennan as Judge Roy Bean, and followed that immediately afterward with the lavish North West Mounted Police (1940), directed by Cecil B. DeMille and featuring Paulette Goddard.
Cooper won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 1942 for his performance as the title character in Sergeant York (1941). It often has been rumored that Alvin York refused to authorize a movie about his life unless Cooper portrayed him. Evidence has since surfaced that the film's producer, Jesse L. Lasky, sent a telegram pleading with Cooper to take the part and signed York's name to it. Meet John Doe had been released earlier in 1941, a great success under the direction of Frank Capra. Cooper worked with Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), directed by Sam Wood and based on a novel by Cooper's close friend Ernest Hemingway; they spent many vacations in Sun Valley, Idaho together. A Western comedy lampooning his hesitant speech and mannerisms and his own image in general followed, called Along Came Jones (1945), in which he relied on gunslinging Loretta Young to save him. Cooper also starred with Patricia Neal in the original screen adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel The Fountainhead (1949).
Cooper won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his performance as Marshal Will Kane in High Noon (1952), sometimes thought his finest role. While ill with an ulcer and busy filming Blowing Wild (1953) in Mexico, he wasn't present to receive his Academy Award in February 1953. He asked John Wayne to accept it on his behalf, a bit of irony in light of Wayne's stated distaste for the film.[16] The following year Cooper was filmed reading the list of nominees for the Best Actress award which went to Audrey Hepburn.
Cooper continued to play the lead in films almost to the end of his life. Among his later box office hits were the stark Western adventure Garden of Evil (1954) with Susan Hayward and Richard Widmark; Vera Cruz (1954), an extremely influential Western in which he guns down villain Burt Lancaster in a showdown; his portrayal of a Quaker farmer during the American Civil War in William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion (1956); Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon (1957) with Audrey Hepburn; and Anthony Mann's Man of the West (1958), a hard-edged action Western with Lee J. Cobb. His final motion picture was a British film, The Naked Edge (1961), made in London in the autumn of 1960. His final project was narrating an NBC documentary, The Real West, in which he helped clear up myths about legendary Western figures.
Personal life[edit]
Religion[edit]
In the 1950s, Cooper was slowly drawn to Catholicism[N 1] and was baptized a Catholic on April 9, 1959.
Cooper had several high-profile relationships with actresses Clara Bow, Lupe Vélez, and the American-born socialite-spy, Countess Carla Dentice di Frasso (née Dorothy Caldwell Taylor, former wife of British pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White).[18]
On December 15, 1933, Cooper married Veronica Balfe, aka 'Rocky'. Balfe was a New York, Roman Catholic socialite who briefly had acted under the name of Sandra Shaw. She appeared in the film No Other Woman, but her most widely seen role was in King Kong (1933), as the woman dropped by Kong. Her third and final film was Blood Money (also 1933). Her stepfather was governor of the New York Stock Exchange, and her uncle was motion-picture art director Cedric Gibbons. During the 1930s she also became the California state women's skeet shooting champion. Cooper and Balfe had one child, Maria, in 1937, who later married classical pianist, Byron Janis.
After Cooper was married, but prior to his conversion to Catholicism, he had affairs with several famous co-stars, including Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, Tallulah Bankhead and Patricia Neal.[19] Cooper and Neal began their affair after meeting on the set of The Fountainhead. The relationship eventually became an open secret in Hollywood. Cooper's wife, Rocky, confronted him with the rumors which he admitted were true and also confessed that he was in love with Neal. Rocky later told the couple's daughter, Maria, of the affair; she blamed Neal. The next time Maria saw Neal, she angrily spat on the ground in front of Neal. Cooper and his wife kept up a front of a happy marriage, but Cooper continued to see Neal.[20] In 1950 Neal discovered she was pregnant. Cooper arranged and paid for her to have an abortion to avoid the public scandal of having a child out of wedlock.[20] Cooper and his wife separated in May 1951. Cooper and Neal continued to see each other, but Cooper was hesitant to divorce Rocky, fearing he would lose the respect of his daughter, Maria.[21] Neal finally ended the affair at Christmas 1951.[20] Cooper, however, would not reunite with his wife until February 1954. He continued to have occasional affairs, including one with Anita Ekberg in April 1955.
Politics and appearances before Congress[edit]
Cooper was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. He voted for Calvin Coolidge in 1924 and Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932. He campaigned for Wendell Willkie in 1940.[22] Cooper attended a rally organized by David O. Selznick in 1944 in the Los Angeles Coliseum in support of the Dewey-Bricker ticket as well as Governor Earl Warren of California, who would become Dewey's running mate in 1948. The gathering drew 93,000, with Cecil B. DeMille as the master of ceremonies and short speeches by Hedda Hopper and Walt Disney. Among others in attendance were Ann Sothern, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Randolph Scott, and Walter Pidgeon. Despite the good turnout at the rally, most Hollywood celebrities who took a public position sided with the Roosevelt–Truman ticket.[23]
In 1944, Cooper joined the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. While filming Good Sam, he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on October 23, 1947, characterized as a "friendly" witness. Asked if he had observed "communistic influence in Hollywood", Cooper named no one in particular but said he had "turned down quite a few scripts because I thought they were tinged with communistic ideas";[9] he also said he had heard statements such as "don't you think the Constitution of the United States is about 150 years out of date?" and "perhaps this would be a more efficient government without a Congress"—statements he characterized as "very un-American". He also told the committee:
Several years ago, when communism was more of a social chit-chatter in parties for offices, and so on when communism didn't have the implications that it has now, discussion of communism was more open and I remember hearing statements from some folks to the effect that the communistic system had a great many features that were desirable. It offered the actors and artists—in other words, the creative people—a special place in government where we would be somewhat immune from the ordinary leveling of income. And as I remember, some actor's name was mentioned to me who had a house in Moscow which was very large—he had three cars, and stuff, with his house being quite a bit larger than my house in Beverly Hills at the time—and it looked to me like a pretty phony come-on to us in the picture business. From that time on, I could never take any of this pinko mouthing very seriously, because I didn't feel it was on the level.[9]
Cooper's testimony occurred a month before the Hollywood blacklist was established. Other members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals included Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Victor Fleming, Ronald Reagan, and Barbara Stanwyck, among many others.
At the end of 1959, Cooper and his family toured the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev.
Death[edit]
On April 14, 1960, Cooper underwent surgery for prostate cancer after it had metastasized to his colon. He fell ill again on May 31 and underwent further surgery in early June. However, the cancer had already begun to spread to his lungs and bones. Cooper, however, was not informed his cancer was terminal until February 1961. Typically, the actor telephoned the doctor the very next day to apologize for the ordeal of having to tell him the fatal news.[24]
Cooper was too ill to attend the Academy Awards ceremony in April 1961, so his close friend, James Stewart, accepted the honorary Oscar on his behalf. Stewart's emotional speech hinted that something was seriously wrong, and the next day newspapers ran the headline, "Gary Cooper has cancer". one month later on May 13, 1961, six days after his 60th birthday, Cooper died.[25] In his last public statement, Cooper said, "I know that what is happening is God's will. I am not afraid of the future."[26]
Cooper was originally interred in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Culver City, California. In May 1974 his body was removed from the Grotto Section of Holy Cross Cemetery, when his widow Veronica remarried and moved to New York. She had Cooper's body exhumed and reburied in Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton, New York.[27][28] Veronica "Rocky" Cooper Converse died in 2000 and was buried next to Cooper at Sacred Hearts Cemetery.
Legacy[edit]
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For his contribution to the film industry, Cooper has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6243 Hollywood Blvd. He also has a star on the sidewalk outside the Ellen Theater in Bozeman, Montana.
Cooper was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City in 1966. Cooper was featured on a commemorative U.S. postage stamp in 2009.[29]
Cooper was referenced in the 1929 song "Puttin' on the Ritz" by Irving Berlin, introduced by Harry Richman in the musical film Puttin' on the Ritz (1930).
Cooper's popularity is directly responsible for the popularity of the given name Gary from the 1930s to the present day.[30]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Throughout his 36-year acting career, Cooper received numerous awards and nominations, including three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, two Golden Laurels, a New York Film Critics Circle Award, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[31]
- 1937 Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)
- 1937 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, 3rd place (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)
- 1941 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor (Sergeant York)
- 1942 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Sergeant York)
- 1943 Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (The Pride of the Yankees)
- 1944 Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (For Whom the Bell Tolls)
- 1952 Photoplay Award for Most Popular Male Star (High Noon)
- 1953 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (High Noon)
- 1953 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor, Drama (High Noon)
- 1957 Golden Globe Award Nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor, Drama (Friendly Persuasion)
- 1958 Laurel Awards Golden Laurel Nomination for Top Male Star, 6th place
- 1959 Laurel Awards Golden Laurel for Top Action Performance (The Hanging Tree)
- 1959 Laurel Awards Golden Laurel Nomination for Top Male Star, 7th place
- 1960 Laurel Awards Golden Laurel for Top Action Performance (They Came to Cordura)
- 1960 Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Motion Picture, at 6243 Hollywood Blvd.
- 1961 David di Donatello Awards, Career David
- 1961 Honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement
Filmography[edit]
Cooper's 36-year career as a film actor started in 1925, when he appeared as an extra in The Thundering Herd. He worked as an extra in nine other films. In 1926 he made his official film debut in a featured role in The Winning of Barbara Worth.[32][33] As a contract player with Paramount Pictures, he established himself as a popular leading man prior to the end of the silent film era. He transitioned to the sound film era effectively with the release of The Virginian in 1929.[34] For the next 32 years, he was one of cinema's top money-making stars. From 1936 to 1957, Cooper ranked 18 times among the top ten box office attractions—a record when he died in 1961. The following is a list of Cooper's feature film appearances excluding cameos.
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