Gary Cooper

Not to be confused with the English actor, Garry Cooper. For other people with similar names, see Gary Cooper (disambiguation).
Gary Cooper


Cooper in 1952

Born Frank James Cooper
May 7, 1901
Helena, Montana, U.S.
Died May 13, 1961 (aged 60)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place Sacred Hearts Cemetery, New York, U.S.
Other names Coop
Occupation Actor
Years active 1925–1961
Political party Republican[1]
Spouse Veronica Balfe ​(m. 1933)​
Children 1
Father Charles H. Cooper
Family Cedric Gibbons (uncle-in-law)
Website garycooper.com
Signature


Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901 – May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, silent screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, as well as an Academy Honorary Award in 1961 for his career achievements. He was one of the top-10 film personalities for 23 consecutive years and one of the top money-making stars for 18 years. The American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Cooper at number 11 on its list of the 50 greatest screen legends.

Cooper's career spanned 36 years, from 1925 to 1961, and included leading roles in 84 feature films. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era through almost the end of the golden age of classical Hollywood. His screen persona appealed strongly to both men and women, and his range included roles in most major film genres. His ability to project his own personality onto the characters he played contributed to his natural and authentic appearance on screen. Throughout his career, he sustained a screen persona that represented the ideal American hero.

Cooper began his career as a film extra and stunt rider, but soon landed acting roles. After establishing himself as a Western hero in his early silent films, he became a movie star with his first sound picture, playing the title role in 1929's The Virginian. In the early 1930s, he expanded his heroic image to include more cautious characters in adventure films and dramas such as A Farewell to Arms (1932) and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935). During the height of his career, Cooper portrayed a new type of hero, a champion of the common man in films such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Meet John Doe (1941), Sergeant York (1941), Ball of Fire (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). He later portrayed more mature characters at odds with the world in films such as The Fountainhead (1949) and High Noon (1952). In his final films, he played nonviolent characters searching for redemption in films such as Friendly Persuasion (1956) and Man of the West (1958).

Early life[edit]
Cooper dressed as a cowboy, 1903

Frank James Cooper was born in Helena, Montana, on May 7, 1901, the younger of two sons of English immigrant parents Alice (née Brazier) and Charles Henry Cooper.[2] His brother, Arthur, was six years his senior. Cooper's father came from Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, England[3] and became a prominent lawyer, rancher, and Montana Supreme Court justice.[4] His mother hailed from Gillingham, Kent, England, and married Charles in Montana.[5] In 1906, Charles purchased the 600-acre (240 ha) Seven-Bar-Nine cattle ranch,[6][7] about fifty miles (80 km) north of Helena, near Craig.[8] Cooper and Arthur spent their summers at the ranch and learned to ride horses, hunt and fish.[9][10] Cooper attended Central Grade School in Helena.[11]

Alice wanted their sons to have a British education, so she took them back to the United Kingdom in 1909 to enroll them in Dunstable Grammar School in Dunstable, England. While there, Cooper and his brother lived with their father's cousins, William and Emily Barton, at their home in Houghton Regis.[12][13] Cooper studied Latin, French and English history at Dunstable until 1912.[14] While he adapted to English school discipline and learned the requisite social graces, he never adjusted to the formal Eton collars he was required to wear.[15] He received his confirmation in the Church of England at the Church of All Saints in Houghton Regis on December 3, 1911.[16][17] His mother accompanied their sons back to the U.S. in August 1912 and Cooper resumed his education in Montana, at Johnson Grammar School in Helena.[11]

At age fifteen, Cooper injured his hip in a car accident. On his doctor's recommendation, he returned to the Seven-Bar-Nine ranch to recuperate with horseback riding.[18] The misguided therapy left Cooper with his characteristic stiff, off-balanced walk and slightly angled horse-riding style.[19] He left Helena High School after two years in 1918 and returned to the family ranch to work full-time as a cowboy.[19] In 1919, his father arranged for his son to attend Gallatin County High School in Bozeman,[20][21] where English teacher Ida Davis encouraged him to focus on academics and participate in debating and dramatics.[21][22] Cooper later called Davis "the woman partly responsible for [his] giving up cowboy-ing and going to college".[22]

While in high school in 1920, Cooper took three art courses at Montana Agricultural College (now Montana State University) in Bozeman.[21] His interest in art was inspired years earlier by the Western paintings of Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington.[23] Cooper especially admired and studied Russell's Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole (1910), which still hangs in the state capitol building in Helena.[23]

Cooper at Grinnell College (top row, second from the left), 1922

In 1922, to continue his art education, Cooper enrolled in Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. He did well academically in most of his courses[24] but was not accepted into the school's drama club.[24] His drawings and watercolor paintings were exhibited throughout the dormitory and he was named art editor for the college yearbook.[25] During the summers of 1922 and 1923, Cooper worked at Yellowstone National Park as a tour guide driving the yellow open-top buses.[26][27] Despite a promising first 18 months at Grinnell, he left college suddenly in February 1924, spent a month in Chicago looking for work as an artist, and then returned to Helena,[28] where he sold editorial cartoons to the local Independent newspaper.[29]

In autumn 1924, Cooper's father left the state supreme court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles to administer the estates of two relatives,[30][31] and Cooper joined his parents there in November at his father's request.[30] After briefly working a series of unpromising jobs, he met two friends from Montana,[32][33] who were working as film extras and stunt riders in low-budget Western films for the small movie studios on Poverty Row.[34] They introduced him to another Montana cowboy, rodeo champion Jay "Slim" Talbot, who took him to see a casting director.[32] Wanting money for a professional art course,[30] Cooper worked as a film extra for five dollars a day and as a stunt rider for $10. Cooper and Talbot became close friends and hunting companions; Talbot later worked as Cooper's stuntman and stand-in for over three decades.[34]

Career[edit]
Silent films, 1925–1928[edit]
Cooper in The Winning of Barbara Worth, 1926
Cooper in The Winning of Barbara Worth, 1926

In early 1925, Cooper began his film career in silent pictures such as The Thundering Herd and Wild Horse Mesa with Jack Holt,[35] Riders of the Purple Sage and The Lucky Horseshoe with Tom Mix,[36][37] and The Trail Rider with Buck Jones.[36] He worked for several Poverty Row studios, but also the already emergent major studios, Famous Players–Lasky and Fox Film Corporation.[38] While his skilled horsemanship led to steady work in Westerns, Cooper found the stunt work, which sometimes injured horses and riders, "tough and cruel".[35] Hoping to move beyond the risky stunt work and obtain acting roles, Cooper paid for a screen test and hired casting director Nan Collins to work as his agent.[39] Knowing that oth