Biography
Friends and Family
Bing Crosby
[Friend]
(Bing named a son after Gary)
::
Charles Feldman
[Friend]
::
Ernest Hemingway
[Friend]
(Hemmingway shot himself shortly after Gary`s deatg)
::
Alice Cooper
[Mother]
::
James Stewart
[Friend]
(Cooper often cited James Stewart as his closest friend.)
::
John Wayne
[Friend]
::
Charles Cooper
[Father]
Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 I put in a call to Clark Gable to tell him about some deer I`d heard were running loose up in the Canadian Rockies. I was told he was on location ... in Hong Kong. I called Robert Taylor. He was on location, too, in Italy, unless he had finished there and gone to England. James Stewart was in Africa. In the old days a company that went as far away as Texas was thought to be forsaking civilization for good. Today these countries are just part of the Hollywood scene and it`s as Shakespeare said, all the world`s a stage.
I think it would be a good idea [to ban the Communist Party in the United States], although I have never read Karl Marx and I don`t know the basis of Communism, beyond what I have picked up from hearsay. From what I hear, I don`t like it because it isn`t on the level.
Politics
I`ve been with some good ones, but maybe the best was Franchot Tone. I made two pictures with him and he stole both of them. Something went wrong with how he was handled; or who knows, maybe it was Joan Crawford. But he had everything - great at comedy and also at serious stuff if given the chance. Now The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) is one hell of a picture, but you could take me right out of it and it would still be one. But it couldn`t be much without Tone.
OTHER
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. (23 October 1947)
Politics
[February, 1942, accepting his Academy Award for Sergeant York (1941) from James Stewart] "It was Sergeant Alvin York [Alvin C. York] who won this award. Because to the best of my ability, I tried to be Sergeant York. Shucks, I`ve been in the business 16 years and sometimes dreamed I might get one of these things. That`s all I can say ... Funny, when I was dreaming I always made a good speech."
OTHER
[in April 1961] "Please make sure everyone knows how much their messages mean to me. They have added greatly to my peace of mind. I only wish some of the writers would take a more positive approach to the menace of cancer. I`ve got it, sure; but I`m not afraid to use the word. Some of them act like it`s a dirty word. That`s the wrong attitude. We should all bring it out in the open, recognize that it exists - and fight it! Cancer is everybody`s enemy. We can`t `think` an enemy out of existence by ignoring it."
Life
[On Cary Grant] "I say he`s a crack comedian, and isn`t competition for me at all."
Career
[on turning down the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939)] Rhett Butler was one of the best roles ever offered in Hollywood and my screen character saw himself emerging from the film as a dashing-type fellow. But I said no. I didn`t see myself as quite that dashing, and later, when I saw Clark Gable play the role to perfection, I knew I was right.
OTHER
All this business about me never saying anything is a piece of crap.
I haven`t read a half a dozen books in my life
If you hit the mark with two out of every five movies you`ll keep the wheels of the cycle turning.
The only achievement I am really proud of is the friends I have made in this community.
Until I came along all the leading men were handsome, but luckily they wrote a lot of stories about the fellow next door.
Trivia
Before his cancer was found to be terminal, he had intended to play James Stewart`s role in How the West Was Won (1962).
He considered himself to be miscast in Peter Ibbetson (1935), The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938), Saratoga Trunk (1945) and Ten North Frederick (1958).
His mother Alice Cooper died in a Palm Desert convalescent home in October 1967, at the age of 94. His brother Arthur Cooper died in May 1982, at the age of 87.
In May 1931, after finishing I Take This Woman (1931), the combination of exhaustion, physical illness, and the conflict between his possessive mother and jealous mistress led to a nervous breakdown. He had been working fourteen to sixteen hours a day, sometimes twenty-three, making one film by day and another by night. He suffered from anemia and jaundice, and his weight dropped thirty pounds to a dangerously low 148 lbs.
In May 1974 his body was removed from Holy Cross Cemetary and reburied, under a three-ton boulder from a Montauk quarry, in the Sacred Heart Cemetary in Southampton and near his family on the East Coast.
Marlene Dietrich said about him: "Gary Cooper was neither intelligent nor cultured. Just like the other actors, he was chosen for his physique, which, after all, was more important than an active brain.".
Was the original visual basis for pulp hero Doc Savage.
After talking with Carl Foreman on the set of High Noon (1952), Cooper realized there had not been an attempt by Communists to infiltrate Hollywood, and later regretted his part in founding the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.
He was a close friend of Bing Crosby, who named his eldest son after Cooper.
He was awarded a special Academy Award in 1961 "for his many memorable screen performances and for the international recognition he, as an individual, has gained for the film industry.".
In 1925 he befriended another young, struggling, would-be actor named Walter Brennan. At one point, they were even appearing as a team at casting offices, and although Cooper emerged in major and leading roles first, they would work together in the good years, too. Most memorably they starred in The Westerner (1940) together, where the general critical consensus was that Brennan`s underplayed performance as Judge Roy Bean had stolen the film from Cooper.
In 1932 he was named as a supporter and benefactor of a right-wing organization known as the Hollywood Light Horse, which described itself as "a military organization formed to promote Americanism and combat Communism and radicalism subversive to Constitutional government", and which numbered English actor Victor McLaglen as one of its members. The assertion that Cooper was an active supporter was quickly withdrawn following protests by his representatives.
In 1968 a "Variety" magazine poll of popular television personalities still included Cooper and his one-time rival Clark Gable, even though both actors had died nearly a decade earlier.
Lived with Anderson Lawler, a contract player at Paramount, in 1929.
Met Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev at a luncheon organized by Charles Feldman at Twentieth Century Fox on 19 September 1959. Kruschev personally invited Cooper and his wife and daughter on a six-day, United States Information Agency-sponsored trip to Moscow and Leningrad. After Cooper entertained some Soviet dignitaries at his house in Hollywood, Hedda Hopper publicly denounced him as "soft on Commies".
Was considered for the role of Richard Sherman in The Seven Year Itch (1955).
Writer Ayn Rand worked as an extra in Hollywood when she came to the U.S. from Russia, and she promptly became a fan of Cooper. When her novel "The Fountainhead" was made into a film, Rand was thrilled that Cooper was starring. Cooper`s speech in a courtroom is one that Rand worked on for a very long time. When filming was over, Cooper admitted to her that he hadn`t understood it.
Although he had said long ago that he would make no more biopics, he signed for The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955). It was a poor Otto Preminger film and even Mitchell`s widow expressed disappointment with Cooper`s performance. Possibly the story had appealed to Cooper on political grounds and Mitchell may have been a hero of his - the general who accused the government of neglecting military needs. Cooper went on Ed Sullivan`s TV show to promote the film and home viewers were quite disappointed - David Shipman referred to Cooper`s "effeminate mannerisms in his TV interviews".
He was a close friend and admirer of Pablo Picasso.
He was an extra in the silent version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925).
His estate was valued at $9 million at the time of his death in 1961.
In 1960, for the first time since his arrival in Hollywood, there were no new Gary Cooper pictures. In the spring of that year he underwent several operations for prostate cancer, but in the autumn managed to film one final movie in England, The Naked Edge (1961).
On 23 October 1947, he appeared before the House Unamerican Activities Committee in Washington, not under subpoena but responding to an invitation to give testimony on the alleged infiltration of Hollywood by communists. Other friendly witnesses appearing on the same day as Cooper were Robert Taylor, Robert Montgomery, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan and the aging Adolphe Menjou. Montgomery had long been active in Republican politics as a committeeman and later would serve as White House adviser during the Eisenhower administration. Murphy would serve as a Republican senator from California, with a reactionary voting record. Reagan would become Governor of California and the national champion of extreme conservatism. Taylor, Menjou and Cooper would all retreat gradually from the political fracas, but only Cooper would make a show of repudiating what he had done. Although he never recanted his testimony, or said he regretted having been a friendly witness, he became conciliatory during the subsequent period of the blacklist. As an independent producer, he hired blacklisted actors and technicians. He did say he had never wanted to see anyone lose the right to work, regardless of what he had done. After the release of High Noon (1952) , an allegory for blacklisting, he stood by the screenwriter Carl Foreman despite pressure from the militant Hedda Hopper. Immediately after the HUAC appearance, the films of Cooper, Taylor, Montgomery, Murphy, Reagan and Menjou were banned first in Hungary, then in Czechoslovakia, and eventually in most of the Iron Curtain countries. So were those of Ginger Rogers and, curiously, those of tenor Allan Jones, seen usually in minor features and certainly no militant. On the witness stand Cooper had made light of the communists. Sure, they were in Hollywood just like everywhere else, but they were only a small faction giving the large patriotic body of the film community a bad name it didn`t deserve. After his testimony, Cooper received a standing ovation and vigorous applause. He later told Robert Taylor, "I got a much bigger hand than you did." Liberals, who never forgave the other friendly witnesses, generally made an exception for Cooper.
On 8 January 1961 he was given a testimonial dinner in Hollywood at the Friar`s Club. It was a coincidental thing, his terminal cancer was not suspected. The aged Carl Sandburg was there, calling Cooper "a tradition while he`s living, something of a clean sport, the lack of a phony." Audrey Hepburn read a poem called "What is a Gary Cooper?". Cooper didn`t look well that night, but most observers thought he looked marvelous anyway.
Separated from his wife Rocky in May 1951, mainly over his affair with Patricia Neal. They did not live together again until July 1954.
Ten North Frederick (1958) was originally intended as a Spencer Tracy vehicle, but Tracy withdrew in poor health.
With the critical and commercial disaster You`re in the Navy Now (1951), the word got out that Cooper was finished. He couldn`t even sell a good picture that was a sure-fire formula to begin with - or once had been. He had disappeared completely from the Motion Picture Herald`s annual survey of the top ten box office stars. He had been on the list for nine successive years, moving up and down but always there, proof that he was still a guarantee if only as a commodity star. Now he had lost even that. As the host of It`s a Big Country (1951), Cooper got fabulous press coverage during filming but after a few engagements it was withdrawn out of embarrassment. It wasted a warehouse of first rate talent - Fredric March, William Powell, Gene Kelly, Ethel Barrymore, Janet Leigh, Van Johnson, Keenan Wynn and others. Cooper made another routine western, Distant Drums (1951), and then he made the picture which would prove to be an enormous comeback vehicle for him - High Noon (1952).
Although Cooper dismissed the new school of actors in the 1950s as "a bunch of goof balls" and could be caustic about "the Method" advanced by the Actors Studio in New York, Lee Strasberg told everyone that Cooper was a natural Method actor, he just didn`t know it. Cooper did at least admire Marlon Brando`s work, and became a producing partner with his father, Marlon Brando Sr..
At first Cooper didn`t want to make Friendly Persuasion (1956), not just because he felt the audience wouldn`t accept him as a devout Quaker, but also because he did not want to play a father figure. This was despite the fact that he was now 55. On the set he arranged for his daughter Maria Cooper to date Anthony Perkins, not seeming to realize that the young actor was gay.
During the 1944 presidential election the phrase, "I`ve been for Roosevelt before ... but not this time!" was personally attributed to Cooper, forming the basis of full-page advertisements in major newspapers, paid for by the Republican National Committee. Cooper was extremely active on behalf of the Republican candidate, New York`s governor Thomas E. Dewey. He gave speeches, did entertaining for fund raisers, met with Dewey in Los Angeles, and did some personal campaigning in the film community. Whether Cooper had ever been "for Roosevelt before" is questionable. Possibly he voted for him in 1936 during the second term landslide. If so, it was not publicly disclosed. Cooper`s activities were as unpopular as Democrat Humphrey Bogart`s endorsement of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that year. The studio called in both stars and told them to stop antagonizing fans who did not share their political beliefs.
He was very popular with audiences over a long period of time, his popularity exceeding that of "The King" Clark Gable himself at the box office. Named the #1 Box Office Star of 1953 in the Top 10 Poll of Money-Making Stars, as ranked by Quigley Publications` annual survey of movie exhibitors. He made the list 18 times from 1936 to 1957, which was a record when he died in 1961. Of his contemporaries, John Wayne (who accepted Cooper`s 1952 Best Actor Oscar for High Noon (1952)) established the still-standing record of Box Office success with 25 appearances in the Top 10 between 1949 and 1974.
In 1938 Cooper took his wife on a junket to England and the Continent, and was the last American movie star to visit Nazi Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II. Until that point he had been basically apolitical and isolationist, opposed to President Woodrow Wilson`s League of Nations. When the fateful Munich Conference immediately followed Cooper`s return to America, he became increasingly active in the film community`s pastime of playing national partisan politics. His allegiance to the right wing would be fairly consistent, though never a sure thing. He said he believed the United States should become more involved diplomatically in world affairs, but felt it was no business of Hollywood`s. He said pointedly that MGM`s cautiously anti-Nazi Three Comrades (1938) with it`s F. Scott Fitzgerald screenplay should not have been made, and that henceforth he would give more thoughtful attention to some of the film projects he was offered.
In 1940, Cooper actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie as the Republican challenger to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt`s quest for a third term of office. Cooper believed Roosevelt was already too powerful, and would become more so. He told Cecelia Ager though that he advocated most of the New Deal reforms and believed the GOP made a mistake by not emphasizing their intention of retaining most of them. He said, "There`s no going back to the ways of the Old Guard." Willkie, a well known womanizer, became firm friends with the actor.
In 1943 Cooper was one of the founding members of the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, called merely "the Alliance" in the film community. Its other early leaders included Robert Taylor, Adolphe Menjou, Sam Wood, Norman Taurog, Clarence Brown, and Walt Disney. Clark Gable, thought of as one whose apolitical inclination was even more pronounced than Cooper`s, was also a member. The Alliance`s cheerleader was Lela E. Rogers, mother of Ginger Rogers.
In the late 1950s, his voracious eating habits finally caught up with him. After decades of incomparable thinness, Cooper put on 15 lbs, pushing his weight up to 190 lbs, which on his 6`3" frame was still slender.
Often cited James Stewart as his closest friend.
There has been much speculation over the years over whether Cooper`s close friend Ernest Hemingway may have had latent homosexual tendencies. There is an easy agreement among Hemingway scholars that Papa, as he insisted Cooper should call him, was never actively homosexual, but the fact that he protested his masculinity so much in his novels and in real life has aroused suspicion. Hemingway`s tendency to beautify in Cooper the qualities he found beastly in others is provocative. One Hemingway scholar maintained Papa was profoundly impressed that Cooper was such a stud. He said, "I believe that in his mind he loved Gary sexually, but I believe furthermore that Gary Cooper never once suspected it. If I am correct, that proves the beauty of Gary`s naiveté, which Papa always found so charming."
After James Stewart revealed to the world that Cooper was dying of cancer, messages poured in from such friends and well-wishers as Pope John XXIII, former Vice President Richard Nixon, Henry Fonda, Pablo Picasso, Queen Elizabeth II of England, Princess Grace (Grace Kelly) of Monaco, John Wayne, Ernest Hemingway, former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bob Hope, Henry Hathaway, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, William Goetz, Mary Livingstone (Mrs. Jack Benny) and Jack Benny, Gloria Stewart (Mrs. James Stewart) and James Stewart, Charles Feldman and Constance and Jerry Wald. The newly inaugurated President John F. Kennedy called from Washington and couldn`t get through on the busy Cooper phone, but kept calling. He got through on the second day to talk to Gary for seven minutes.
Along with Sidney Poitier, he is the most represented actor on the American Film Institute`s 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time, with five of his films on the list. They are: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) at #83, Sergeant York (1941) at #57, Meet John Doe (1941) at #49, High Noon (1952) at #27 and The Pride of the Yankees (1942) at #22.
At the time of his terminal cancer being diagnosed towards the end of 1960, Cooper had signed to star in The Sundowners (1960) and Ride the High Country (1962).
Both of his parents were immigrants to America from England.
He underwent four hernia operations between 1951 and 1953.
His reputation as an unthinking conservative seems largely undeserved. Though he appeared as a "friendly witness" before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947, he carefully avoided naming any people he suspected of having Communist sympathies within the Hollywood community. He later starred in High Noon (1952), a western that was an allegory for blacklisting in Hollywood, and strongly defended blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman from attacks by the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Foreman later credited Cooper as the only major star in Hollywood who tried to help him. His mistress Patricia Neal, who did consider herself a liberal, said Gary was "conservative" but "you couldn`t call him right-wing". Cooper showed a sense of humor by asking John Wayne to collect his Oscar for him in 1953, after Wayne had criticized High Noon (1952) as "anti-American".
His shot from High Noon (1952) was used as a Solidarity candidates trademark of the first independent elections in Poland in June 1989 ("There`s a new sheriff in town")
It was testament to Cooper`s durability that Charlton Heston, already a major star following The Ten Commandments (1956), was prepared to play a supporting role in The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959). Heston was impressed that the veteran actor, fifty-eight years old and in declining health, was still able to perform his own stunts, including being submerged underwater for long periods of time. In his book "The Actor`s Life", Heston recalled he sensed early on it would be Cooper`s picture but he didn`t mind, because of all Cooper himself had meant to Heston, even as a child.
On 16 April 1958 he entered the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital for a full face-lift and other cosmetic surgery by Dr John Converse, one of the leading plastic surgeons in America. Newspaper articles commenting on the effects of the operation said his face now looked quite different and the procedure had not been successful.
The pallbearers at the funeral were Cooper`s close friends - James Stewart, Henry Hathaway, Jack Benny, William Goetz, Jerry Wald, and Charles Feldman. Rocky and Maria walked behind the casket, alongside Cooper`s 87-year-old mother Alice and his brother Arthur, as it was borne through the church to the hearse out on Santa Monica Boulevard. Among the top names of Hollywood attending the services were Norma Shearer, Dean Martin, Walter Pidgeon, Buddy Rogers, Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Jimmy Durante, Martha Hyer, John Wayne, Rosalind Russell, Robert Stack, Maureen O`Sullivan, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Fred Astaire, Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, and Karl Malden. Not one fan broke the lines to ask for an autograph.
Appeared in eight movies with Walter Brennan. These were Watch Your Wife (1926), The Wedding Night (1935), The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), The Westerner (1940), Meet John Doe (1941), Sergeant York (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942) and Task Force (1949).
Appeared in three movies with Barbara Stanwyck, Ball of Fire (1941), Meet John Doe (1941) and Blowing Wild (1953).
He declined roles in The Big Trail (1930), Stagecoach (1939) and Red River (1948). All of these were subsequently played by John Wayne, whom he met and befriended on the set of Operation Pacific (1951) while Cooper was visiting his mistress, Patricia Neal.
He formed his own production company, Baroda Productions, in 1958. In 1959 the company made three of his more unusual films: The Hanging Tree (1959), They Came to Cordura (1959) and The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959).
He left America and Hollywood and didn`t return for 18 months. During that time he was in Hawaii, Mexico and France and shot four films: Return to Paradise (1953), Blowing Wild (1953), Garden of Evil (1954) and Vera Cruz (1954).
He turned down both Stagecoach (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939).
Howard Hawks directed him in three movies, Today We Live (1933), Ball of Fire (1941) and Sergeant York (1941).
In 1951, after 25 years in show business, his professional reputation declined, and he was dropped from the Motion Picture Herald`s list of the top 10 Box Office performers. In the following year he made a big comeback at the age of fifty-one with High Noon (1952).
Took an acting class from Michael Chekhov
Was very good friends with Ernest Hemingway for twenty years. Hemingway shot himself a month after Cooper`s death.
Appeared in four movies with Fay Wray, The First Kiss (1928), The Legion of the Condemned (1928), The Texan (1930), One Sunday Afternoon (1933).
Appeared in two movies with Marlene Dietrich, Morocco (1930) and Desire (1936).
By 1942 he left Samuel Goldwyn and Paramount, then formed his own production company, then on October 22, 1947 he signed with Warner Brothers to make $295,000 per picture.
By June 1955 he had made 80 films from which the studio`s earned $250 million and he only earned $6 million in salary and percentages.
Cecil B. DeMille directed him in The Plainsman (1936), North West Mounted Police (1940), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) and Unconquered (1947).
Frank Capra directed him in two movies, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Meet John Doe (1941).
He was a conservative Republican. He voted for Calvin Coolidge in 1924, and for Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932. He actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie in 1940, strongly believing that Franklin Delano Roosevelt should serve no more than two terms of office, and endorsed Thomas E. Dewey in 1944.
His father Charles Cooper died of pneumonia on September 18th 1946, three months after Gary completed Cloak and Dagger (1946) and 3 days after his father`s 81st birthday.
Sam Wood directed him in four movies, The Pride of the Yankees (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Casanova Brown (1944) and Saratoga Trunk (1945).
Starred in two movies with Teresa Wright, The Pride of the Yankees (1942) and Casanova Brown (1944).
Appeared on the cover of Life magazine November 24, 1941.
From 1938 to 1942 he earned $150,000 per picture.
Has played six real life characters on screen. Wild Bill Hickok, Marco Polo, Sgt. Alvin C. York, Lou Gehrig, Dr. Commander Corydon M. Wassell and Gen. Billy Mitchell.
Has starred in a total number of 20 westerns, 3 of those were silent.
He blew the harmonica and strummed the guitar; played backgammon and bridge; grew corn and avocados on the Encino ranch he bought in the early 1930s and loved to work with his tractor in the garden.
He signed a six year contract with Samuel Goldwyn, to make six pictures at $150,000 per picture. At the time Paramount had legal rights to Cooper and threatened to sue. The two companies came to an understanding that Paramount would loan Cooper to Goldywn to make one picture a year from 1938-1942.
He starred in two movies that were based on novels by Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms (1932) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943).
His appetite was prodigious, but no matter how much he ate, he always remained thin. During his early years in Hollywood, working odd jobs and living with his parents, he said, he said with some comic exaggeration, that his "starvation diet at the time ran to no less than a dozen eggs a day, a couple of loaves of bread, a platter of bacon, and just enough pork chops between meals to keep me going until I got home for supper." His specialty on hunting trips was gargantuan: wild duck covered with bacon strips, enhanced by four eggs and steak. He could eat a cherry pie and drink a quart of milk for lunch.
His income from his movies was: 1932 - $85,000, 1933 - $133,000, 1934 - $258,000, 1935 - $328,000, 1937 - $370,000
In 1944 he formed his own production company, International Pictures, with Samuel Goldwyn. His partners were Leo Spitz, William Goetz (who`d recently been ousted from 20th Century Fox) and Nunnally Johnson. They only produced two movies, Casanova Brown (1944) and Along Came Jones (1945). Then in 1946 they sold International Pictures to Universal Pictures, which changed its name to Universal-International.
Along with actress Mylène Demongeot, Cooper set in motion the first escalator to be installed in a cinema, at the Rex Theatre in Paris on June 7 1957.
Appeared in 107 movies, 82 of which he starred in. Only 16 of those were filmed in color. And he starred in 14 silent movies.
He liked sports and kept in shape with hiking and riding, tennis and golf, archery and skiing, trout fishing and spear fishing, swimming and scuba diving and driving fast cars. He liked boxing.
He was fond of dogs, at various times he owned boxers, Dobermans and Great Danes. He and his wife also raised Sealyhams.
His Oscar-winning roles as Will Kane from High Noon (1952) and Sgt. Alvin York from Sergeant York (1941) were ranked #5 and #35 in the American Film Institute`s Heroes list in their 100 years of The Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains.
Hobbies: Fishing, hunting, riding, swimming, and taxidermy.
In the early 1930s, his doctor told him he had been working too hard. Cooper went to Europe and stayed a lot longer than planned. When he returned, he was told there was now a "new" Gary Cooper - an unknown actor needed a better name for films, so the studio had reversed Gary Cooper`s initials and created a name that sounded similar - Cary Grant.
Interred at Sacred Heart Cemetery, Southampton, Long Island, New York, USA.
Is mentioned in the Irving Berlin song "Puttin` On The Ritz" (performe by Taco) and in the song "La derrière séance" by Eddy Mitchell.
Born may7, 1901
Despite his wholesome screen image, he was an infamous (and privately boastful) lady-killer in reality, allegedly having had affairs with numerous and sometimes very famous leading ladies throughout his career. This was in spite of the fact that he had a faithful wife, Sandra, and that many of his lovers were also married.
He wasn`t present to receive his Academy Award in February 1953, for his portrayal of Marshal Will Kane in High Noon (1952). He asked John Wayne to accept it on his behalf.
His first Hollywood love was Clara Bow. Shortly after they separated he dated and lived with Lupe Velez.
His mother`s favorite movie of his is The Pride of the Yankees (1942).
In 1958 Cooper had a private audience with Pope Pius XII at the Vatican, and in the following year became a convert to Roman Catholicism.
In the spring of 1960 he had two operations, one for prostate cancer and then after that a part of his colon removed which was cancerous also. The doctors were sure that they had gotten all of it. His body strengthened and he made the movie The Naked Edge (1961) in England, but while he was making this film he had a lot of pain in his neck and shoulders. When he returned home from England he went back to the doctor and it was then that he had to be told the cancer had metastasized to his lungs and bones. As he did in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) he took it in his stride and said, If it is God`s will, that`s all right too. He opted not to take very much treatment.
Worked as a Yellowstone Park guide for several seasons before becoming an actor.
|
Gold Sites
Silver Sites
Comments
Continue the Conversation