Cooper was the archetypal of the strong, silent type or perhaps created it. In the early 1930s, after his doctor told him he was working too hard, he took off for Europe where he stayed longer than planned. “Morocco,” a desert romance, revealed Gary as a handsome Legionnaire that got him out of only Westerns. In spite of his quiet, shy image, he was quite the lady’s man off screen with romances with Claire Bow, Lupe Velez, and others were both numerous and well known.
He received his first Oscar nomination in “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” in 1936. In “Sergeant York”, he portrayed real-life pacifist-turned-WW1 hero Alvin York which brought him Best Actor Oscar. “Ball of Fire” in 1941, directed by Howard Hawks, revealed his comic touch. Another Oscar nomination for portraying of a living legend was “The Pride of the Yankees” in 1942, as baseball great Lou Gehrig. Still another nomination for Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1943.” In April 1961 he won a special, career-achievement Academy Award, which was accepted by his friend James Stewart. By that time he was too ill to accept it with cancer; only a month later he was dead.
In 1939 Gary Cooper was so well liked that when the U.S. Treasury Department stated that he was the nation’s top wage earner with $482,819 earnings, it did not create any hostility or envy in the industry. Today’s generations cannot know the love audiences had for this handsome, tall, silent hero who was an American icon.
TRIVIA:
A Grinnell College professor in the theater department recorded “shows no promise” -- Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued March 23rd, 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Cooper as the title character of Beau Geste (1939). “Every woman who knew him fell in love with Gary.” - Ingrid Bergman”. 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.
QUOTES BY GARY COOPER:
“Until I came along all the leading men were handsome, but luckily they wrote a lot of stories about the fellow next door.” (Gary Cooper was a remarkably handsome man!) “If you hit the mark with two out of every five movies you’ll keep the wheels of the cycle turning.” “To get folks to like you, I figured you had to sort of be their ideal. I don’t mean a handsome knight riding a white horse, but a fellow who answered the description of a right guy.”
“People ask me how come you’ve been around so long. Well, it’s through playing the part of Mr. Average Joe American.
GARY COOPER’S FILMS & TV:
Walt: The Man Behind the Myth (2001), Cold War (1998) (mini), Judy Garland’s Hollywood (1997), Legends of Entertainment Video (1995), The Life and Times of Gary Cooper (1995), The Making of ‘High Noon’ (1992), Citizen Cohn (1992), Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend (1991), The 1950’s: Music, Memories & Milestones (1988), Has Anybody Here Seen Canada? A History of Canadian Movies 1939-1953 (1979), Hollywood on Trial (1976), Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (1975), The Love Goddesses (1965), Lykke og krone (1962), The Naked Edge (1961), The Real West (1961), The Annual Academy Awards (1954), (1958), (1959), (1960), They Came to Cordura (1959), The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), Premier Khrushchev in the USA (1959), Alias Jesse James (1959), The Hanging Tree (1959, Glamorous Hollywood (1958), Man of the West (1958), Ten North Frederick (1958), Love in the Afternoon (1957), Friendly Persuasion (1956), The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Premiere (1955), Vera Cruz (1954), Garden of Evil (1954), Boum sur Paris (1954), Blowing Wild (1953), Return to Paradise (1953), Springfield Rifle (1952), High Noon (1952), Distant Drums (1951), Starlift (1951), It’s a Big Country (1951), You’re in the Navy Now (1951), Dallas (1950), Bright Leaf (1950), Snow Carnival (1949), Task Force (1949), Screen Snapshots: Motion Picture Mothers, Inc. (1949), It’s a Great Feeling (1949), The Fountainhead (1949), Good Sam (1948), Unconquered (1947), Variety Girl (1947), Cloak and Dagger (1946), Saratoga Trunk (1945), Along Came Jones (1945), Casanova Brown (1944), Memo for Joe (1944), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood No. 3 (1942) , Ball of Fire (1941), Sergeant York (1941), Meet John Doe (1941), North West Mounted Police (1940), The Westerner (1940), Screen Snapshots Series 19, No. 6 (1940), The Real Glory (1939), Beau Geste (1939), The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938), Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938), Lest We Forget (1937), Souls at Sea (1937), The Plainsman (1936), The General Died at Dawn (1936), Hollywood Boulevard (1936), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Desire (1936), Fiesta de Santa Barbara, La (1935), Peter Ibbetson (1935), The Wedding Night (1935), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove (1934), The Hollywood Gad-About (1934), Now and Forever (1934), Operator 13 (1934), Alice in Wonderland (1933), Design for Living (1933), One Sunday Afternoon (1933), A Farewell to Arms (1932), If I Had a Million (1932), Devil and the Deep (1932), Make Me a Star (1932), Hollywood on Parade (1932) , The Voice of Hollywood No. 13 (1932), His Woman (1931), I Take This Woman (1931), City Streets (1931), The Slippery Pearls (1931), Fighting Caravans (1931), Morocco (1930), The Spoilers (1930), A Man From Wyoming (1930) , The Texan (1930), Paramount on Parade (1930), Only the Brave (1930), Seven Days’ Leave (1930), The Virginian (1929), Betrayal (1929/I), Wolf Song (1929), Three Pals (1929), Half a Bride (1928), The Shopworn Angel (1928), The First Kiss (1928), Lilac Time (1928), The Legion of the Condemned (1928), Doomsday (1928), Beau Sabreur (1928), The Spider’s Net (1927), Nevada (1927), Wings (1927), The Last Outlaw (1927), Children of Divorce (1927), Arizona Bound (1927), It (1927), Old Ironsides (1926), The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), Watch Your Wife (1926), The Enchanted Hill (1926), Tricks (1925), The Eagle (1925), The Vanishing American (1925), Wild Horse Mesa (1925), The Thundering Herd (1925), Dick Turpin (1925). “Jack Benny Program, The” (1950)
PRODUCER:
Along Came Jones (1945)
I Should Have Replaced Her in Films
GRACE KELLY – Birth name: Grace Patricia Kelly
Height: 5’7”
Birth: November 12th, 1929 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – born to one of Philadelphia’s leading families
Death: September 14th, 1982 - Monacoville, Monaco - killed in an automobile accident in her adoptive home country. She was just 52 years old. Her death stunned the world and ended what had seemed a fairy-tale life. She is interred at the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, Monte Carlo, Monaco. The inscription at her burial site in Monaco’s cathedral does not refer to her as a princess. It uses the title “uxor principis” (prince’s wife), which is traditional in the House of Grimaldi.
Dear Grace,
As twilight grew dim, the golden-orange lights shinning up on your palace atop the rock of Monte Carlo lit up the entire palace with an eerie beauty. Directly across from your “princess palace,” the apartment I rented was in the Monaco Post Office Building. What a coincident, I thought, that I should find an apartment with an outstanding view of your palace directly across the bay. You had your palatial one and I had a one-room apartment in a building with the name “Palace” – Palace of the Stairs – (even though it had an elevator.)
Another bewildering revelation was that the symbol for Monaco is a dove. Years before, three Sundays in a row doves flew into a glass picture window of my house killing them. Feeling this was a symbol of some kind, by the third Sunday when a helicopter was flying over, I got out of the house. Repeated
