Jackie Cooper
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| Jackie Cooper | |
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 Jackie Cooper in 1989. Photo by Alan Light.
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| Born | September 15, 1922 Los Angeles, California, |
Jackie Cooper (born John Cooper, Jr.[1] on September 15, 1922) is an American actor, TV director, and TV producer. He was one of the few child actors who managed to transition into an adult career.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Cooper was born in Los Angeles, California. His father, John Cooper, left the family when Cooper, Jr. was two years old; Cooper believes that his father was Jewish. Cooper's mother's sister, Susan, was married to director Norman Taurog.
Cooper first appeared in the movie Boxing Gloves in 1929, one of the Our Gang comedies. He continued to appear in Our Gang for two more years, becoming its main character. His most notable Our Gang shorts explore his character's crush on Miss Crabtree, the schoolteacher played by June Marlowe. His first non-Our Gang role was in 1931, when Norman Taurog hired him to star in Skippy, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor - the youngest actor ever (at the age of 10) to be nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor.
The movie catapulted young Cooper into super-stardom. Our Gang producer Hal Roach sold Jackie's contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in mid-1931, as he felt the youngster would have a better future in features. He began a long on-screen relationship with actor Wallace Beery in such films as The Champ (1931), The Bowery (1933), Treasure Island (1934), and O'Shaughnessy's Boy (1935). A legion of film critics and fans have lauded the relationship between the two as an example of classic movie magic. However, Cooper later revealed that Beery was a violent, foul-mouthed drunkard who was disliked by those with whom he worked. Cooper said Beery had been abusive toward him, and was one of the cruelest, most sadistic people he has ever known.
Cooper had problems finding roles as he became an adolescent, and he served in World War II, so his career was at a nadir when he starred in two popular television series, The People's Choice and Hennesey. It was his television acting that convinced him that he could become a director, and he successfully moved behind the camera, to become one of the busier television directors, for which he won Emmy Awards.
Cooper found renewed fame in the 1970s as Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Superman feature film series starring Christopher Reeve.
[edit] Personal life
Cooper has been married three times: to June Horne (1944-1949) (one son, "John "Jack" Cooper born 1946); Hildy Parks (1950-1951), and (since 1954) to Barbra Krause (born 1927) (three children, Russ (born 1956), Julie (1957-1997), and Crissy (born 1959).
Cooper's autobiography, Please Don't Shoot My Dog, was published in 1981. The title comes from Norman Taurog's threat to shoot young Jackie's dog if he couldn't cry in Skippy. Cooper has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1501 Vine Street.
[edit] References
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Birth certificate name was not "Cooperman", but "Cooper" - his father's surname. Confirmed at the State of California. California Birth Index, 1905-1995. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California.
[edit] Web site
Categories: 1922 births | American child actors | American film actors | Child actors | American film directors | Best Actor Academy Award nominees | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Living people | Our Gang kids | Columbo actors | Murder, She Wrote actors | American World War II veterans | English-language film directors
