Miriam Cooper

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Miriam Cooper (November 7, 1891-April 12, 1976) was an American silent motion picture actress from Baltimore, Maryland. She was once described as willowy and languid and a pronounced brunette. Her career on the screen began in 1912 with six films. Among these are Battle in the Virginia Hills, A Battle of Wits, The Farm Bully, and A Race With Time. She starred with Lillian Gish in the first feature-length movie.

Miriam became known for her performances in Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), both films directed by D.W. Griffith. Miss Cooper was the third female star in Birth of a Nation, and the newest member of a trio of actresses employed by Griffith. Aside from Gish and Cooper, there was Mae Marsh, then an eighteen-year-old redhead, known as the Maude Adams of the motion pictures. Marsh and Gish were earning $1,500 per week when Birth of a Nation was filmed. Miriam was only 17 at the time. The epic movie increased her earning capacity substantially.

Cooper married silent film director Raoul Walsh in 1916. Walsh was an assistant director to Griffith in making Birth of a Nation. Afterward he went out on his on and often featured Miriam in his movies. Cooper divorced Walsh and left the film industry in 1927, never to return. She blamed her divorce on the loosening of morals in the motion picture industry.

She resided in Charlottesville, Virginia from 1952 until her death. Her passions included writing and playing golf and bridge. Miriam collaborated with Bonnie Herndon to write Dark Lady of the Silents (1973), a book which describes in detail the motion picture industry during its first years.

Miriam Cooper suffered a heart attack in May 1970 after arriving at the D.W. Griffith Film Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. She recuperated in Kentucky Baptist Hospital. She died at Cedars Nursing Home in 1976. She had been there since suffering a stroke earlier in the same year. She was 84 years old. Her death left Miss Gish as the sole surviving cast member of Birth of a Nation.

[edit] References

• Fresno, California Bee, Miriam Cooper Walsh, Birth of a Nation Star, Dies, April 14, 1976, Page 23.
• Long Beach, California Press-Telegram, Who's In News, Monday, May 18, 1970, Page A-2.
• Newark, Ohio Daily Advocate, Alladin's Lamp Not In It With the Camera, Saturday, November 17, 1917, Page 7.
• New York Times, Miriam Cooper Walsh, 84, Star In Birth of a Nation, April 14, 1976, Page 36.