Dulcie Cooper
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Dulcie Cooper (1903-1981) was an Australian stage actress who also performed in silent movies and later in television. She had curly light blonde hair. Cooper was born on November 3, 1903 in Sydney, Australia. She was of English parentage. Part of her girlhood was spent in California. Dulcie originally spelled her name Dulcy on the advice of a numerologist who contended that it would increase her luck. Her father, Ashley Cooper, was a newspaperman who later became interested in theater. While the family resided in Vancouver, British Columbia Dulcie was given some child roles. She began to perform when she was only two and half years of age. She played little Eva many times and created the part of Oliver Twist. When she was eight her parents opted to take her out of the theater. A few years later she attended a performance of Marjorie Rambeau at a San Francisco, California theater. Dulcie was given the opportunity to play the star's daughter in a drama entitled Valley of Content. Her family relented, after learning of this, and the youth returned to the theater.
Dulcie came to Los Angeles, California where she played leads opposite Edward Everett Horton at the Majestic Theater for about seven months. A newspaper reporter noticed her performances and advised the actress to go to New York. She made the trip and made her eastern debut in Little Spitfire, which opened in Newark, New Jersey. Soon she crossed the bay to Manhattan Island. She appeared in Courage, a play that ran a year on Broadway. She had a leading part in the cast of They Took The Town, which opened in Charleston, West Virginia in October 1936. Cooper's husband, Stafford Campbell, also played the Majestic in 1924. He acted in support of Marjorie Rambeau.
Miss Cooper felt that her early screen performances were subpar. She was signed by the Fox Film Corporation in the early 1920s and was later courted by both Paramount Pictures and Metro Goldwyn Mayer. She had roles in Charge It (1921), Live and Let Live (1921), What No Man Knows (1921), Desert Blossoms (1921), and Do and Dare (1922). Her last film was The Face on the Bar Room Floor (1932). In 1946 Dulcie appeared in the television play Sorry, Wrong Number.
Dulcie Cooper died in New York, New York on September 3, 1981.
[edit] References
- Charleston, West Virginia Gazette, New York Actress Has Part in Players' Show, Sunday, October 18, 1936, Page 2.
- Los Angeles Times, Return To Stage By Comedienne, May 15, 1927, Page 18.
- New York Times, More Or Less In The Spotlight, December 26, 1926, Page X4.