Gary Cooper never set out to become an actor. First, he wanted to be a cowboy. Then, he thought about becoming a painter. He traveled to Hollywood not to chase his dreams, but to visit his parents. There he turned to stuntwork as a way of making a living and, when he saw the stars of the silver screen earning thousands of dollars a week, he thought – why not him?
It seems that Hollywood agreed with his reasoning. It only took Cooper a few years to climb through the ranks of the acting world and advance from an extra making $30-40 a week to the leading man earning the big bucks. And once he reached the peak, he stayed there. Gary Cooper remained on top of the bill and commanded large paydays until his final picture. The public fell in love with his earnest, unpretentious “folk hero” persona and still cherishes it to this day, a hundred years after he made his acting debut.
Early Years
Gary Cooper was born Frank James Cooper on May 7, 1901, in Helena, Montana, the second of two sons of two English immigrants, Charles Henry Cooper and Alice Brazier. Gary’s father was a big-shot lawyer who would eventually become a justice of the Montana Supreme Court, albeit briefly. A few years after Gary was born, Charles Cooper purchased a massive 600-acre ranch outside Craig, Montana called the Seven-Bar-Nine ranch where Gary and his brother Arthur would spend their summers and learn all that outdoorsy, cowboy stuff that Gary Cooper would later put to good use in his movies. Bonus fact: one of the Coopers’ neighbors was future fellow Hollywood star Myrna Loy.
Life was pretty sweet for the Coopers, although they did have one close shave in 1908 when the Hauser Dam burst, overflowing the banks of the Missouri River and causing a flood to sweep through the town of Craig. According to Gary’s own recollection, the dogs started barking like crazy and woke everybody up. Once his mother Alice saw the water, she picked up little Gary with one hand, climbed a horse with the other, and rode away to safety.
There was one other bothersome issue in Montana – Alice Cooper (no, not that one) wasn’t exactly thrilled with the education opportunities available for her sons in Helena. She wanted to give them a proper English education, so after Gary finished grade school, she sent them packing across the pond to stay with some cousins in Bedfordshire and attend Dunstable Grammar School.
Gary and his brother Arthur spent three years in England, returning home in 1912 due to World War I. Although Gary enjoyed his time there and returned for multiple visits as an adult, it did represent an awkward transition period for him. First, when he showed up in England, all the posh Eton boys made fun of him for acting and talking like a cowboy. Then, by the time he adopted their manners, speech, and dress, he was sent back to America, where all the rough-and-tumble Montana boys now bullied him because he looked and sounded like an English toff.
Once again, Gary had to change his demeanor to better fit in, but this time it was easier for him since the rugged, outdoorsy persona came more naturally to him, whereas the prim and proper English gentleman act was more for his mother’s sake. Plus, the war kinda forced him to. His older brother Arthur enlisted and went overseas, as did many of his age. Help on the ranch became hard to come by, so teenage Arthur worked as a ranchhand, describing his workday as “getting up at five o’clock in the morning in the dead of winter to feed 450 head of cattle and shoveling manure at forty below…” Can’t really do that in a tailcoat.
In 1916, Gary was seriously injured in a car accident, although who was behind the wheel remains a matter of debate. In later retellings, Cooper said that he was driving when describing the ordeal:
“I was driving a touring car, whizzing along contentedly, when there was a sudden impact. The car began to roll over and then came to a full stop, upside down…I rolled on the ground while the car stood on its nose, and then the car rolled on me…I got up and walked to the curb, not dizzy, nor weak, my senses sharpened to a superhuman degree. And then my left side failed me. It hung like a heavy dead thing. And everything went blue. I guess that is the way you feel when you faint. I awakened in a hospital…”
As if the accident wasn’t bad enough, Gary was treated by a physician who earned his degree from the same med school as Dr. Pepper. Despite Cooper having a broken leg and numerous cuts and bruises, the doc didn’t bother to take X-rays and didn’t discover that Gary also had a broken hip. And what do you think his remedy was for all of Cooper’s aches and pains? Perhaps some ointments or plenty of bed rest? Nope – vigorous horseback riding and plenty of it. That ought to shake all those bones back into place.
Shockingly, this did not work and it left Cooper with lifelong problems and a stiff, off-balance walk. When on horseback, he always rode at an angle and used a special seat to minimize bouncing. To be fair, this did give the actor a distinct stride that the audience liked, so maybe the doctor was just looking out for Cooper’s Hollywood career.
The Reluctant Actor
Gary Cooper’s foray into the artistic world started with his mother who had taken up photography while her sons were away in England. She set up her own darkroom in the cellar and would often use Gary as a model. Later on in life, Cooper said that when he posed for cameramen, he would hear his mother’s voice in his head going “For goodness’ sake, will you please stop wriggling? This is a time exposure.”
Besides photography, Cooper also developed an interest in painting, particularly in American artists who captured the Old West such as Frederic Remington and C.M. Russell, who also happened to be a friend of his father. Gary took some art classes at Montana Wesleyan College and began drawing political cartoons which were even published in the Helena Independent. In the Spring 1919 issue of the Prickly Pear student magazine, a photo of Cooper appeared with the caption “An artist of no small ability.”
Gary’s passion for arts may have flourished, but the same cannot be said for his interest in academics. He was better known for causing mischief and pulling pranks than being a studious student. On one occasion, he caused a school evacuation by hiding Limburger cheese on the radiators in the study hall and got expelled for it. At this point, he would have preferred to drop out of school completely and become a full-time cowboy, but his father wasn’t having it. Instead, he sent Gary a hundred miles southeast to Bozeman to attend Gallatin County High School.
This turned out to be a good move because that’s where Gary met his favorite teacher, Ida Davis, who encouraged his passion for dramatics and, ultimately, persuaded him to become an artist instead of a cowboy. In Bozeman, Cooper studied Shakespeare, recited Scottish poetry, and even performed in a play directed by Davis titled The Gibson Upright. He also continued taking art courses at Montana Agricultural College and graduated high school in 1922.
Afterward, Cooper wanted to continue his education in college, but instead of going local, he enrolled at Grinnell College in Iowa. He worked odd jobs to pay his tuition and continued his artistic pursuits in drama and drawing.
Oddly enough, the one art form that Cooper did not seem to have an interest in was cinema. Even as a teenager, he didn’t really like going to see movies. His dream was to be a landscape painter, not an actor and his foray into Hollywood was more out of convenience than passion.
In 1924, his parents were the ones who first moved to Los Angeles. The family ranch had turned out to be something of a money pit, so when Charles Cooper was presented with the opportunity to manage the estates of some relatives in California, he and Alice packed up their bags and relocated to Hollywood. Later that year, on Thanksgiving, Gary went to visit them, and, being broke, he started working odd jobs again. One day, he was strolling down Hollywood Boulevard when he ran into some old friends from Montana. Chief among them was Jay “Slim” Talbot, who would go on to serve as Cooper’s stuntman and stand-in for his entire Hollywood career.
Anyway, Gary discovered that Talbot and the rest were making decent money working as extras and stuntmen for silent cowboy movies. The pay was $5 a day for an extra, $10 for stunt work. All that plus a free lunch. What’s there not to like? His buddies quickly introduced Gary to the right casting directors and Cooper spent the year 1925 as a cowboy extra, never really lacking for work. However, these were all low-budget, B movies made on Hollywood’s so-called Poverty Row which churned out film after film on a weekly basis. Many times, Cooper didn’t even know what movie he was working on. He just showed up and did what was asked of him and he rarely received a credit. As best we can tell, Cooper’s first movie was called The Thundering Herd, released on March 1, 1925.
It was silent Western star Tom Mix who convinced Cooper to give acting a shot. He didn’t do this by offering the young cowboy sage advice, or landing him an audition or anything like that. It was more that Cooper saw what Tom Mix did on set and figured that he could do that, too. And while Cooper was earning scraps, Mix was making over $17,000 a week, so why not give acting a shot?
With that in mind, he used his hard-earned money to film a screen test and secured the services of small-time agent Nan Collins to find him some better roles. Just one little issue, though. The cowboy still went by his birthname, Frank Cooper, but there were a few too many of those already around, so his agent said he should change his name. She even suggested Gary because she was from Gary, Indiana, and the actor liked how it sounded. And thus…Gary Cooper was born.
Rise to Stardom
Collins got to work on behalf of her new client and sent Cooper’s showreel and photos to casting directors around Hollywood. In 1925, the actor got a few bit parts which were only one step above doing extra work, but at least he got more screen time and a credit at the end of the movie. However, it was in 1926 that Cooper landed a role worth a damn. He played a supporting part in the film The Winning of Barbara Worth, which not only was a hit, but showcased Cooper’s talent, charm, and good looks. Afterward, Paramount signed him to a contract worth $150 a week.
In 1927, Cooper had his first starring roles in two movies titled Nevada and Arizona Bound. However, it was two smaller parts that garnered more attention for the young up-and-comer. That same year, Cooper appeared in two movies that became some of the biggest hits not just in 1927, but in all of Hollywood history up until that point. Both of them starred Clara Bow. One was It, which broke box office records and popularized the term “It girl,” and the other was Wings, which became the first film to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
Following these performances, Cooper wasn’t hurting for work and he filmed another dozen or so silent movies during the late 1920s. Most of them were pretty forgettable, but the checks kept getting larger and the stack of fan letters kept getting higher, so Cooper wasn’t complaining. Paramount also went all in on promoting Gary Cooper as one of their rising stars. It even paired him up with Fay Wray in a few movies and touted them as the studio’s “glorious young lovers.” It didn’t really take, but still…a nice gesture.
Cooper’s true breakout role came in 1929 when he starred in his first talkie – The Virginian, a western based on a popular Owen Wister novel that already had two movie adaptations, so yes, remakes were a thing even back then. The transition to the sound era was a sink-or-swim moment for many actors but Gary Cooper was in the clear. On-screen, he was a man of few words, but those words coupled with the actor’s handsome features managed to captivate the movie-going public. Cooper would later repeatedly cite The Virginian as his favorite film.
The actor followed up the hit with a few more westerns and war dramas, which represented Cooper’s bread and butter for most of his Hollywood career. Of note here was the 1930 romantic drama Morocco, where Cooper played a legionnaire opposite Marlene Dietrich in her first American film. The movie was nominated for four Oscars, but none for Cooper. Although this is often hailed as one of the actor’s finest performances, Cooper didn’t like working with Austrian director Josef von Sternberg because he focused most of his attention on Dietrich. Cooper refused to film another movie with the two and, since he had become Paramount’s leading man, the studio had to listen. Instead, he shot a few more movies with some of Paramount’s other female stars such as Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, and Lili Damita.
Once his contract with the studio was up, Cooper wanted some time off. He had filmed ten movies in the previous two years and the hectic schedule had taken a toll on his health. His doctor diagnosed him with anemia and jaundice and recommended a long rest. With that in mind, Gary Cooper left Hollywood behind and set sail for Europe. He first stayed in France and then in Italy, where he had a steamy and public romance with wealthy socialite Countess Dorothy di Frasso. In fact, this was just one in a long line of dalliances that the actor had throughout his life, both before and after marrying actress Veronica Balfe in 1933. A not-so-fun fact: the woman that Cooper was seeing at the time of his death, costume designer Irene Lentz, committed suicide by jumping out of an 11th-floor window of the Knickerbocker Hotel after confiding to friend Doris Day that Cooper was the only man she had ever loved.
When Cooper was ready to make his triumphant return to Hollywood, he found out that Paramount had a new shiny toy to play with – a young actor who showed a lot of promise. His name was Archibald Leach, although Paramount exec B. P. Schulberg made him change it to something more “all-American,” so he now went by Cary Grant.
Hollywood A-List
Perhaps feeling that his position on the totem pole was threatened a bit, Gary Cooper strayed out of his comfort zone and one of the first movies he filmed upon his return was the sophisticated comedy Design for Living, based on the Noël Coward play of the same name. It had a lot of fast talking and witty banter, the kind of stuff that wasn’t in Cooper’s wheelhouse, but the film was well-received and all the leads received praise for their acting.
The other films Cooper made following his European vacation were a mix of good and bad. There were highlights such as the 1932 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and the 1935 adventure film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, which both earned multiple Oscar nods, but there were also a few flops like The Wedding Night and Operator 13. They served as a reminder that nobody was truly untouchable at the box office, not even Gary Cooper. But even in movies that underperformed, his performances usually still garnered plenty of praise. It was odd that award recognition had eluded him so far, but that changed in 1936 when Cooper shot a film called Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
A Frank Capra affair, the movie tells the tale of a quiet, unassuming man from a small town who inherits a fortune and travels to the Big City, and how people try to take advantage of his friendly nature. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Gary Cooper’s first nod for Best Actor. But more than that, it cemented Cooper’s Hollywood persona – that of the earnest and courageous “folk hero” who would stand up for the little guy. Director Frank Capra said this about the part:
“As soon as I thought of Gary Cooper, it wasn’t possible to conceive anyone else in the role. He could not have been any closer to my idea of Longfellow Deeds…So it just had to be Cooper. Every line in his face spelled honesty. Our Mr. Deeds had to symbolize incorruptibility, and in my mind, Gary Cooper was that symbol.”
The actor rounded up the year with a comedy – Desire – a Western – The Plainsman – and an adventure movie – The General Died at Dawn – all three box office hits. So yeah, 1936 was a pretty good year for him and, for the first time, Gary Cooper was included in the Top Ten Money-Making Stars poll that ranked actors’ bankability. To this day, he has the fourth most appearances on the list with 18, ahead of guys like Tom Hanks, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant.
The second half of the decade didn’t go as well, to be honest. In 1937 and 1938, Cooper filmed four flops in a row. But even worse than the films he chose to make were the ones he didn’t choose to make. First, he turned down the Western Stagecoach because it was a low-budget production that couldn’t even come close to paying him his regular rate. Instead, the movie featured a then-unknown John Wayne in his breakout role. And that same year Cooper refused producer David O. Selznick’s offer to star as Rhett Butler in his new project – a little picture called Gone with the Wind. Cooper had this to say about it:
“[It’s] going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his face and not Gary Cooper.”
So Gary got that one a little bit wrong. Gone with the Wind wasn’t the biggest flop in Hollywood history. You probably know that already. It…it did alright.
But with a new decade came new opportunities. Westerns like The Westerner and North West Mounted Police showed the world that Gary Cooper could still pack the cinemas while the Frank Capra drama Meet John Doe earned the actor more adulation from the critics. But it was the 1941 biographical drama Sergeant York about the real-life exploits of WWI hero Alvin C. York that earned Cooper his first Oscar for Best Actor. And the fact that it was the highest-grossing movie of the year didn’t hurt his prospects, either.
Cooper earned two more nominations in subsequent years, one for the 1942 sports drama The Pride of the Yankees about Lou Gehrig and the other for another Hemingway adaptation, For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Going Out on Top
The rest of the decade was another mixed bag for the actor. He had hits but also a few flops like the 1949 adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel The Fountainhead. But this also represented a transition in Cooper’s career. He was now a man in his mid-to-late 40s. He couldn’t keep up the schedule that he had in his younger years, nor could he still do many of the physical scenes of his earlier movies, particularly the cowboy stuff.
He attempted to start his own independent studio called International Pictures with a few Hollywood business pals. The studio wasn’t very successful and only lasted for two years, but the owners sold it to Universal for a tidy profit so Cooper made off okay in the deal.
Cooper became much more selective with his roles, only doing one or two movies a year for the rest of his career. However, as we’ve already seen, the actor wasn’t always the best judge of what would make a good film, so he started the 1950s with four movies that weren’t exactly flops, but they aren’t going on his highlight reel, either. Although here is a fun fact for you movie buffs: one of those films, the 1951 western Distant Drums is the source of the Wilhelm scream, which went on to become a widely-used stock sound effect that you’ve probably heard in a dozen movies without realizing it.
It might have looked like Cooper’s star was beginning to dim a little, but the actor was determined to show everyone that he had, at least, one more big hit in him. In 1952, he starred in what was, arguably, his greatest film and certainly the one he is best remembered for today – High Noon.
The movie saw the 50-year-old Cooper play an aging marshal getting ready to retire when he hears that a gang of killers is coming to town to get revenge on him. As the townsfolk turn their back on the marshal, mostly out of fear, he must decide if he should skip town or stay and confront the dangerous criminals alone. The movie was a smash hit, winning four Academy Awards, including another one for Gary Cooper, and four Golden Globes, and later became one of the first films to be selected by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the newly-created National Film Registry.
Cooper made another dozen or so movies following High Noon, although none of them were close to the same caliber. Even so, he still got the big bucks and received top billing even as he entered his 60s, which was a rarity for an actor, especially in those days. But health problems started plaguing him. Even when filming High Noon, Cooper was dealing with painful ulcers that kept recurring throughout the last decade of his life. Then, in 1960, the actor was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent several operations to remove the malignant tumors from his body, but the cancer still spread and became terminal.
The general public found out about Cooper’s sickness at the 1961 Academy Awards when the actor was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award. As Cooper’s illness prevented him from attending, a teary-eyed and emotional James Stewart accepted on his behalf. The next day, Cooper’s agent announced to the world that the actor had terminal cancer. Gary Cooper died on May 13, 1961, aged 60.
In the lead-up to his death, many of Cooper’s Hollywood friends hosted a charity dinner in his honor with tributes and roasts. Particularly popular proved Audrey Hepburn’s greeting card poem titled “What is a Gary Cooper?”:
“A male over six feet in length, lanky and bright-eyed…
The tallest, thinnest, kindest man…
A Gary Cooper is rare, and there is only one,
And there will never be another under the sun.”
