Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper (Helena, Montana, May 7, 1901-Los Angeles, California, May 13, 1961), better known as Gary Cooper, was an American actor.
He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and was nominated three times, as well as an Honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1961. He was listed by the Motion Picture Herald of top ten movie stars for twenty-three consecutive years and was listed eighteen times on top ten grossing actors lists. The American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him 11th on its list of the 25 Legends of Classic Hollywood Cinema. His career spanned 36 years, from 1925 to 1961, with leading roles in 84 films. He was a movie star from the end of the silent era to the end of the golden age of classic Hollywood. His acting repertoire spanned roles in most major film genres. Throughout his career he played the role of the ideal American hero.
Early in his film career he worked as an extra and a stuntman, but soon landed acting roles. Establishing himself as a Western hero in his early silent films, he became a movie star in 1929 with his first sound film, The Virginian (The Virginian). In the early 1930s, he expanded his hero image to include more conservative characters in adventure films and dramas such as A Farewell to Arms (1932). and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935). During the height of his career, Cooper represented a new type of hero, a representative of the common man, in films such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Meet John Doe (1941), Sergeant York (1941), The Pride of the Yankees (1942) or For Whom the Bell Tolls (For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943). Later he played more mature and antagonistic characters in films such as The Fountainhead (1949) or Alone in the face of danger ( High Noon , 1952). Seeking to move away from his previous roles, in his later films he played non-violent characters in films such as Friendly Persuasion (1956) and The Man of the West ( Man of the West, 1958).
Early Years
Frank James Cooper was born in Helena, Montana on May 7, 1901, the younger (his brother Arthur was six years older than him) of the two children of Alice (née Brazier; 1873-1967) and Charles Henry Cooper (1865-1946), both of British origin. His father came from Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire and became a prominent lawyer, rancher, and Montana Supreme Court Justice; his mother was from Gillingham, Kent and married Charles in Montana. In 1906 his father bought the 240 ha Seven-Bar-Nine cattle ranch, about 50 miles north of Helena, near Craig, Montana. The two brothers spent summers on the ranch and learned to ride horses. riding, hunting, and fishing. Cooper studied at Central Grade School in Helena.
Alice wanted her children to have a British education, so she sent them to England in 1909 to enroll at Dunstable Grammar School in Dunstable, Bedfordshire; during their stay the two brothers lived with their father's cousins, William and Emily Barton, in their home at Houghton Regis. Cooper studied Latin, French, and English history at Dunstable until 1912. Although he managed to adapt to the discipline of English school and learned the social requirements, never adjusting to the rigid class structure and formal Eton-like collars he had to wear. He received his confirmation into the Church of England at All Saints Church in Houghton Regis on 3 December in 1911. His mother accompanied them back to the United States in August 1912, and Cooper resumed his studies at Johnson Grammar School in Helena.
When he was 15 years old, he injured his hip in a car accident; on the recommendation of his doctor he moved to the "Seven-Bar-Nine" ranch to recuperate on horseback, an erroneous therapy that left him with his characteristic style of stiff and unbalanced gait and slightly inclined riding. In 1918 he left He completed his high school studies at Helena High School after two years and returned to the family ranch to work full-time as a cowboy. In 1919 his father arranged for him to attend Gallatin County High School in Bozeman, where, Ida Davis, his English teacher, encouraged him to focus on academics and to participate in debates and plays. The actor later said that Davis "[was] the woman who was partly responsible for [him] stopping be a cowboy and go to college."
In 1920, while still in high school, he took three art courses at the Montana Agricultural College in Bozeman. His interest in art was sparked years earlier by the paintings of the Old West by Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington. He was particularly admiring and studied Russell's painting Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole (1910), which is currently in the state capitol building in Helena. To continue his artistic education, in 1922 he enrolled at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, where he did well academically at the most of his courses, but he was not accepted into the school's drama club. His drawings and watercolors were displayed throughout the dorm, and he was appointed art editor for the college yearbook. During the summers From 1922 to 1923 he worked in Yellowstone National Park as a tour guide driving the open-top yellow buses. Despite a promising first 18 months at Grinnell, he left the university in February 1924, spending a month in Chicago looking for work. as an artist and then returned to Helena, where he sold editorial cartoons to the local newspaper Independent.
In the fall of 1924 his father left his post on the Montana Supreme Court and moved with his wife to Los Angeles to manage the estates of two relatives, so Cooper, at his father's request, moved to he met them there in November. After a brief stint in a series of unpromising jobs, he met two friends from Montana who worked as extras and stuntmen on B-westerns for small Poverty movie studios. Row", who introduced him to another Montana cowboy, rodeo champion Jay "Slim" Talbot, who introduced him to a casting director. A professional art artist, he worked as an extra on a movie for $5 a day and as a stuntman for $10. Cooper and Talbot became close friends and hunting partners, and Talbot later worked as Cooper's stunt double and stand-in for more than three decades.
Career
Silent film (1925-1928)
In early 1925 he began his film career in silent films such as The Thundering Herd and Wild Horse Mesa starring Jack Holt, Riders of the Purple Sage and The Lucky Horseshoe with Tom Mix, and The Trail Rider with Buck Jones. Although he worked for several "Poverty Row" studios, he also he did it for then-upcoming majors such as Famous Players-Lasky and Fox Film Corporation. His horsemanship prowess landed him steady work in westerns, but Cooper qualified the work of stuntmen, who he sometimes caused damage to horses and riders, as "tough and cruel". Hoping to leave risky stunt work behind and land acting roles, Cooper paid for a screen test and hired casting director Nan Collins to work as his agent. Collins knew that other actors called him "Frank Cooper" and suggested that he change it to "Gary", after his hometown of Gary, Indiana. Cooper immediately liked him.
He also landed work in several non-Western films, including his role as a masked Cossack in The Eagle (1925), as a Roman soldier in Ben-Hur (1925) and as a flood survivor in The Johnstown Flood (1926). /i> (1925), in which he played the film's antagonist, or the short film Lightnin'; Wins (1926) As a supporting actor, he began to attract the attention of the major movie studios, and on June 1, 1926 he signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn Productions for $50 a week.
His first role of any importance was as a supporting actor in the film The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), starring Ronald Colman and Vilma Bánky, in which he played a young engineer who helps a rival suitor save the woman she loves and her town from impending dam disaster; according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, her experience living among Montana cowboys gave her performance an "instinctive authenticity". The film was a huge success; critics described Cooper as a "dynamic new personality" and a future star. Goldwyn offered him a long-term contract, but he declined, ultimately signing a five-year contract with Jesse. L. Lasky from Paramount Pictures for $175 a week. In 1927, with the help of Clara Bow, he landed leading roles in Children of Divorce and Wings (Wings), both from 1927. That same year he also got his first leading roles in Arizona Bound and Nevada, both directed by John Waters.
Paramount paired him with Fay Wray in The Legion of the Condemned and The First Kiss (both 1928) billing them as the "glorious young lovers" of the studio, although her on-screen interaction did not generate much enthusiasm among the public. With each new film her acting level improved and her popularity grew, especially among female audiences. At that time, she earned up to $2,750 per movie. In an effort to capitalize on Cooper's growing appeal to audiences, the studio had him share the bill with popular leading actresses such as Evelyn Brent in Beau Sabreur., Florence Vidor in Doomsday and Esther Ralston in Half a Bride (all 1928). Also that year, he starred in Lilac Time with Colleen Moore for First National Pictures, his first film with synchronized music and sound effects, which became one of the most successful films of 1928.
Hollywood star (1929-1935)
He became a movie star after the release of his first sound film, The Virginian (The Virginian, 1929), directed by Victor Fleming and co-starring Mary Brian and Walter Huston; Based on Owen Wister's popular novel of the same name, The Virginian was one of the first talkies to define the western's code of honor and helped establish many of the film genre conventions that persist to this day. Today. According to American biographer and critic Jeffrey Meyers, the romanticized image of the tall, handsome, and shy cowboy hero who embodied freedom, courage, and masculine honor owed much to Cooper's role in this film. Also according to Meyers, unlike some silent film actors who had serious problems adapting to the new sound medium, his transition was natural, with his "deep and clear" and "pleasantly slow" voice perfectly suited to the characters he portrayed. on screen. To capitalize on Cooper's growing popularity, Paramount cast him in several westerns and war dramas, including Only the Brave, The Texan, Seven Days' Leave, A Man from Wyoming and The Spoilers (all released in 1930). The front page of the Saturday Evening Post of 24 May 1930 with Cooper in his role as The Texan is the work of the renowned American folkloric photographer and painter Norman Rockwell.
One of the most important performances in Cooper's early career was his portrayal of a surly legionnaire in the Josef von Sternberg film Morocco (also 1930), with Marlene Dietrich in his introduction to American audiences. During production the director focused on Dietrich's performance and treated Cooper with disdain. Tensions came to a head when von Sternberg yelled at Cooper in German; the 191cm actor walked up to the 163cm director, grabbed him by the neck and said, "If you hope to work in this country, you better speak the language we use here." According to Thornton Delehanty of the New York Evening Post, despite the tensions on the set, Cooper gave "one of his best performances".
Back to the western in Fighting Caravans (1931) —a film based on Zane Grey's novel of the same title— alongside French actress Lili Damita, he starred in Dashiell's film noir Hammett City Streets (also 1931), co-starring Sylvia Sidney and Paul Lukas, as a young man who works at a fairground shooting booth who takes on big-city gangsters to save to the woman he loves. He concluded the year with appearances in two unsuccessful films: I Take This Woman, with Carole Lombard and His Woman, with Claudette Colbert.
The demands and pressure of shooting ten films in two years left the actor exhausted and in poor health, suffering from anemia and jaundice. He had lost thirty pounds during that period and felt alone, isolated and depressed by his sudden fame and wealth; in May 1931 he left Hollywood and sailed for Algiers and later to Italy, where he stayed for a year. During his stay abroad he stayed with Countess Dorothy di Frasso in her villa Madama de Roma, who taught him to appreciate good food and vintage wines, how to read Italian and French menus, and how to socialize among Europe's nobility and upper classes. After guiding him through Italy's great museums and art galleries, He accompanied him on a ten-week big game safari up the slopes of Mount Kenya in East Africa, where he was credited with over sixty kills, including two lions, a rhinoceros, and several antelopes. His experiences during the safari in Africa they profoundly influenced him and intensified his love of nature. On his return to Europe he embarked with the Countess on a Mediterranean cruise visiting the Italian and French Riviera. Rested and rejuvenated by his year-long exile, Cooper he returned to Hollywood in April 1932 and negotiated a new contract with Paramount to make two films a year, at a salary of $4,000 a week and the possibility of approving the director and the script.
In 1932, after finishing filming Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead to fulfill her old contract, she starred in A Farewell to Arms (A Farewell to Arms), the first film adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel. Co-starring Helen Hayes (a noted New York theater star and Oscar winner) and Adolphe Menjou, the film was one of his more ambitious and challenging dramatic roles, playing an American ambulance driver wounded in Italy who falls in love with an English nurse during World War I; critics praised his intense and emotional performance and the film became one of the most commercially successful of the year. In 1933, after his performance in Today We Live with Joan Crawford and One Sunday Afternoon with Fay Wray, he starred in Ernst's comedy Lubitsch A Woman for Two (Design for Living), based on the successful play of the same name by Noël Coward. The film co-stars Miriam Hopkins and Fredric March and it was a box office success, ranking in the top ten highest-grossing films of 1933; his performance, playing an American entertainer in Europe competing with his playwright friend for the affections of a beautiful woman, was noted for its versatility and revealed his talent for light comedy. In August 1933, the actor legally changed his name to "Gary Cooper".
In 1934 Cooper was loaned out to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the Civil War drama Operator 13 opposite Marion Davies, a film about a beautiful Union spy who fell in love with a Confederate soldier; Despite Richard Boleslawski's imaginative direction and George J. Folsey's lavish cinematography, the film was not very successful at the box office. Back at Paramount, Cooper starred in the first of seven films he made under the direction of Henry Hathaway, Now and Forever, with Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple; he plays a white-collar burglar who tries to sell the daughter he had with his first wife to the relatives who have raised her, but is ultimately won over by the girl's charm and likability. Impressed by Temple's intelligence and charisma, Cooper developed a close friendship with her, both on and off screen. The film was a great success.
The following year, Paramount loaned him to Samuel Goldwyn Productions to participate in King Vidor's romantic film The Wedding Night alongside Anna Sten, who at that time they intended to present as "another Garbo »; In this film, in which according to biographer Larry Swindeel Cooper's performance was far-reaching and profound, he plays an alcoholic novelist who retires to his family's New England farm where he meets and falls in love. of a beautiful Polish neighbor. Despite receiving generally favorable reviews, the film was not popular with American audiences, who may have been offended by the portrayal of an extramarital affair and by its tragic ending. That same year He starred in two Henry Hathaway films: the melodrama Peter Ibbetson with Ann Harding, about a man trapped in an illusory world created by his love for a childhood sweetheart, and the adventure film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, where he played a daring British officer who defends a fortress in Bengal against rebellious local tribes with his men. While the first was only somewhat successful in Europe, the second was nominated for seven Academy Awards and became one of the actor's most successful and popular adventure films. Hathaway showed great respect for his acting ability, calling him "the best of all actors"..
American Folk Hero (1936-1943)
From Mr. Deeds to The Real Glory (1936-1939)
In 1936 his career took an important turn. After starring for Paramouth in Frank Borzage's romantic comedy Desire alongside Marlene Dietrich, in which he gave a performance considered by some contemporary critics as a Of the most notable, Cooper returned to "Poverty Row" for the first time since his early silent film days to perform for Columbia Pictures Mr. Frank Capra's Deeds Goes to Town, co-starring Jean Arthur. In the film he plays Longfellow Deeds, a quiet and innocent greeting card writer who inherits a fortune, leaving behind his idyllic village life (fictional) from Vermont and travels to New York where he confronts a world of corruption and deceit. Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin seized upon Cooper's already established role on screen as the "quintessential American hero", a symbol of honesty., courage and kindness, to create a new type of "folk hero" for the common man. Referencing Cooper's effect on the character and the film, Capra commented:
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, and as soon as he could think in terms of Cooper, Bob Riskin found it easier to develop the Deeds character in terms of dialogue. So it just had to be Cooper. Every line in his face spelled honesty. Our Mr. Deeds had to symbolize uncorruptibility, and in my mind Gary Cooper was that symbol.As soon as I thought of Gary Cooper, it was not possible to conceive anyone else for paper. I couldn't be closer to my idea of Longfellow Deeds, and as soon as I could think of Cooper, it was easier for Bob Riskin to develop the dialogues of Deeds' character. It just had to be Cooper. Every expression of his face spelled honesty. Our Mr. Deeds had to symbolize incorruption, and in my mind Gary Cooper was that symbol.
Both Desire and Mr. Deeds were released in April 1936 to critical acclaim and were huge box office successes. In his review in The New York Times, screenwriter and film critic Frank Nugent wrote that Cooper was "proving himself one of the best comedians in Hollywood". For his performance in Mr. Deeds, Cooper received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
He starred in two more films for Paramount in 1936. In Lewis Milestone's adventure film The General Died at Dawn with Madeleine Carroll, he plays an American soldier of fortune in China who helps the peasants to fend off the oppression of a cruel warlord; scripted by playwright Clifford Odets, the film was a critical and commercial success. In Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Plainsman (the first of his four films with this director), portrays Wild Bill Hickok in a highly fictionalized version of the Old West frontier opener; the film was an even bigger box office success than its predecessor, due in no small part to Jean Arthur's strong portrayal of Calamity Jane and Cooper's inspired portrayal of Hickock as an enigmatic figure of "increasingly mythical essence". That year Cooper made the list for the first time in the ten big screen personalities published annually by the magazine specialized in the world of cinema Motion Picture Herald, where it would remain for the next twenty-three years.
In late 1936 Paramount was preparing a new contract for Cooper that would raise his salary to $8,000 a week when the actor signed an agreement with Samuel Goldwyn to make six films in six years with a guaranteed minimum of $150,000 per picture. Paramount sued Goldwyn and Cooper, and the court ruled that Cooper's new contract with Goldwyn allowed the actor sufficient time to fulfill his agreement with Paramount. Cooper continued to make films with both studios, and by 1939 the The United States Department of the Treasury reported that the actor was the highest earner in the country, with $482,819 (about $9.41 million today).
In contrast to his output the previous year, in 1937 he starred in only one film, Henry Hathaway's adventure film Souls at Sea, which was a critical and commercial failure; Cooper he referred to it as his "almost movie", saying: "It was almost exciting, and almost interesting. And I was almost good". In 1938 he starred in the Archie Mayo biopic The Adventures of Marco Polo; plagued by production problems and poorly scripted, the film became the biggest Goldwyn's failure to date, with losses of $700,000. During this period, he turned down several major roles, including that of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, a film for which the actor, to whom he made several proposals, was producer David O. Selznick's first choice for the role, but Cooper had misgivings about the project and was deemed unsuitable to play this character. Cooper later admitted: " It was one of the best roles that has been offered in Hollywood... But I said no. I didn't look that handsome, and later when I saw Clark Gable play the part perfectly, I knew he was right."
In 1938, back at Paramount, Cooper returned to a more appreciative genre in Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, opposite Claudette Colbert. this time he plays a wealthy American businessman in France who falls in love with the daughter of an impoverished aristocrat and convinces her to become his eighth wife; despite clever scripting by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, as well as After strong performances by Cooper and Colbert, American audiences had trouble accepting the actor in the role of a superficial ladies' man, and he only succeeded at the box office in the European market. That fall he stars opposite Merle Oberon in another romantic comedy, The Cowboy and the Lady, by H. C. Potter, as a tough but good-natured rodeo cowboy who falls in love with a wealthy judge's daughter who is running for president, believing her to be the maiden poor and hardworking of a great lady. The efforts of three directors and several renowned screenwriters could not salvage what could have been a good role for Cooper; although more successful than its predecessor, the film was the fourth consecutive failure of the player in the US market.
Over the next two years he became more selective in the roles he accepted, starring in four successful Western and adventure films. In William A. Wellman's adventure film Beau Geste (1939) played one of three daring English brothers who join the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara to fight the local tribes; filmed on the same Mojave Desert sets as the original 1926 version starring Ronald Colman, the film provided him with magnificent sets, exotic settings, fast-paced action, and a role suited to his personality and screen image. Beau Geste was the last film of Cooper's contract with Paramount In The Real Glory (1939), directed by Henry Hathaway, he plays a military doctor who accompanies a small group of US Army officers to the Philippines to help Christian Filipinos fend off the Muslim radicals; critics praised Cooper's performance, including renowned British writer, screenwriter and film critic Graham Greene, who stated that he had "never acted better".
From The Westerner to For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940-1943)
In 1940 he returned to the Western genre in William Wyler's The Westerner, with Walter Brennan and Doris Davenport, playing a aimless cowboy who defends the peasants against Roy Bean, a corrupt judge which billed itself as "the law west of the Pecos". Screenwriter Niven Busch relied on the actor's knowledge of Old West history while working on the script; the film received good reviews, with praise being given to the performances of the two actors. leads, and was well received at the box office. That same year, he starred in his first feature film shot entirely in Technicolor, Cecil B. DeMille's adventure film North West Mounted Police, in which he plays a Texas Ranger who pursues an outlaw in western Canada where he joins the North West Mounted Police. Canada going after the same man, a leader of the Northwest Rebellion; although not as critically popular as its predecessor, the film was another box office success.
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The early 1940s were his best years as an actor. In a relatively short period, he starred in five critically and commercially successful films, with some of his best performances. When his friend Frank Capra offered the title role of Meet John Doe, Cooper accepted even before Robert Riskin wrote the script. In this film Cooper plays Long John Willoughby, a homeless former minor league pitcher hired by a newspaper to pretend to be a man who promises to commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest all the hypocrisy and corruption in the country. Considered by some critics to be Capra's best film of the time, Meet John Doe was considered a "national event", which led to the actor appearing on the cover of Time magazine on March 3, 1941; in his review in the New York Herald Tribune , Howard Barnes called Cooper's performance "splendid and utterly convincing" praising his "utterly realistic performance, performed with great authority", and Bosley Crowther in The New York Times wrote "Gary Cooper, of course, is 'John Doe' that in life and in general he is shy, confused, little aggressive, but a real tiger when he wakes up. »
That same year, he starred in two films with director and good friend Howard Hawks. In the biographical feature Sergeant York, he plays war hero Alvin York, one of the most decorated American soldiers in the world. World War I; the film recounts York's early days in Tennessee, his religious conversion and subsequent devotion, his stance as a conscientious objector, and finally his heroic actions in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which earned him the Medal of Honor. Initially feeling a little nervous and insecure about playing the role of a living hero, the actor traveled to Tennessee to visit York at his home, where the two easy-going men established an immediate rapport and discovered they had much in common. Cooper delivered a performance that Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune called "extraordinary conviction and versatility" and Archer Winston of the New York Post called "a of his best." Upon the film's release, the actor was awarded the Veterans of Foreign Wars Distinguished Citizenship Medal for his "powerful contribution to fostering patriotism and loyalty." York praised Cooper's performance and collaborated on promoting the film for Warner Bros. Sergeant York became the highest-grossing film of the year and was nominated for eleven Oscars; Cooper won the Oscar for Best Actor and when his friend James Stewart presented him with the award, Cooper said: "It was Sergeant Alvin York who won this award. Wow, he's been in the business for sixteen years and I sometimes dreamed that he could get one of these. That's all I can say... It's funny that when he dreamed he always made a better speech ».
He wrapped up the year by returning to Goldwyn to star in Howard Hawks' romantic comedy Ball of Fire, co-starring Barbara Stanwyck, in which the actor plays a shy linguistics professor who runs a team of seven quirky bachelor scholars who are writing an encyclopedia and while studying slang, the professor meets flirtatious cabaret dancer Sugarpuss O'Shea, who makes him rethink his life surrounded by books and his back to the world. The screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder gave Cooper the opportunity to exercise the full range of his skills in light comedy; in his review for the New York Herald Tribune Howard Barnes wrote that the actor played the role with "great skill and comic emphasis" and that his performance was "absolutely charming". Though small in scale, Ball of Fire was one of the highest-grossing films of the year and Cooper's fourth consecutive top 20 hit.
His only film in 1942, the Sam Wood-directed biopic The Pride of the Yankees, was also the last under his contract with Goldwyn. Cooper played baseball star Lou Gehrig, who set a record with the New York Yankees by playing 2,130 consecutive games, a role the actor balked at due to the challenge of playing a seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star who had died only a year earlier. of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in addition to the challenges of adequately showing such a popular and nationally recognized figure, that Cooper knew very little about baseball, or that he was not left-handed like Gehrig, but after a visit from the widow of the player to the actor in which she expressed her desire for him to play her husband, Cooper accepted the role, which spanned a twenty-year period of Gehrig's life: his early love of baseball, his rise to fame, his loving marriage and his fight against disease, culminating in his farewell speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939 before 62,000 fans; Cooper had to learn to execute the gestures, movements and blows of a baseball player and he managed to acquire fluid and believable hitting (the dominant hand problem was resolved by reversing some of the hitting scenes). The film was ranked in the top ten of the year and received eleven Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actor (Cooper's third nomination).
Shortly after the publication of Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, Paramount paid $150,000 for the rights to make the film with the express intention that Cooper would play the role. by Robert Jordan, an American explosives expert fighting for the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. Originally intended director Cecil B. DeMille was replaced by Sam Wood, who turned to Dudley Nichols for the script. At the start of filming in the Sierra Nevada in late 1942, Ingrid Bergman replaced actress and dancer Vera Zorina as the female lead (a change endorsed by Cooper and Hemingway). The love scenes between Bergman and Cooper were "enthralling" and passionate.; Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune wrote that both actors played the role with "the true stature and authority of stars". the novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943) was a critical and commercial success and received ten Oscar nominations, including Best for Best Picture and Best Actor (Cooper's fourth nomination).
Due to his age and health, the actor did not serve in the military during World War II, but, like many of his colleagues, he participated in the war effort by entertaining the troops. In June 1943, he visited hospitals in the army in San Diego and often appeared at the Hollywood Canteen serving food to the military. In late 1943 he undertook a 23,000 mile tour of the Southwest Pacific front with actresses Una Merkel and Phyllis Brooks, and the accordionist Andy Arcari. Traveling in a B-24A Liberator bomber, the tour toured the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Queensland, Brisbane—where General Douglas MacArthur told Cooper he was seeing Sergeant York in a theater in Manila when Japanese bombs began to fall—, New Guinea, Jayapura and Solomon Islands. The group often shared the same living conditions and "K-ration" (combat ration for the consumption of soldiers on the battlefield) than troops. Cooper met with servicemen and women, visited military hospitals, introduced his attractive colleagues, and took part in occasional performances; the shows concluded with Cooper's moving portrayal of the Lou Gehrig's farewell speech. When he returned to the United States, he visited military hospitals across the country. The actor later referred to his time with the troops as the "greatest emotional experience" of his life.
Roles in later life (1944-1952)
In 1944 he starred in Cecil B. DeMille's adventure film (his third film with this director) The Story of Dr. Wassell alongside Laraine Day, in which he plays the doctor and missionary American Corydon M. Wassell, who leads a group of wounded sailors through the jungles of Java to safety; despite receiving poor reviews, the film was one of the highest-grossing films of the year.
With his contracts with Goldwyn and Paramount now up, Cooper decided to go on his own and formed his own production company, International Pictures, with Leo Spitz, William Goetz and Nunnally Johnson. The newborn studio's first production was the romantic comedy Sam Wood Casanova Brown, co-starring Teresa Wright, which is about a man who finds out that his recently separated ex-wife has had a child by him, just as he is about to get married with another woman. This film was also poorly received by critics, such as that of the New York Daily News who described it as "delicious nonsense", or that of Bosley Crowther in The New York Times which criticized Cooper's "rather obvious and ludicrous slapstick"; the film was barely profitable.
In 1945 he starred in and produced for International Stuart Heisler's Western comedy Along Came Jones, with Loretta Young. In this jaunty parody of his hero image, he plays the comically bumbling cowboy Melody Jones, who is mistaken for a ruthless killer; the audience appreciated Cooper's character and the film was one of the highest grossing of the year, which seemed to confirm that the actor was still an attractive character for the public. International's greatest financial success during its brief history before being sold to Universal Pictures in 1946.
His career during the postwar years took a new turn as American society changed. Although he still played conventional heroic roles, his films now relied less on his screen hero persona and more on original stories and exotic settings. In November 1945 he starred in the 19th century drama XIX Saratoga Trunk by Sam Wood with Ingrid Bergman, playing a Texas cowboy and his relationship with a beautiful gold digger; shot at In early 1943, the film's release was delayed for two years due to increased demand for war films. Despite poor reviews, the film was successful with audiences, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year. for Warner Bros. His only film in 1946 was Fritz Lang's romantic thriller Cloak and Dagger, about a respectable physics professor recruited by the OSS in recent years. of World War II to investigate the German atomic bomb program; in his portrayal of a role loosely based on physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Cooper found himself uncomfortable with the role and unable to convey the "soul" of the character and the film it received poor reviews and was a box office flop.
In 1947, he starred in Cecil B. DeMille's epic adventure film Unconquered, opposite Paulette Goddard, about a Virginia militiaman who defends the settlers against a rogue arms dealer and hostile Indians on the western frontier during the 18th century; the film received mixed reviews, though often DeMille critic James Agee acknowledged that the film displayed "some authentic flavor of the period". It was the most lucrative of the actor's four films under DeMille's direction, for which he received more than $300,000 (3,640,686 current) between salary and percentage of profits; it was also his last box office success for the next five years.
In 1948, after filming the romantic comedy Good Sam, directed by Leo McCarey, Cooper sold his company to Universal Pictures and signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros., which gave him offered script and director's approval and a guarantee of $295,000 (equivalent to $3,327,126 today) per film. His first feature film under the new contract was the King Vidor drama The Fountainhead (1949) with Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey, in which he plays an uncompromising avant-garde architect who struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism in the face of societal pressures to conform to convention. Based on the novel of the same title by Ayn Rand, who also wrote the screenplay, the film reflects his philosophy and attacks the concepts of collectivism and upholds the virtues of individualism. For most critics, the casting of Cooper for the role of Howard Roark was totally wrong; In his review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther concluded that it was "Mr. Deeds out of the element of him ».
He found himself back in his element in Delmer Daves' war drama Task Force (1949), playing a retired admiral looking back on his long career as a promoter of the naval aviator and the importance of aircraft carriers; Cooper's performance and the Technicolor footage provided by the United States Navy made the film one of the actor's most popular films during this period. Over the next two years, he starred in four poorly received films: Michael Curtiz's period drama Bright Leaf (1950), Stuart Heisler's Western melodrama Dallas (1950), Henry Hathaway's war comedy You& #39;re in the Navy Now (1951) and the action western Distant Drums (1951) by Raoul Walsh.
His most important post-war film was Fred Zinnemann's Western drama High Noon (1952) for United Artists, with Grace Kelly as a co-star. He plays newly retired sheriff Will Kane, who is preparing to leave town on his honeymoon when he learns that an outlaw he helped put away and his three henchmen are coming back for seek revenge; Unable to rally the support of the frightened townspeople and abandoned by his young girlfriend, Kane is nevertheless left to face the outlaws alone. During filming the actor was unwell and in considerable pain caused by ulcers. stomach; his afflicted face and discomfort in some scenes "filmed as doubtful", according to biographer Hector Arce, contributed to making his performance more effective. Considered one of the first "adult" westerns for its theme of moral courage, Alone in the Face of Danger received rave reviews for its artistic quality, leading Time magazine to rank it on a par with Stagecoach (Stagecoach, 1939) and The Gunfighter (The Gunfighter, 1950); Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, wrote that Cooper was "at the top of his game" and John McCarten, in The New Yorker, wrote that he was never more effective. The film earned $3.75 million in the United States. and $18 million worldwide. Following the example of his friend James Stewart, he accepted a lower salary in exchange for a percentage of the revenue, ending up earning $600,000. Cooper's humble portrayal was highly praised, and earned him his second Oscar for best actor.
Latest films (1953-1961)
Following his performance in André de Toth's Civil War drama Springfield Rifle (1952) — a regular Warner Bros. film that was overshadowed by the success of its predecessor—, Cooper starred in four films outside the United States. In Mark Robson's drama Return to Paradise (1953), he plays an American adventurer who frees the inhabitants of an island from Dominion Polynesia a strict Puritan pastor; the actor endured spartan living conditions, long hours and poor health during the three-month shoot on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa. Despite his beautiful photography, the film received poor reviews.
His next three feature films were shot in Mexico. In Hugo Fregonese's action-adventure film Blowing Wild (1953) opposite Barbara Stanwyck, he plays an oil driller in Mexico who returns to the company of his former boss, Ward 'Paco' Conway (Anthony Quinn), who has now become a rich man thanks to oil, meets his seductive and unscrupulous wife, with whom he once had an affair. In 1954 he stars in the Western drama Garden of Evil, by Henry Hathaway, starring Susan Hayward, about three soldiers of fortune in Mexico hired by a woman to rescue her husband. That same year, she starred in Robert Aldrich's adventure western Vera Cruz, opposite Burt Lancaster, in which he plays an American adventurer hired by Emperor Maximilian I to escort a countess to Veracruz during the Mexican rebellion of 1866. All of these films received poor reviews, but did well. box office results. For his work on Vera Cruz, Cooper earned $1.4 million between salary and percentage of gross.
In this period he faced various health problems. In addition to his chronic treatment for ulcers, he suffered a serious shoulder injury during the filming of Blowing Wild when he was struck by metal fragments from a dynamited oil well. During the filming of Vera Cruz re-injured her hip falling from a horse and was burned when Lancaster fired his rifle too close and the blank shell punctured her clothing.
In the 1955 biographical war drama directed by Otto Preminger The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell he played the role of General William Mitchell, who during World War I tried to convince government officials of the importance of air power and that he was court-martialled after blaming the War Department for a series of air disasters. Some critics found Cooper misguided, considering that his bland and rigid portrayal did not reflect the dynamic personality and Mitchell's caustic. In 1956 he was most effective as a mild-mannered Quaker from Indiana in William Wyler's Civil War drama Friendly Persuasion opposite Dorothy McGuire. Sergeant York and Alone in the Face of Danger, this film addresses the conflict between religious pacifism and civic duty. Cooper received his second Golden Globe nomination for his performance. for best film actor and the film was nominated for six Oscars, received the Palme d'Or at the 1957 Cannes International Film Festival, and grossed $8 million worldwide.
That same year he traveled to France to shoot Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon (1957), with Audrey Hepburn and Maurice Chevalier, in which he plays a playboy middle-aged American in Paris who pursues and eventually falls in love with a much younger woman; despite receiving some positive reviews, including from Bosley Crowther, who praised the film's "charming performances", most critics considered Cooper too old for the role. Although audiences missed the actor's heroic image on screen, marred by his portrayal of an old roué trying to seduce an innocent young woman, the film was a box office success. In 1957 she starred in Philip Dunne's romantic drama Ten North Frederick; in the film, based on John O'Hara's novel of the same name, plays a lawyer whose life is ruined by a backstabbing politician and by his own secret affair with his daughter's young roommate. Although Cooper brought "conviction and controlled angst" to his performance, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, It was not enough to save what Bosley Crowther described in The New York Times as an "unfortunate film".
Despite his continuing health problems and several operations for ulcers and hernias, the actor continued to act in action films. In 1958 he starred in Anthony Mann's dramatic western, The Man of the West (Man of the West), co-starring Julie London and Lee J. Cobb, about a reformed outlaw and gunslinger who is forced to confront his violent past when the train he is traveling on is robbed by members of his former gang. The film has been called Cooper's "most pathological Western", with its themes of impotent rage, sexual humiliation, and sadism; according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers the actor, who struggled with moral conflicts in his In his personal life, he "understood the anguish of a character struggling to maintain his integrity... [and] brought authentic feeling to the role of a man tried and tormented, but essentially honest". According to critics at the time, the film today enjoys a good reputation among film scholars and is considered Cooper's last major film.
After his contract with Warner Bros. ended, Cooper formed his own production company, Baroda Productions, with which he made three unusual redemption films in 1959. In the Delmer Daves western The Hanging Tree plays a doctor who arrives in a mining town and has to attend to a girl who, victim of an attack by bandits, has lost her sight and ends up falling in love with him, but the doctor rejects her due to a dark past that deals with to hide; he gave a "powerful and persuasive" portrayal of an emotionally scarred man whose need to dominate others is transformed by a woman's love and sacrifice. In Robert Rossen's adventure film They Came to Cordura with Rita Hayworth, he played an army officer who is found guilty of cowardice and given the demeaning task of recommending soldiers for the Medal of Honor during the punitive expedition against Francisco Villa in 1916; The actor received generally good reviews, with Variety and Films in Review finding him too old for the role. In Michael Anderson's action drama The Wreck of the Mary Deare, opposite Charlton Heston, stars as a disgraced merchant marine officer who decides to stay aboard a drifting freighter to prove that the owners are deliberately running the ship and to redeem his good fortune. name. Like its two predecessors, the film was physically demanding; Cooper, who was an experienced diver, did most of his own underwater scenes. Jeffrey Meyers noted that in all three roles Cooper effectively conveyed the sentiment of lost honor and the desire for redemption, which Joseph Conrad described in his novel Lord Jim as "the struggle of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be." ».
Personal life
Marriage and Family
He was formally introduced to his future wife, twenty-year-old New York débutante Veronica Balfe, on Easter Sunday 1933 at a party given by her uncle, art director Cedric Gibbons. Known as "Rocky" to family and friends, she grew up on Park Avenue and attended finishing schools (etiquette schools). Her stepfather was Wall Street magnate Paul Shields. Cooper and Rocky were quietly married at his parents' Park Avenue residence on December 15, 1933. According to friends, the marriage had a positive impact on the actor, who put aside past indiscretions and regained control of his life. his life. A sportsman and lover of the outdoors, his wife shared many of Cooper's interests, including horseback riding, skiing, and skeet shooting. She took it upon herself to organize his social life and estate, and his social connections gave the actor access to New York high society. The couple lived in different homes in the Los Angeles area: in Encino (1933-36), Brentwood (1936-53) and Holmby Hills (1954-61), and owned a vacation home in Aspen, Colorado (1949-53).
The couple's only child, Maria Veronica, was born on September 15, 1937. By all accounts, Cooper was a patient and loving father, teaching her to ride a bicycle, play tennis, ski, and ride on horseback. The girl shared many of her parents' interests, accompanying them on their travels and often being photographed with them. Like her father, she developed a fondness for art and painting. They enjoyed family life in Sun Valley, Idaho, spent time at Rocky's parents' country house in Southampton, New York, and made frequent trips to Europe. Cooper and Rocky were legally separated on May 16, 1951, at which time in which the actor left home. For more than two years they maintained a fragile and uncomfortable family life with their daughter. Cooper returned home in November 1953 and their formal reconciliation took place in February 1954.
Romantic relationships
Prior to his marriage, Cooper had a series of romantic relationships with prominent actresses; the first was in 1927 with Clara Bow, who launched his career by helping him land one of his first major roles in Children of Divorce. Bow also landed him a role in Wings, which generated an enormous amount of fan correspondence for the young actor. In 1928 he had a relationship with another experienced actress, Evelyn Brent, whom he met while filming Beau Sabreur. In 1929, During the filming of The Wolf Song, Cooper began an intense romance with Lupe Vélez, the most significant and lasting of their early years; during the two years they were together, Cooper also had flirtations with Marlene Dietrich while filming Morocco in 1930 and with Carole Lombard during the filming of I Take This Woman in 1931. During his year abroad in 1931-32, he had an affair with Countess Dorothy di Frasso, who was married, while staying at her Villa Madama near Rome.
After their marriage in December 1933, Cooper remained faithful to his wife until the summer of 1942, when he began an affair with Ingrid Bergman during the production of For Whom the Bell Tolls; it lasted until the completion of filming on Saratoga Trunk in June 1943. In 1948, after finishing work on The Fountainhead, he began an affair with actress Patricia Neal, his co-star; at first they kept their affair low-key, but over time it became an open secret in Hollywood and his wife confronted him about the rumours, which he admitted were true and also confessed that he was in love with Neal and he continued to see her. Cooper and his wife were legally separated in May 1951, but he did not file for divorce. Neal later claimed that the actor beat him when she went on a date with Kirk Douglas and that he arranged an abortion when she became pregnant. Cooper's son. The actress ended their relationship at the end of December 1951. During the three years of separation from his wife, it was rumored that the actor had relationships with Grace Kelly, Lorraine Chanel and Gisèle Pascal.
His biographers have elaborated on his friendship in the late 1920s with actor Anderson Lawler, with whom Cooper occasionally shared a house for a year, while seeing Clara Bow, Evelyn Brent and Lupe Vélez. Vélez once told Hedda Hopper that during her relationship with Cooper, whenever he came home after seeing Lawler she would smell Lawler's cologne; Vélez biographer Michelle Vogel reported that the actress consented to Cooper's sexual behavior with Lawler, but only if she could participate as well.
Friendships, interests and character
His friendship with Ernest Hemingway, which lasted 20 years, began in Sun Valley in October 1940. The previous year, Hemingway drew on Cooper when creating the character of Robert Jordan for his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Both shared a passion for nature, and for years they hunted ducks and pheasants and skied together in Sun Valley. Both admired the work of Rudyard Kipling—Cooper kept a copy of the poem "If..." in his dressing room—and maintained Kipling's youthful sense of adventure as adults. In addition to admiring his knowledge of hunting and nature, Hemingway considered that his personality matched his screen image; he once told a friend, "If you created a character like Coop, no one would believe it. It's too good to be true." They saw each other often and became close friends over the years.
His social life generally centered around sports, outdoor activities, and dining with family and friends from the film industry, such as directors Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, William Wellman, and Fred Zinnemann, and actors Joel McCrea, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Taylor. In addition to hunting, he enjoyed horseback riding, fishing, skiing, and later scuba diving. He never abandoned his love of art and drawing which he acquired as a young man and over the years, both he and his wife acquired a private collection of modern paintings, including works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Georgia O'Keeffe, as well as some works by Pablo Picasso, whom he met in 1956. Throughout his life he was also passionate about automobiles, with a collection that included a 1930 Duesenberg.
His nature was reserved and introverted and he loved the solitude of outdoor activities. Unlike his on-screen persona, his communication often consisted of long silences, with an occasional "yes" or " geez." He once said, "If others have more interesting things to say than I do, I keep quiet." According to friends, he could also be an eloquent and well-informed conversationalist on topics ranging from horses, guns and Western history to film production, sports cars and modern art. He was modest and unpretentious and frequently downplayed his acting performance and professional achievements. Friends and colleagues described him as charming, well-educated and considerate, with a youthful and light-hearted sense of humor. Throughout his career he displayed good manners and never abused his movie star status or sought special treatment or refused to work with a leading director or actress. His great friend Joel McCrea said: "Coop never fought, never got angry, never berated anyone that I know of; everyone who worked with him liked him."
Political Ideas
Like his father, Cooper was a conservative Republican; he voted for Calvin Coolidge in the 1924 presidential election, for Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932, and campaigned for Wendell Willkie in 1940. When Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for a fourth term as president in 1944, Cooper campaigned for by Thomas E. Dewey and criticized Roosevelt as being dishonest and taking "foreign" positions. Deal that the America we all love is old, worn and worn out (and has to borrow foreign ideas that don't even seem to work very well where they come from...) Our country is a young country that just has to dare to be himself again." He also attended a Republican rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that drew 93,000 Dewey supporters.
He was one of the founders of the Film Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a conservative organization dedicated, in accordance with its mission statement, to preserving the american way of life and to opposing to communism and fascism. This organization, whose members included Walter Brennan, Laraine Day, Walt Disney, Clark Gable, Hedda Hopper, Ronald Reagan, Barbara Stanwyck, and John Wayne, advised the United States Congress to investigate the possible communist influence in the motion picture industry. On October 23, 1947, Cooper was summoned before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and asked if he had observed any such influence in Hollywood, to which he the actor replied that he had heard statements suggesting that the Constitution was outdated and that Congress was an unnecessary institution, something he considered "very un-American", and indicated that he had rejected several scripts because he considered them "soaked in communist ideas"; Unlike other witnesses, Cooper did not name anyone or refer to any specific script during his testimony.
In 1951, during the filming of Alone in the Face of Danger, Cooper befriended the film's screenwriter, Carl Foreman, who had been a member of the Communist Party. When Foreman was subpoenaed by the Committee on Un-American Activities, the actor defended him and when John Wayne and others threatened to blacklist him and lose his passport if he did not withdraw from the film, he made a statement to the press supporting him and, when producer Stanley Kramer removed Foreman as screenwriter, both Cooper and director Fred Zinnemann threatened to walk off the set if Foreman was not reinstated.
Religion
Cooper was confirmed in the Church of England in December 1911, and was a member of the Episcopal Church in America. Although he was not a practicing Christian for most of his adult life, many of his friends considered that it had a deeply spiritual character.
On June 26, 1953, he accompanied his wife and daughter, who were devout Catholics, to Rome, where they had an audience with Pope Pius XII; Cooper and his wife were still separated at the time, but the visit The papal mission marked the beginning of their gradual reconciliation. In the following years the actor reflected on his mortality and his personal behavior and began to discuss Catholicism with his family; he began to attend church regularly with them and held meetings with them. his parish priest, who offered him spiritual guidance. Cooper was baptized as a Catholic on April 9, 1959, before a small group of family and friends at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.
Last years
On April 14, 1960, he underwent surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to treat an aggressive prostate cancer that had metastasized to the colon; he fell ill again on May 31 and early June underwent further surgery at Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles to remove a malignant tumor from his large intestine. After recovering over the summer, he took his family on holiday to the south of France, before traveling to the UK in the autumn to starring in The Naked Edge; in December 1960, he participated in the NBC television documentary The Real West, which was part of the series Project 20 of the company.
On December 27, his wife learned from her family doctor that the cancer had spread to her lungs and bones and was inoperable; the family decided not to tell her at the time. On January 9, 1961, she attended a dinner given in his honor hosted by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at the Friars Club of Beverly Hills; the dinner was attended by many of his friends from the film world and concluded with a short speech by Cooper saying: "The only achievement I'm proud of is the friends I've made in this community."
In mid-January, he traveled with his family to Sun Valley for their last vacation together, where he hung out with Hemingway. On February 27, after returning to Los Angeles, he learned that he was dying. April saw the Oscars on television, where his friend James Stewart, who had presented him with his first Oscar years earlier, accepted on his behalf an honorary lifetime achievement award, his third Academy Award. Fighting back tears, Stewart said, "Coop, I'll give it to you right away. And Coop, I want you to know this, that with this goes all the warm friendship and affection and admiration and deep, deep respect from all of us. We are very, very proud of you, Coop. We are all tremendously proud." The next day newspapers around the world published the news that he was dying; in the days that followed he received numerous messages of appreciation and encouragement, including telegrams from Pope John XXIII and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, as well as a phone call from President John F. Kennedy.
He received extreme unction on May 12; he died the next day, Saturday, May 13, 1961, at 12:47 p.m. m., six days after his sixtieth birthday.
A requiem was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd on May 18, attended by many of his friends, including James Stewart, Henry Hathaway, Joel McCrea, Audrey Hepburn, Jack Warner, John Ford, John Wayne, Edward G. Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Fred Astaire, Randolph Scott, Walter Pidgeon, Bob Hope, and Marlene Dietrich. He was buried in the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. In May 1974, after his family moved to New York, his remains were exhumed and interred in Southampton's Sacred Hearts Cemetery. His grave is marked with a three-ton rock from a Montauk quarry..
Style and reputation as an actor
"Naturalness is hard to talk about, but I guess it boils down to this: You find out what people expect of your type of character and then you give them what they want. That way, an actor never seems unnatural or affected matter what role he plays."It's hard to talk about naturality, but I guess it's reduced to this: Find out what people expect from your character type and then give them what they want. That way, an actor never seems unnatural or affected regardless of the role he plays.Gary Cooper
His acting style was characterized by his ability to project traits of his own personality onto the characters he played, to appear natural and authentic in his roles, and to deliver measured and balanced performances for the camera and screen. Acting teacher Lee Strasberg once stated: "The clearest examples of Stanislavsky's ideas are actors like Gary Cooper, John Wayne and Spencer Tracy. They try not to act, but to be themselves, to respond or react. They refuse to say or do anything that is not in keeping with their own characters". French film director François Truffaut considered Cooper among "the leading actors" for his ability to give great performances "without direction". His ability to project aspects of his own personality onto his characters created a continuity in his performances, to the point that critics and audiences alike were convinced that he was simply "playing himself".
This characteristic of his acting style played an important role in his natural and authentic appearance on screen. Actor John Barrymore said about him: "This guy is the best actor in the world. She effortlessly does what the rest of us spend our lives trying to learn, which is to be natural." Charles Laughton, who starred with Cooper in Devil and the Deep, concurred: " Actually, that boy has no idea how well he acts... He does it from within, from his own clear way of seeing life." William Wyler, who directed him in two films, described him as a "superb actor, a master of film acting". In his review of Cooper's performance in The Real Glory, Graham Greene wrote: "Sometimes his lean, photogenic face seems to drop everything on camera., but there is no doubt that he is not acting. He sees him vaccinating the girl against cholera, the casual prick of the needle and her bandage while he talks, as if a thousand arms had taught him where to prick and he no longer had to think ».
Another characteristic trait of his style was his ability to disengage from being on camera, an ability that surprised many of his directors and colleagues. He was conscious of the camera's ability to pick up slight gestures and facial movements from his very first features, and commenting on his performance in Sergeant York , director Howard Hawks observed: "He worked very hard and without However it didn't seem to be working. He was a weird actor because you'd look at him during a scene and think… this isn't going to work. But when you saw the first tests in the screening room the next day you could read in his face everything he had been thinking." Sam Wood, who directed him in four films, made similar observations about Cooper's performance in The Pride of the Yankees: "What I thought was child's play turned out to be the right approach. On screen it's perfect, but on set you'd swear it's the worst performance in movie history."
His acting skills were admired by his professional colleagues. Commenting on his two films with Cooper, actress Ingrid Bergman concluded: "This man's personality was so huge, so overwhelming, and that look in his eyes and his face, it was so delicate and so understated. You didn't notice it until you saw it on the screen. He seemed wonderful to me; He is the most discreet and natural actor I have ever worked with ».
Tom Hanks stated, “In a single scene from the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, we see the future of screen acting in the form of Gary Cooper. He is calm and natural, somewhat different from the other cast members. He does something mysterious with his eyes and shoulders that is more like "being" than "acting."
Daniel Day-Lewis said, "I don't particularly like Westerns as a genre, but I do like certain Westerns. High Noon means a lot to me. I love the purity and honesty, I love Gary Cooper in that movie, the last man standing idea."
Chris Pratt said: "I started watching Westerns when I was shooting in London about four or five years ago. I really fell in love with Gary Cooper, and what he did. He got me hooked on westerns. Before, I had never been excited about the plot. I just walked in, and there were guys on horseback in black and white. After Gary Cooper's High Noon, I liked that. I love The Westerner. He is my favourite. I have that poster hanging in my house because I really love it."
For Al Pacino “Gary Cooper was a phenomenon, his ability to take something and elevate it, give it so much dignity. One of the great figures."
Acknowledgments and legacy
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His career spanned 36 years, from 1925 to 1961, with leading roles in 84 films. He was a movie star from the end of the silent era to the late golden age of classic Hollywood. Her natural and authentic acting style appealed to both men and women, her acting repertoire encompassed roles in most major film genres: Westerns, war films, adventure films, dramas, crime films, romantic comedy, and of romantic comedy.
He was named to the Motion Picture Herald list of the top ten movie stars for twenty-three consecutive years, from 1936 to 1958. According to Quigley's annual survey, Cooper was one of the top-earning stars for 18 years, ranking in the top ten in the years 1936-1937, 1941-1949 and 1951-1957, topping the list in 1953 and fourth all-time behind John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Tom Cruise. At the time of his death, it was estimated that his films grossed more than $200 million, about $1.814 billion today.
In more than half of his films, he played cowboys, soldiers, pilots, sailors, and explorers, all men of action. In the rest, he played a wide variety of characters, including doctors, teachers, artists, architects, office workers, and baseball players. His screen image changed as his career progressed. In his early films he played the naive young hero sure of his moral standing and confident in the triumph of essential virtues (The Virginian ). After becoming a big star his cowboy image was replaced by a more cautious hero in adventure films and dramas (A Farewell to Arms). At the height of his career, from 1936 to 1943, he played a new kind of hero: a standard-bearer for the common man willing to sacrifice himself for others (Mr. Deeds, Meet John Doe, For Whom the Bell Tolls). In the postwar years, Cooper attempted to broaden the spectrum of his screen image, which came to show a hero increasingly at odds with the world must face adversity alone (The Fountainhead, High Noon). In his later films, the hero rejects the violence of the past and seeks to recover lost honor and find the redemption (Friendly Persuasion, Man of the West). The film image he developed and sustained throughout his career represented the ideal of the American hero: a tall, handsome and sincere with unwavering integrity who prioritized action over intellect and combined the heroic qualities of the romantic lover, the adventurer, and the common man.
On February 6, 1960, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6243 Hollywood Boulevard for his contributions to the motion picture industry.
On May 6, 1961, he was awarded the French honorary distinction of the Order of Arts and Letters in recognition of his significant contribution to the arts. On July 30, 1961, he was posthumously awarded the David Special Prize di Donatello in Italy for his professional career.
The American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him 11th on its list of the 25 Legends of Classic Hollywood Film. Three of his characters—Will Kane, Lou Gehrig, and Sergeant York—are included in the AFI's list of the 100 greatest heroes and villains, all three in the hero section. His phrase interpreting Lou Gehrig "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth", is classified by the AFI as the Thirty-eighth most famous movie quote of all time.
More than half a century after his death, Cooper's legacy lives on, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, through his image of the ideal American hero preserved in his performances on the big screen. Charlton Heston once commented: "He projected the kind of man Americans would want to be, probably more than any actor who ever lived."
Filmography
Awards and distinctions
| Year | Prize | Category | Movie | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1937 | Oscar Awards | Best actor | Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | Nominee |
| 1937 | New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best actor | Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | Nominee |
| 1941 | New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best actor | Sergeant York | Winner |
| 1942 | Oscar Awards | Best actor | Sergeant York | Winner |
| 1943 | Oscar Awards | Best actor | The Pride of the Yankees | Nominee |
| 1944 | Oscar Awards | Best actor | For Whom the Bell Tolls | Nominee |
| 1945 | New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best actor | Along Came Jones | Nominee |
| 1952 | Prize magazine Photoplay | Most popular male star | High Noon | Winner |
| 1953 | Oscar Awards | Best actor | High Noon | Winner |
| 1953 | Golden Globe Awards | Best actor | High Noon | Winner |
| 1957 | Golden Globe Awards | Best actor | Friendly Persuasion | Nominee |
| 1959 | Golden Laurel Awards | Best Action actor | The Hanging Tree | Winner |
| 1960 | Golden Laurel Awards | Best Action actor | They Came to Cordura | Winner |
| 1961 | Oscar Awards | Honorary Oscar | Winner |
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