The tall handsome actor dove into his car on the 20th Century Limited he was boarding to Chicago as the bullets from his violent lover's gun rushed past him, narrowly missing his head. The beautiful, tempestuous shooting star known in her films as 'The Mexican Spitfire' swore loudly about her lack of marksmanship while she quickly stormed out.
Frank James Cooper was born May 7, 1901, in Helena, Montana. When he was five, his wealthy father, a Montana Supreme Court Justice, settled his family on a sprawling 600-acre ranch, the Seven-Bar-None. There, little Frank learned about horses and wildlife. When he was nine, he and his older brother Arthur accompanied their ill mother, who never took to the rustic farm life, and who was advised to take a long sea voyage, to England, where they attended the Dunstable School. At age 13, Frank was badly injured in an automobile accident and returned to the United States to his father's Montana ranch to recuperate, where his doctor advised him that riding would help heal his damaged hip. Frank spent many hours learning to expertly handle a horse and feed over 450 head of cattle, while becoming good friends with 10-year-old future movie star Myrna Loy, who lived nearby. Later, he attended Grinnell College where he studied art and worked a few seasons as a ranger at Yellowstone National Park.
In 1924, after his father retired from the Court, 23-year-old Frank moved to Los Angeles with his family, intending to become a political cartoonist and commercial artist. After three months, unsuccessful in his endeavor and taking on a few casual jobs, including one as a baby photographer, he ran into a group of dusty and bruised Helena friends in cowboy gear who told him of their work as movie extras at the small William Fox studio. They suggested Gary join them and put his masterful knowledge of horsemanship to good use in the wildly popular western movies of the time. He soon rode, roped, and took dives off horses for $10 a day, and, later, $10 a tumble off of them. Cooper appeared on a horse in approximately 50 films during this time, including his role as a Cossack in The Eagle ( 1925 ) with Rudolph Valentino. The pay seemed like good, easy money to Frank until he learned star Tom Mix was making $1,700 a week for comparable work. Decking himself out in full Western regalia, Cooper tried to impress a producer by galloping up to him on his horse, unintentionally wreaking terror in the man and havoc on the film set.
He hired an agent who suggested he change his name to Gary, after her hometown in Indiana. The 6' 3' tall, lanky, blue-eyed, and excessively handsome man produced and directed his own screen test, hauled it around Hollywood, and won his first starring role in The Winning of Barbara Worth ( 1926 ) , in which his death scene became particularly convincng when he fell asleep under the hot lights. In 1927 Gary was chosen by the infamous star Clara Bow to appear in a smart part as a reporter in her famous film IT ( 1927 ) . Clara was quite taken with the man and gave him a lead role in her next film, Children Of Divorce ( 1927 ) . Gary also had a minor but noteworthy part in her film Wings ( 1927 ) , which won the Oscar for best picture. Clara had a sexual fling with Gary and insisted he be given a part in all of her movies. Gary began to be known around Hollywood as the 'IT' boy, a term he despised, and soon tired of being just another guy in party girl Clara Bow's sizable throng of men, who were often lured—along with the entire University Of California football team known as the 'Thundering Herd' that included Marion Morrison who was the future John Wayne—to her Chinese red 'loving room.'
Cooper's liaison with the tempestuous Lupe Velez, his co-star in Wolf Song ( 1929 ) , who once gifted him with a pair of live wildcats, drove the already thin actor to lose 40 pounds and suffer a nervous breakdown after she shot at her lover as he boarded the Twentieth Century to Chicago. Despondent and suffering from severe attacks of jaundice and flu, he took off to Rome to recuperate. There he met the decade-older Countess Dorothy Di Frasso, who enticed Cooper with the lifestyle of the international set, soon leaving him broke.
Returning home and given a lucrative $125-a-week contract by Paramount Studios, Gary continued to rise in popularity in his first talking picture The Virginian ( 1929 ) , in which he, unlike Clara Bow, made an easy transition to sound film. The next year, Gary made movie history when he appeared as a Legionaire opposite the sultry Marlene Dietrich in the lusty Morocco ( 1930 ) . Great films that followed include A Farewell To Arms ( 1932 ) with Helen Hayes, Lives of a Bengal Lancer ( 1935 ) , Mr. Deeds Goes To Town ( 1936 ) , The Plainsman ( 1936 ) , Meet John Doe ( 1941 ) , Sergeant York ( 1941 ) for which he won his first Oscar, Ball Of Fire ( 1942 ) with Barbara Stanwyck, and Pride of the Yankees ( 1942 ) . In 1939, the U.S. Treasury named Gary Cooper as the highest paid wage-earner in the United States.
In 1933, Cooper married socialite Veronica Balfe, nicknamed Rocky, with whom he remained married the rest of his life, though his union was puncutuated by a serious, intense three-year affair with actress Patricia Neal, with whom he starred in The Fountainhead ( 1949 ) .
Cooper won his second Oscar for High Noon ( 1952 ) , co-starring Grace Kelly, and he began another run of successful films that included Vera Cruz ( 1954 ) with Burt Lancaster, Friendly Persuasion ( 1956 ) , Love In The Afternoon ( 1958 ) with decades younger Audrey Hepburn, 10 North Frederick ( 1958 ) with model Suzie Parker, The Hanging Tree ( 1959 ) , and The Wreck of the Mary Deare ( 1960 ) .
On May 13, 1961, six days after his 60th birthday, and only six months after his contemporary, Golden Age idol Clark Gable, died at 59, the heartthrob of countless women and men around the world, who was a cigarette smoker prone to illness and freak accidents throughout his life, died of lung cancer. Only one month earlier, Cooper had been awarded an honorary Academy Award for services to the industry, accepted on his behalf by Jimmy Stewart who, overcome with emotion, accidentally let the audience know the seriousness of Gary's condition. His last film The Naked Edge ( 1961 ) , was released posthumously.
Gary Cooper was an actor who radiated integrity and sincerity. His strong, gentle, and shy nature enhanced his already formidable good looks and endeared him to everyone. Earnest Hemingway once wrote of him, 'Coop is a fine man; as honest and straight and friendly and unspoiled as he looks. If you made up a character like Coop, nobody would believe it. He's just too good to be true.'
Sources: Great Lovers of the Movies by Jane Mercer, Encyclopedia of Film Stars by Douglas Jarvis, The Great Movie Stars—The Golden Years by David Shipman, Hollywood Hunks by Jacqueline Nicholson, Gary Cooper Web sites.
Steve Starr is the author of Picture Petfect-Art Deco Photo Frames 1926-1946, published by Rizzoli International Publications. A designer, artist, and movie star historian, Starr is the owner of Steve Starr Studios, specializing in Art Deco photo frames and artifacts, and celebrating its 38th anniversary in 2005. His collection of over 950 gorgeous, original frames is filled with photos of Hollywood's most elegant stars.
E-mail SSSChicago@ameritech.net, or visit www.SteveStarrStudios.com .
In Chicago, visit the Steve Starr Satellite Studio in the beautiful new Ravenswood Antique Mart, 4427 N. Ravenswood, 773-271-3700; 773-463-8017.
Photo of Steve Starr July 25, 2005 by Albert Aguilar.
Steve Starr presents an exhibition of 100 movie stars who contributed to musicals of the 1930's and 1940's which include Rita Hayworth, Lena Horne, Judy Garland, Mae West, Carmen Mirana, Cesar Romero and Frank Sinatra displayed in a portion of his beautiful Art Deco frames at the Harold Washington Library Center, on the 8th floor, just below the Winter Garden, through September, 2005. For furthr information call the Center at 312-747-4850 or Steve Starr Studios at 773-463-8017.
