Hundreds Attend Cooper’s Funeral

Press, Volume C, Issue 29517, 19 May 1961, Page 14

Hundreds Attend Cooper’s Funeral

(N.Z Press Association—Copi/rightj HOLLYWOOD, May 16. Hundreds of film stars gathered in Hollywood today to pay a final tribute to the film actor, Gary Cooper, who died on Saturday.

The tall, soft spoken hero of a 100 films was accorded the respect and dignity in final rites which his family had hoped for, Associated Press said. A silent crowd of about 200 stood outside the Church of the Good Shepherd, in Beverly Hills during a Solemn Requiem .Mass. The eulogy by the Auxiliary Bishop ot Los Angeles, the Most Rev. Dr, Timothy Manning, said of Cooper’s 35-year career: “He was unparalleled in the perfection of his art”—then it praised him as a family man and a man of God. Although the 505-seat church was only three-quar-ters filled, because of a rigid restriction on invitations, the attendance of actors and actresses was unequalled for any congregation of recent memory. It was far greater than for the Academy awards and the funeral six months ago of Clark Gable—greater even than that for the funeral of the popular Humphrey Bogart. The mourners included:— James Stewart, John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Jack Benny, Lana Turner, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Fred Astaire, Ran-

dolph Scott, Rosalind Russell, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ricardo Montalban. Ann Sothern, Norma Shearer, Cesar Romero, Edward G. Robinson, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and his wife, Pat Kennedy, Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, Dinah Shore. Jose Ferrer, Rosemary Clooney, Desi Arnaz, Edgar Bergen, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Joel McCrea, Lawrence Harvey, Robert Stack. Walter Pidgeon, Jerry Lewis, Leo Carrillo, Merle Oberon, Janet Gaynor. Jacques Bergerac, Karl Malden, George Murphy, Martha Hyer, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, Dorothy McGuire, Rock Hudson, Efrem Zimbalist, Jun., Alec Guineas, James Mason, Raymond Massey, Jose Iturbi.