THE STORY OF GARY COOPER

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 42, 13 November 1936, Page 14

THE STORY OF GARY COOPER

Drama of Make-Believe and Grim Realities

Garv Cooper’s life affords a biography of contrasts —a drama of make-believe on Hollywood picture stages and of grim realities on the American plains and Africa’s veldt, of haphazard romances in which his name was linked with several feminine players of prominence, and of his eventual and happy marriage to Sandra Shaw.

"DORN in Helena, Montana, on May 7, •*"* to Charles M. and Alice H, Cooper, his early childhood was that of the average lad in the territory. When nine years of age, he was taken to England. He attended grammar school at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, and returned to Helena just before his thirteenth birthday to enter high school. An inordinately tall boy for his age and extremely slender, he was sent to his father’s Montana cattle ranch following an automobile injury. Recovering his health there, it was at this time that he gained the first experience which later qualified him for motion picture stardom. It was a robust young man who returned to Helena after two years.of life on the open range. Satisfied with his son’s health, the older Cooper sent him to college at Grinnel, lowa, where he remained two years.

In 1919 he set out to be a cartoonist on a Helena newspaper. It was his ambition at that time to become an artist of note. Five years later he felt in a mood to expand in this profession and journeyed to Los Angeles, city of enterprise, opportunity and all that. But the muse that watches over an artist’s inspiration was off duty the day he walked into a newspaper office in the California city and asked for an opportunity to demonstrate his wares. The art editor told him to sit down and prove bis worth. The result that day was a vague sketch. The art editor was sorry, and Gary Cooper went to work as an advertising salesman for a Los Angeles agency. Although disheartened and without funds he scorned the aid of his parents, and his hardship continued for three months. Then someone told hime of an extra player’s opportunity in motion pictures —another glowing panorama spread before the imaginative you tit But for more than a year, in which he often spent his last nickel on a loaf of bread and bolted it behind some billboard, Gary barely existed as one of the nameless hundreds who figured obscurely on the rim of mob scenes in a dozen pictures. I s

His first step from the crowd came in 1925 when Hans Tiesler, an independent producer of Hollywood’s “Poverty Row,” signalled him from the mob. He became the boots and spurs hero in a flickering two-reeler. His first leading woman was Eileen Sedgwick. Small parts in feature length pictures were now opened to him. but it wasn’t until he was cast as Abe Lee in “The Winning of Barbara Worth” that he achieved any serious recognition. His youth, personality and free style in that picture attracted the attention of B. P. Schulberg, then managing director of Paramount productions. Summoned to the studio he was given the first camera-less screen test on record. The office into which Gary walked was filled with producers, executives and directors. Finding himself, with-

out warning, in this position, be flashed an though equally engaging smile about the room, and without uttering a word, was dismissed. After Cooper left, Schulberg turned lo his aides with, “Well, gentlemen?” Every comment was favourable, and half an hour later a rough young star. was being dusted and groomed for bigger parts. He appeared first, briefly in parts. He appeared first, briefly, in “Children of Divorce.” It was the hey-day of western dramas that followed in the wake of the popular “Covered Wagon,” and with ths proficiency Cooper displayed in the Clara Bow films, Paramount decided to shape him into a new western star. It was a simple process, after his life on the Montana ranch. He imparted a quality of realism to his work, and with his first horseback success in “Arizona Bound,” became the hero of Paramount outdoor dramas. A long series of unbroken successes then marked his career, and he became the dashing caballero of the open spaces.

After “Fighting Caravans,” Paramount decided to take a chance on Cooper as a hero in civilian clothes. He played opposite Sylvia Sidney in one gangster picture, “City Streets,” and then appeared in two notable films. “I Take This Woman” and “His Woman,” when his health was impaired. Io preclude serious illness, a big game hunting expedition in Africa was planned. It remains the highlight in his life. Invited to join the hunting expedition conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Preston in October, 1931, Gary sailed for the Dark Continent. Six months later he was back in Hollywood. Upon the completion of for Living,” Cooper .went to New York, ostensibly to make personal appearances. But two weeks -later he was married to Sandra Shaw at the Wal-dorf-Astoria.

The Coopers make their home on the San Fernando ranch and maintain a town house in Beverly Hills.

Gary’s .pictures to date are: — “The Winning of Barbara Worth,” “Wings,” “It,” "Children of Divorce,” “Arizona Bound,” “‘Nevada,” “Beau Sabreur,” '“Legion of the Condemned,” “Doomsday,” “Half a Bride,” “The First Kiss,” “The Shopworn Angel” “Wolf Song,” “Betrayal,” “The Virginian/’ “Seven Days Leave,’’ “Only the Brave,” “The Texan,” “Paramount on Parade,” “The Spoilers,” “A Man From Wyoming,” “Morocco,” “Fighting Caravans,” “City Streets,” “‘I Take This Woman,” “His ■Woman,” “Devil and ( the Deep,” “Farewell to Arms,” “If I Had a Million,” “One Sunday Afternoon,” “Design for Living,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Now and .Forever,” “Lives of a. Bengal Lancer,” “Peter Ibbetson,” “Lilac Time,” “To-day We Live,” “Operator 13,” “Her Wedding Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “Desire.” His first .picture for the new season will be “The Plainsman,” in which he will again ‘be teamed with Jean Aruthur.