Jackie Cooper - Wikipedia

Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that September 15 is the anniversary of the birth of United States Navy veteran of World War II, who became an American actor, television director, producer, and executive John Cooper Jr.

Former Child Star Jackie Cooper Interviewed by Scott Feinberg
"Scott Feinberg chats with the actor/director Jackie Cooper about his life and career. (Los Angeles, 7/4/10)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZHdFTZZnaw

Images
1. Jackie Cooper Director.
2. Jackie Cooper child actor.
3. Mr. Cooper, seated, in 'Superman' (1978), with, from left, Marc McClure, Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve.


Biographies:
1. IMDB
2.cinemasight.com/oscar-profile

1. Background from
"Jackie Cooper Biography
Overview
Born September 15, 1922 in Los Angeles, California, USA
Died May 3, 2011 in Santa Monica, California, USA
Birth Name John Cooper Jr.
Nickname America's Boy
Height 5' 9" (1.75 m)

Mini Bio
Jackie Cooper was born John Cooper in Los Angeles, California, to Mabel Leonard, an Italian-American stage pianist, and John Cooper. Through his mother, he was the nephew of actress Julie Leonard, screenwriter Jack Leonard, and (by marriage) director Norman Taurog. Jackie served with the Navy in the South Pacific toward the end of World War II. Then, quietly and without publicity or fanfare, compiled one of the most distinguished peacetime military careers of anyone in his profession. In 1961, as his weekly TV series Hennesey (1959) was enhancing naval recruiting efforts, accepted a commission as a line officer in the Naval Reserve with duties in recruitment, training films, and public relations. Holder of a multi-engine pilot license, he later co-piloted jet planes for the Navy, which made him an Honorary Aviator authorized to wear wings of gold-at the time only the third so honored in naval aviation history. By 1976 he had attained the rank of captain, and was in uniform aboard the carrier USS Constellation for the Bicentennial celebration on July 4. In 1980 the Navy proposed a period of active duty at the Pentagon that would have resulted in a promotion to rear admiral, bringing him even with Air Force Reserve Brigadier General James Stewart. Fresh on the heels of a second directing Emmy, he felt his absence would impact achieving a long-held goal of directing motion pictures, and reluctantly declined. (The opportunity in films never materialized.) Holds Letters of Commendation from six secretaries of the Navy. Was honorary chairman of the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation and a charter member of VIVA, the effort to return POW-MIAs from Vietnam. Upon retirement in 1982, he was decorated with the Legion of Merit by Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr.. Other than Stewart, no performer in his industry has achieved a higher uniformed rank in the U.S. military. (Glenn Ford was also a Naval Reserve captain, and director and Captain John Ford was awarded honorary flag rank upon his 1951 retirement from the Naval Reserve).
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

Spouse (3)
Barbara Rae Kraus (29 April 1954 - 30 May 2009) (her death) (3 children)
Hildy Parks (18 March 1950 - 16 February 1954) (divorced)
June Horne (11 December 1944 - 5 November 1949) (divorced) (1 child)
Trivia (22)
1. Born at 12:35pm-PDT.
2. Until 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for Best Actress in 2004, he was the only actor to earn a Best Actor/Actress nomination for an Academy Award before his/her 18th birthday. Seventeen other actors have earned Oscar nominations as children, but all except Keisha were in the supporting categories.
3. The nephew of director Norman Taurog and writer Jack Leonard, when Cooper refused to do a crying scene on the set of Skippy (1931), his uncle reportedly threatened to shoot his dog.
4. When his first son was to be signed to a long-term contract with MGM, Cooper's studio at the height of his fame as a child, he intervened and persuaded his ex-wife (the boy's mother) to decline: "It's no way for a kid to grow up." Adamantly opposed to children acting to the exclusion of a normal upbringing, based on his own life experiences. None of Cooper's four children were performers.
5. Father, with June Horne, of son John Anthony Cooper (Jackie Cooper Jr.), born August 19, 1946. Children with Barbara: Russell (born 1956), Julie (1957-1997), and Cristina "Crissy" (1959-2009).
6. Attended the same high school as Angelina Jolie, Michael Klesic, Nicolas Cage, Lenny Kravitz, David Schwimmer, Jonathan Silverman, Gina Gershon, Rhonda Fleming, Rob Reiner, Antonio Sabato Jr., Pauly Shore, Michael Tolkin, Betty White, Corbin Bernsen, Elizabeth Daily, Albert Brooks, and Crispin Glover.
7. Along with Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, and Marc McClure, he is one of only four actors to appear in the first four Superman films: Superman (1978), Superman II (1980), Superman III (1983), and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987).
8. As of 2010, he holds two Oscar records: Youngest performer nominated in a leading role (this record has stood for 79 years); and oldest nomination (1931) in any and all Academy categories for an individual still living.
9. Claimed in his autobiography that, while directing some of the first season episodes of M*A*S*H (1972), the only two actors there who weren't a pain to work with were Larry Linville and Wayne Rogers.
10. Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1507 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
11. Ex-son-in-law of James W. Horne and Cleo Ridgely. Ex-brother-in-law of James Horne Jr..
12. Interred with full honors in Arlington National Cemetery on November 22, 2011.
13. In the 1970s, he served as Instructor/Guest Lecturer at California State University Northridge in Radio/TV/Film Department on Film and Television Producing, Directing and Marketing.
14. Walked away from the industry in 1989 during his wife's brief illness, and never returned: "I'm sixty-seven, and worked sixty-four years." Has enjoyed retirement ever since, and refuses to participate in industry retrospectives which dwell too wistfully on the so-called good old days. [August 2003]
15. He guest starred in The Rockford Files: Claire (1975), which also featured Lane Smith. Both Cooper and Smith later played the "Superman" character Perry White, the editor of the Daily Planet: Cooper in Superman (1978), Superman II (1980), Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) and Smith in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993).
16. From 1980-1982 season Cooper directed seven made-for-TV movies including one as Alan Smithee.
17. Acting mentor and friend of Julie Gregg. In her early twenties she met him when she was guest-starring on several of the TV shows by Screen Gems, where he was vice president of program development.
18. His paternal grandparents were Louise and John Cooper. His maternal grandfather, John Leonard (born John Polito), was born in New York, to Italian parents. His maternal grandmother, Marie Babbino, was born in California, also of Italian origin. According to Cooper's New York Times obituary, his father deserted his family when Jackie was an infant. He was raised by his mother and other female relatives. In September 1951, he was driving cross country and stopped at a gas station in the west. Jackie was told that his father was living upstairs and that his father had pictures of him on his walls and would like very much to meet him. Jackie declined, saying "I don't want to be confused.".
19. In 1977, while serving in the Navy Reserve, a photograph was taken of him giving the oath of enlistment to fellow former child star Jay North when he joined the Navy. Jay North served honorably and was discharged in 1979. Jackie Cooper later retired from the Navy Reserve.
20. He produced and directed over 250 films and television shows and, as a child actor, appeared in eight episodes of the "Our Gang" films in the role of Skippy. Cooper and Shirley Temple were the most popular child stars of the 1930s.
21. He and Shirley Temple were the most popular child stars of the 1930's.
22. Due to his exemplary military service, he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Personal Quotes
[In 1976] Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll hear a voice that sounds familiar . . . my wife has fallen asleep with the tube on, and I'll finally start recognizing the dialogue, look up, and Jesus Christ, it's me at 14, or 12, or 9, or whatever. Sometimes I'll sit there and watch it and I can tell myself what's coming next . . . I remember the dialogue, the scene and the set very well, and then there'll be a part of the picture I never remembered at all. Because there were times as a kid, as a teenager especially, when I'd be terribly occupied with what I was doing--with my boat, or on a circuit of rodeos and horseshoes, or with my car--very often on some of this stuff when I'd have to go to work. I'd just give the script a cursory glance. I had no training, and I was a quick study, so nobody knew how involved or not involved I was. But I look at that stuff now and I can see I wasn't involved, and I wasn't very good."


2. Background from cinemasight.com/oscar-profile-411-jackie-cooper/
Born September 15, 1922 in Los Angeles, California, John (Jackie) Cooper (Jr.) was the nephew of actress Julie Leonard, writer Jack Leonard and by marriage, director Norman Taurog. His father abandoned the family when he was just two years old. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother who was an extra in films. She took him on her daily casting calls which led to his first job at the age of three when both he and his grandmother were cast as extras in a film.

Cooper continued in shorts until he was cast in bit parts in two 1929 features, Fox Movietone News and Sunnyside Up. Recommended by David Butler, the director of those two films, to Leo McCarey who cast him in the Our Gang comedies beginning with Boxing Gloves that same year. His most notable Our Gang comedies were Teacher’s Pet, School’s Out and Love Business exploring his crush on his schoolteacher, Miss Crabtree. He was loaned to Paramount in the spring of 1931 to star in Skippy, directed by his uncle, Norman Taurog.

Skippy catapulted Cooper to superstardom, earing him an Oscar nomination at the age of nine, making him the youngest actor nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, a record he still holds.

Hal Roach, the producer of the Our Gang comedies sold his contract to MGM in mid-1931 where he prospered as the most popular child star of the 1930s aside from Shirley Temple whose career began in 1932.

Cooper’s 1930s successes included The Champ, Treasure Island, Peck’s Bad Boy, The Devil Is a Sissy, White Banners and That Certain Age. His early 1940s films included Seventeen, The Return of Frank James and Syncopation. Then came World War II service in the U.S. Navy and marriage to first wife June Horne from 1944-1949, during which his film output slowed. An early convert to TV in 1949, he was married briefly to writer-producer Hildy Parks from 1950-1951. He married third wife Barbara Rae Kraus in 1954, remaining with her until her death fifty-five years later in 2009.

The actor’s best-known TV work was as the star of the comedy series, The People’s Choice from 1955-1958 opposite Patricia Breslin and Hennessey from 1960-1962 opposite Abby Dalton for which he was twice nominated for an Emmy. A TV director from 1956 on, he won Emmys for his direction of a 1974 episode of M*A*S*H and the 1978 pilot of The White Shadow.

Cooper became widely known to a younger generation with his portrayal of Daily Planet editor Perry White in the four Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve, made between 1978 and 1987. He retired in 1989.

Jackie Cooper died of natural causes on May 3, 2011. He was 88.

ESSENTIAL FILMS
SKIPPY (1931), directed by Norman Taurog
The only film based on a comic strip ever to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, nine-year-old Cooper’s performance still holds the record for the youngest nomination ever in the Best Actor category. The original comic strip ran from 1923-1945. A radio serial based on the film ran from 1932-1935. The character was responsible for a lot of merchandising, but allegedly not Skippy Peanut Butter which launched in 1933. In order to get Cooper to cry in a key scene, director Taurog, who was his uncle, had an assistant pretend to shoot Cooper’s dog, an act of terror for which he never forgave him.

THE CHAMP (1932), directed by King Vidor
Wallace Beery as the washed-up boxer of the title came in second to Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the Oscar voting, but because he was only one vote behind it was declared a tie and both actors received Oscars. Cooper, as his son, would certainly have been nominated in the supporting actor category had there been one. Although they would make several more films together including 1934’s Treasure Island, Beery and Cooper did not like one another. Beery accused Cooper of upstaging him while Cooper accused Beery of being jealous of him.

WHITE BANNERS (1938), directed by Edmund Goulding
Fay Bainter became the first performer to be nominated for Oscars in both lead and supporting categories in the same year for her performances in White Banners and Jezebel, winning in support for the latter. In this far-fetched but interesting drama, she plays a woman who shows up at the home of Claude Rains, Kay Johnson and Bonita Granville and becomes their cook. She’s really there to keep an eye on science teacher Rains’ pupil and assistant, Cooper, who is the illegitimate child she gave up for adoption sixteen years earlier. James Stephenson is the wealthy industrialist who was the boy’s father.

SUPERMAN (1978), directed by Richard Donner
A household name on TV in the 1950s and 60s, Cooper was known mostly as a TV director in the 1970s when he returned to acting as Daily Planet editor Perry White in this box-office behemoth. Cooper was the fourth choice for the role behind Jack Klugman and Eddie Albert, both of whom allegedly asked for too much money and Keenan Wynn who had to withdraw because of exhaustion. The film, which spawned three sequels through 1987, starred Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent and Superman and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. Cooper was in all four of them.

ROSIE: THE ROSEMARY CLOONEY STORY (1982), directed by Jackie Cooper
One of the many TV productions Cooper directed from 1956-1989, this made-for-TV film starred Sondra Locke as Clooney who ages from 17 to 40 during the course of the film. Clooney. Who personally chose Locke to portray her, was on set through all of the filming which highlights her difficult upbringing, her early sister act, her marriage to José Ferrer (Tony Orlando), her drug addiction and nervous breakdown and recovery. Penelope Milford plays her sister Betty, Katherine Helmond her mother, Kevin McCarthy her psychiatrist and Richard Quinn her son Miguel.

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Cpl James R. " Jim" Gossett Jr

An exceptional actor and a patriot. A combination not seen much anymore.

Great actor for sure.