He will always be my favorite Perry White.
Hes the one that threw a solid brass globe at the thug Non to no effect. RIP Jackie!
WOW!
Thanks for the memories Jackie, you little rascal!
His lawyer has a way with words.
RIP, Jackie Cooper.
I remember seeing an interview of him quite a few years ago. I think they wanted him to cry as a kid actor in some movie, but he couldn’t do it for some reason. They told him they killed his dog or something like that and hence got the tears they wanted.
Found it:
http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=7514
Jackie Cooper: Crying on Cue
“In Skippy (1931), Jackie Cooper [then an up-and-coming nine-year-old child actor] had three crying scenes and it was difficult for him to produce tears each time. The first time, his grandmother, who was with him on the set, said, ‘Be a good boy and cry,’ but though he tried, he failed miserably. Norman Taurog [Cooper’s uncle and the film’s director] yelled and hollered at him and called him a lousy actor, but that produced anger, not tears, and things reached an impass. Then Taurog arranged for a boy wearing the Skippy costume to appear on the set. That did it. Overwhelmed by the thought of another boy taking over his part, Jackie started crying. Taurog quickly shot me scene, called him a good actor, and gave him an ice cream cone.
“The second crying scene was just as hard for Jackie as the first. This was partly because he had a dog in the scene with him and liked the dog so much he felt too happy to cry. After Taurog had worked on him for a while without success, he instructed the security guard to take the dog away. ‘The policeman’s got your dog,’ he told lackie. ‘He’s taken your dog and he’s going to kill it.’ ‘Why?’ wailed Jackie. ‘What did I do?’ ‘You won’t cry,’ said Taurog. So Jackie tried again, but still no tears came. Then he heard a pistol shot in the distance. ‘The policeman has shot your dog,’ Taurog told him solemnly. ‘He shot him because the dog distracts you. You’re more interested in the dog than you are in your work.’ At this point Jackie burst into tears and Taurog got his scene. After it was over the security guard brought the dog back and Taurog gave Jackie some ice cream again for his ‘realistic’ acting job.
“Jackie knew he had one more crying scene to do, and since he knew he couldn’t produce tears on demand, he began worrying about the terrible things the director would do this time to induce him to cry. When the time came to shoot the scene, however, his mother (who was with him on the set this time) did something that apparently hadn’t occurred to anyone before: She took her little boy aside, discussed the scene with him, went over the lines with him, and explained how grief-stricken Skippy was in the scene over the loss of a close friend. As Jackie talked about Skippy and his friend, he began weeping. Still crying, he took his place on the set and did the scene in one take. It was probably his best scene in the picture.”
Guest starred in a couple of Rockford Files episodes. It worked really well.
“He just kinda died of old age,” attorney Roger Licht told Reuters. “He wore out.”
Classy send off from his lawyer who is no doubt getting about a quarter of his money that is left.
Lamh Foistenach Abu! I just caught him in a picture called “Dinky” on TCM yesterday. He had a lot of personality.
Condolences to family and friends of Jackie Cooper.
He’s finally with Miss Crabtree.
RIP
Apparently he was great friends with Judy Garland when they were teenagers. He used to tell a story about how he helped Judy out for a while by picking her up to go out on a “date” because her mother saw him as suitable and the studio like them being seen together. They would get into whatever club and she would take off with some older guy that nobody wanted her to be with.
Lots of fun times.
R.I.P.
I read an autobiography by him (and about him, of course) a few years ago. I always liked him because he was about the only child star (particularly the “Our Gang” group) that did not go crazy when he got older.
Unfortunately, it was obvious from the book that he was just as crazy as the others, but it was in more socially acceptable ways. He did not do stuff that put him in the tabloids. However, he hurt the people nearest him and (from the book) he seemed to not understand that he was hurting them. He walked away from each of his first two wives. Same way with his kids.
Good luck Mr. Cooper, wherever you are now.