Gary Cooper: Super Duper Style.

In 1946, when Irving Berlin wrote the lyrics to his 1928 song “Puttin’ on the Ritz” he added the line: “Dressed up like a million-dollar trouper/Tryin’ hard to look like Gary Cooper/Super Duper.”

In an interview, his daughter Maria Janis told The Hollywood Reporter, " Her father had a natural sense of style and chose his own wardrobe without the help of stylists".

Cooper, combined a perfectly tailored European wardrobe with all-American casual sportswear to produce elegant, international, masculine style.

Ralph Lauren, calls Cooper the “definitive” male style icon of the 1940s. “He had an ideal American look—unstudied yet refined, natural, and playful.”

Love Hollywood Style: Gary Cooper.

My favorite actor, Gary Cooper, had been one of Hollywood's favorite leading men for over 30 years and had several high-profile relationships with actresses:

Starting with in 1927 Gary was chosen by the silent movie star Clara Bow, to play a reporter in her film, "IT"(1927). Clara, fell in love with Cooper and gave him a lead role in her next film, Children Of Divorce (1927). Cooper also had a minor but important part in her film, Wings (1927), which won the Oscar for best picture. Clara, insisted he be given a part in all of her movies. Cooper began to be known around Hollywood as the "IT" boy, a term he did not like.

Cooper had relationship with Lupe Velez, his co-star in, Wolf Song (1929), who gave him a couple of live wildcats. The stress of their 3 year troubled relationship caused Copper, to lose forty pounds and suffer a nervous breakdown after she shot and missed him, as he boarded the Twentieth Century train to Chicago. He took off to Rome to recover.

There, he met the Countess Dorothy Di Frasso, a decade older, who introduced Cooper to the lifestyle of the “International Set,” leaving him broke. Cooper returned home and was given a $125-a-week contract by Paramount Studios and became famous with his first talking picture, The Virginian (1929). He made an easy transition to sound films.

While filming Morocco(1930), Marlene Dietrich had an affair with Gary Cooper, despite the constant presence on the set of the temperamental Mexican actress Lupe Velez, with whom Cooper was also having a romance.

Gary Cooper, was paired with and had affair with Carole Lombard in, I Take This Woman (1931). A romance film directed by Marion Gering. Based on the 1927 novel Lost Ecstacy by Mary Roberts Rinehart, the film is about a wealthy New York socialite who falls in love and marries a cowboy while staying at her father's ranch out West.

After her father disinherits her, and after a year of living the life of a cowboy's wife, she leaves her husband and returns back east to her family. The film was released by Paramount Pictures. The film bears little resemblance to the 1940 film, I Take This Woman starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr.

On December 15, 1933, Cooper married Veronica Balfe, known as 'Rocky'. Balfe was a New York Roman Catholic socialite who had briefly acted under the name of Sandra Shaw. She performed in the film No Other Woman, but her best known role was in the film, King Kong (1933), as the woman dropped by Kong. Her third and final film was Blood Money (also 1933). Her father was governor of the New York Stock Exchange, and her uncle was motion-picture art director Cedric Gibbons. During the 1930s she also became the California state women's skeet shooting champion. Cooper and Balfe had one child, Maria in 1937.

Cooper, had an affair with the very young Grace Kelly, who played his Quaker wife in the film, High Noon(1952). The affair set Neal over the edge, as the next year, she suffered a nervous breakdown and left Hollywood.

Patricia Neal. Cooper and Neal began their affair after meeting on the set of, The Fountainhead(1949). The relationship eventually became an open secret in Hollywood. Cooper's wife, Rocky, confronted him with the rumors which he admitted were true and also confessed that he was in love with Neal.

Rocky, later told the couple's daughter Maria, of the affair who blamed Neal. The next time Maria saw Neal, she spat on the ground in front of Neal, but.. made up with her years later..

 

Cooper and his wife kept up a front of a happy marriage, but Cooper continued to see Neal. After Cooper and his wife separated. Cooper and Neal continued to see each other, but Cooper was hesitant to divorce Rocky fearing he would lose the respect of his daughter, Maria. With marriage impossible, his relationship with Neal had ended by 1953 and he reunited with Rocky the following year and stayed together until his death..

Please click here to view Gary Cooper's website..

Video:

Montage of stills from films that won Oscars for the year 1952 (presented at the 25th Academy Awards on March, 19 1953) set to the year's Oscar-winning song.

 

Fighting Caravans(1931).

Fighting Caravans(1931). A Western film directed by Otto Brower and David Burton. Cast: Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, and Ernest Torrence. Based on the 1929 novel Fighting Caravans by Zane Grey.

Fighting Caravans was remade three years later as Wagon Wheels, a low-budget production using stock footage from, Fighting Caravans. Cast: Randolph Scott and Gail Patrick in the lead roles.

Every character's name was changed in the remake except that of Clint Belmet, played by Cooper and Scott.

The story begins with Clint Belmet, sentenced to 30 days in jail. His partners, Bill Jackson and Jim Bridger talk a beautiful Frenchwoman named Felice, into telling the drunken marshal that Clint had married her the night before.

Clint and Felice, join the wagon train caravan carrying freight from Missouri to Sacramento, California during the civil war and before the railroads had been built.. Soon after, Felice, finds out that Bill and Jim, had lied to her... she really did not need a man to join up with the wagon train.

In a stopover, they learn that the Indians are causing trouble on the trail, Clint offers to guide the wagon train. Once on the trail, Felice's wagon goes out of control downhill and Clint comes to the rescue. After, Felice starts talking marriage, Clint, gets nervous and leaves.

He later finds out that the Kiowas and Cheyenne, have been talked into the warpath by crooked traders and are planning an attack the wagon train. Clint, Bill and Jim rush back to stop the Indians attack at the river crossing. Clint, saves the wagon train with some barrels of gunpowder, but his friends are both killed. The wagon train continues on to California.

This is a 'B' western/romance and there are some scenes that did reminded me of silent films.You might want to pass on this movie unless you are a Gary Cooper or a early western fan. Which I'm both, so I enjoyed the film..

Please click here to watch Fighting Caravans(1931) in full.

Lili Damita (July 10, 1904 – March 21, 1994) was a French actress who had appeared in 33 movies between 1922 and 1937. She was educated in convents and ballet schools in France, Spain and Portugal.

At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opera de Paris. She performed in several silent films before being offered her first leading role in, Das Spielzeug von Paris (1925) by director Michael Curtiz, whom she married in 1925 (they divorced a year later).

She was an instant success, and Curtiz directed her in two more films: Fiaker Nr 13 (1926) and Der Goldene Schmetterling (1926). Damita also performed in, (Die Grosse Abenteuerin(1927), The Queen Was in the Parlour(1927).

In 1928, at the invitation of Samuel Goldwyn she went to Hollywood, making her American debut in a film titled, The Rescue.

Her other films include: The Cock-Eyed World (1929), the semi-silent, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) and This Is the Night (1932).

A comedy film directed by Frank Tuttle. It based on the play Pouche (1923) by Henri Falk and René Peter, and the English language adaptation, Naughty Cinderella (1925), written by Avery Hopwood. Cast: Lili Damita, Charles Ruggles, Roland Young, Thelma Todd, Cary Grant, and Irving Bacon. It was a remake of the 1926 film, Good and Naughty with Pola Negri.

This was Cary Grant's first motion picture. The story begins...While having a night of fun in Paris with her lover, Gerald Gray. Claire Mathewson loses her skirt in a limousine door, arriving home only in her slip, Claire is met by her husband Stephen, a javelin thrower who is supposed to be in Los Angeles for the Olympics.

Gerald and Claire insist the trip was to find Gerald a wife. Stephen, hires the down on her luck Germaine, as Chou-Chou, a glamorous actress. After watching them together, Claire becomes jealous, demanding that Germaine leave Venice. Germaine, refuses to give up her wonderful vacation. This Is The Night, the first of the Screwball comedies that Cary Grant becomes famous for later on. The humor is wonderful and Cary is very funny in this film. It may remind you a little of the silent film format.

In 1935 she married her second husband, Errol Flynn, with whom she had a son, Sean Leslie Flynn (born 1941). Following the marriage, she retired from the screen. The couple divorced in 1942. (Barbara Hershey portrayed her in the TV film My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1985) based on Errol Flynn's biography.)

Man of the West(1958).

Man of the West(1958). Western film starring Gary Cooper and directed by Anthony Mann in his last film in the genre. The screenplay, written by Reginald Rose, is based on the novel The Border Jumpers by Will C. Brown.

Link Jones, catches the train to Fort Worth, where he plans to use the money of his town friends, to hire a schoolteacher. While on the train, Sam Beasley has a conversation with Link, causing the marshal to become suspicious, who then warns Link that Sam, is a well known con man. Then says that Link looks familiar.

Later, Sam suggests that he may be able to help Link. Their conversation is overheard by bad guy Alcutt. When the train stops to pick up fuel, Sam introduces Link to saloon singer, Billie Ellis, who Sam thinks would make the perfect school teacher.

While the men help load the train with wood, Alcutt stays onboard  to signal to Coaley Tobin, Trout and Ponch, who plan on holding up the train. Link, tries to stop them and is knocked unconscious. The holdup is prevented by the train guard, who orders the train to pull away.

Alcutt, steals Link's bag with the money before jumping from the train, but is wounded as the outlaws ride off. When, Link comes to he discovers that he, Sam and Billie have been left behind, many miles from the nearest town. Link leads Billie and Sam to a run down farm, where he used to live.

While the two others wait in the barn, Link finds the train robbers inside the house. Coaley, does not believe Link when he says that he and his friends just want to rest for the night. Dock Tobin, who is shocked to see Link, his nephew, who left many years earlier.

Tobin, says that nothing has been the same since Link left and introduces him to Link's cousin, Coaley. Wanting to prove that he is a tuff guy Coaley, kills Alcutt, who is near death from his injuries. Now, knowing that he and his friends are in trouble, Link has Sam and Billie brought into the house and lies to Tobin, telling him that he wanted his uncle help after being left by the train.

Tobin, then tells him of his plan to rob the Lassoo bank and he needs Link's help. Link, agrees to be part of the holdup to protect Billie, he says that she is his girl friend. Then goes to help Sam, dig a grave for Alcutt.

Hearing Billie scream, Link finds Coaley drunkenly forcing her to take her clothes off. Coaley holds a knife to Link's throat to prevent him from interfering. Dock, then intervenes and sends Link and Billie to sleep in the barn.

There, Billie tells Link that she can not believe that he ever could have been involved with such bad men. Link, then tells her that he was just like them, until he decided he wanted a better life. Later, Link finds his empty bag in the hay, he knows that he must get back his friends money even if he has to kill his family to do it.

The following morning, Link tells Billie about is wife and two children, as well as his friends, who know about his past and in spite of it, trust him with their money. Claude Tobin, another of Link's cousins, arrives after hearing about about the train robbery and is not too happy about Link's return. Claude, then tells the men that the Crosscut marshal is connected Link, to the Tobin gang. Tobin, stops Claude and Coaley's, from killing Link and his friends and they head off on the four-day ride to Lassoo.

That evening, Link and Coaley, get into a fight and Link badly beats Coaley and brutally strips him of his clothes. Coaley, tries to shoot Link, but Sam interferes and is killed instead. Tobin, then shoots Coaley for disobeying him.

Later Billie, realizes that she is in love with Link, but knows she can never have him.

The next day, Link asks Claude why he is still with Tobin. Claude, admits that he thinks of Tobin, as father he never had. Then warns Link, that he will never beat the gang.

Just outside of the town of Lassoo, Link volunteers for the holdup job, but Tobin insists that he take Trout with him. Link and Trout, soon discover Lassoo is a ghost town and the bank deserted except for a old Mexican woman, who Trout shoots and kills. Link kills Trout, then waits for Claude and Ponch to show up. Will Link be able to out gun the gang, recover his friends money and return home to his wife and kids?

 

Fun Facts:

Gary Cooper was, at 56, a decade older than Lee J. Cobb who played his "Uncle" Dock Tobin. In the film Cooper and John Dehner talk about being children together - Dehner was actually fourteen years younger than Cooper.

James Stewart, wanted the role played by Gary Cooper, but since Stewart had fallen out with director Anthony Mann he did not get the part.

Gary Cooper, did his own horse-riding scenes despite physical pain from a car accident years earlier.

I loved the beautiful scenery and the scenes inside the train scenes seem to be real. The age difference of Gary Cooper and Dehner do seem a little weird. The bad guys are some of the meanest you can find in a western.

Julie London (September 26, 1926 – October 18, 2000). Born Gayle Peck in Santa Rosa, California, she was the daughter of Jack and Josephine Peck, who were a vaudeville song-and-dance team.

When she was 14, the family moved to Los Angeles. Shortly after that, she began performing in movies. She graduated from the Hollywood Professional School in 1945.

 In July 1947, she married actor Jack Webb (Dragnet). They had two daughters: Stacy and Lisa Webb. London and Webb divorced in November 1954. Daughter Stacy Webb was killed in a traffic accident in 1996.

In 1954 she met jazz composer and musician Bobby Troup at a club on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. They married on December 31, 1959, and remained married until his death in February 1999. They had one daughter, Kelly Troup, who died in March 2002, and twin sons, Jody and Reese Troup (b. May 28, 1963). Jody died June 10, 2010, just 13 days after his 47th birthday.

 London suffered a stroke in 1995 and was in poor health until her death on October 18, 2000 (the day her husband, Bobby Troup, would have been 82), in Encino, California, at age 74.

London began singing under the name Gayle Peck in public in her teens before appearing in a film. She was discovered by talent agent, Sue Carol (wife of actor Alan Ladd), while working as an elevator operator.

London recorded 32 albums in a career that began in 1955 with a live performance at the 881 Club in Los Angeles. Billboard named her the most popular female vocalist for 1955, 1956, and 1957.

While shopping for a record deal, she recorded four tracks that would later be included on the album, Bethlehem's Girlfriends, in 1955. Bobby Troup backed London on the dates, and London recorded the standards, "Don't Worry About Me", "Motherless Child", "A Foggy Day", and "You're Blasé". London's most famous single, "Cry Me a River", was written by her high-school classmate, Arthur Hamilton, and produced by Troup. The recording became a million-seller after its release in December 1955 and also sold on re-issue in April 1983 from the attention brought by a Mari Wilson cover. London performed the song in the film, The Girl Can't Help It (1956), and her recording gained later attention in the films: Passion of Mind (2000) and V for Vendetta (2006).

Other popular singles include "Hot Toddy", "Daddy", and "Desafinado". Recordings such as "Go Slow" epitomized her career style: her voice is slow, smoky, and sensual. The song "Yummy Yummy Yummy" was featured on the HBO television series Six Feet Under and appears on its soundtrack album. Her last recording was "My Funny Valentine" for the soundtrack of the Burt Reynolds film Sharky's Machine (1981).

London also made more than 20 films. Her beauty and poise (she was a pinup girl prized by GIs during World War II) contrasted with her streetwise acting technique. One of her strongest performances came in Man of the West (1958), starring Gary Cooper and directed by Anthony Mann, in which her character, the film's only woman, is abused by outlaws.

She performed on many television variety series and guest appearances on: Rawhide (1960) and The Big Valley (1968). Her ex-husband, Webb, was executive producer for the series Emergency!, and in 1972 he hired both his ex-wife and her husband, Troup, for key roles.

London received second-billing as nurse, Dixie McCall, while Troup received third-billing as emergency-room physician, Dr. Joe Early. She and her co-stars, Robert Fuller, Randolph Mantooth, and Kevin Tighe, also appeared in an episode of the Webb-produced series, Adam-12, reprising their roles.

 London and Troup appeared as panelists on the game show Tattletales several times in the 1970s. In the 1950s London appeared in an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes singing the "Marlboro Song", and in 1978 appeared in television advertisements for Rose Milk Skin Care Cream.

Her song "Love Must Be Catchin' On" appeared in the premiere episode of the ABC series Pan Am on Sunday, September 25, 2011.

Saratoga Trunk (1945).

Saratoga Trunk (1945). Written by Edna Ferber and Casey Robinson, based on Ferber's best-selling novel of the same name. Cast: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Florence Bates, and Flora Robson, who was nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.

The illegitimate daughter Clio Dulaine, of an aristocratic New Orleans Creole man and a light-skinned Creole woman, returns from Paris to her birthplace, Rampart Street. Wanting, to get even with her fathers family for sending her and her mother to Paris. After, her mother accidently killed her husband.

Clio,arrives with her maid, Angelique and her dwarf manservant, Cupidon. They fix up a rundown house on Rampart Street.

At the marketplace, Clio stops for a bowl of jambalaya, there she meets Texan Clint Maroon, who is also eating lunch. Clint, offers to drive Clio to the cathedral in his carriage, but ... Angelique, does not like the idea and prevents her from going with him.

After the service, Clio, Angelique and Cupidon, decide to have breakfast at Begue's, the Dulaines favorite restaurant. There she tells the maitre d' that she is a relative of the Dulaines and he sits her at the table reserved for the Dulaines. When, the Dulaines arrive, they recognize her and leave. Clint and Clio, meet again at the restaurant and he drives her home. Clio and Clint, are attracted to each other and begin a romance.

Clio, who is so obsessed with her plans for revenge, destroys their relationship, with her odd behavior. She wants to marry a rich and powerful man to prove that she is as good as her father's family. Clint, has his own problems and is out for revenge on the railroaders who ruined his father.

Clio, wanting to embarrass the Dulaines, every chance she gets, sees the perfect opportunity to sabotage the society debut of her half-sister Charlotte Therese. The Dulaines, are willing to do anything to get rid of her and offer to pay her $10,000, to destroy the Rampart Street house and bury her mother in a New Orleans cemetery.

Later, Clio joins Clint in Saratoga Springs, where she sets her sights on wealthy railroad heir Bartholomew Van Steed. The hotel is completely booked, Clint, who is now calling himself Colonel Maroon, offers Clio two rooms in his suite. Later, Clint explains to her that Bart owns a railroad, the Saratoga Trunk, that is now worth millions. Railroader Raymond Soule, the same man who ruined Clint's father, is now trying to steal the railroad from Bart.

Clio, comes up with the idea to poses as the widow of a French count and is backed up by a fast thinking socialite Mrs. Coventry Bellop, who dislikes Van Steed's mother. Clio, quickly wins Bart's heart.

Clint, offers to help Bart, save the Saratoga Trunk from Soule, for shares in the railroad. When Clio learns that Bart is paying Clint to do his dirty work, she calls him a coward. Bart, now knows the truth about who she really is, but.. wants to marry her anyway.

During the costume ball, Clint and Cupidon, who saves Clint life, arrives seriously wounded after a train wreck and fight with Soule's men. Will Clio realizes before it is too late, that she loves Clint too much to marry another man?

Fun Facts:

It was shot in late February 1943 to late June 1943 but because of the overload of war related films they held the release to 1945. Share this The word "Trunk" refers to a branch railroad line - a 'trunk' line - in this case, to Binghamton, New York on the Delaware and Hudson.

Due to wartime rationing shortages, most of the vegetables in the New Orleans market scene were fake.

Jack L. Warner purchased the rights to the novel with the hopes to star Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn. But scheduling conflicts with both performers caused them to turn down the project.

Warners had hoped to possibly borrow Lena Horne from MGM for the role of Clio, but the studio refused to loan her out.

Two songs were published based on themes from the Max Steiner score: "As Long As I Live" and "Goin' Home", both with lyrics by Charles Tobias.

For the climactic train wreck scene, director Sam Wood used two complete trains, including 2 locomotives and 12 cars. Six cameras were used to film the scene where the trains meet in a head-on collision.

I have seen this film a couple of times and thought Ingrid, is at her best. I did have a little sympathy for Ingrids character, even though she was a little ruthless at times. Gary Cooper, is wonderful playing the handsome Texan Bachelor/Gambler, Clint. I do not think Gary Copper, can give a bad performance.

I loved the scene where Bergman, walks to the Saratoge Springs, to get some of the "sulfur" water and after she drinks it, she forces herself not to make a face and says " how good it is and that she must have more ".

The climactic train wreck scene, is amazingly well done.

Dame Flora McKenzie Robson, DBE (28 March 1902 – 7 July 1984) was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.

She was educated at the Palmers Green High School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Her father discovered that Flora had a talent for recitation and, from the age of five, she was taken around by horse and carriage to recite, and to compete in recitations.

 This established a pattern that remained with her. Robson made her stage debut in 1921, at aged 19. She specialised in character roles, notably that of Queen Elizabeth I in both Fire Over England (1937) and The Sea Hawk (1940).

At the age of 32, Robson played the Empress Elizabeth in Alexander Korda's Catherine the Great (1934). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ingrid Bergman's servant in Saratoga Trunk (1945).

That same year audiences in the U.K. and the U.S. watched her hypnotic performance as nursemaid and royal confidante Ftatateeta, to Vivien Leigh's Queen Cleopatra, in the screen adaptation of George Bernhard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1945).

After the war, demonstrating her range, she appeared in Holiday Camp (1947), the first of a series of films which featured the very ordinary Huggett family; as Sister Philippa in Black Narcissus (1947); as a magistrate in Goodtime Girl (1948); as a prospective Labour MP in Frieda (1947); and in costume melodrama, Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948).

Her other film roles included the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1972), Livia in the abortively-attempted I, Claudius (1937), Miss Milchrest in Murder at the Gallop (1963). She acted late into life, latterly for American television films, including a lavish production of A Tale of Two Cities (in which she played Miss Pross).

 She also gave performances for British television, including The Shrimp and the Anemone. She also continued to act in the West End, in such plays as Ring Round the Moon, The Importance of Being Earnest and Three Sisters. Robson essentially retired from the theatre in the early 1970s, her last role being as a Stygian Witch in the fantasy adventure Clash of the Titans in 1981.

A very young Dame Flora McKenzie Robson

Along Came Jones(1945).

Along Came Jones(1945). Gary Copper, Lorettea Young, William Demarest and Dan Duryea. The movie was adapted by Nunnally Johnson, from the novel Useless Cowboy, by Alan Le May. Directed by Stuart Heisler.

When wounded during a stage robbery, masked bandit Monte Jarrad, drops a rifle engraved with his name. Having only the robber's name the sheriff of Payneville offers a $1,000 reward for his arrest. When Melody Jones rides into town with the initials "MJ" carved into his saddle, the people of Payneville believe him to be the masked bandit Monte.

Mild-mannered Melody enjoys the attention and begins to swagger like a gunslinger, until.. Cherry De Longpre, warns Melody to ride out of town. Melody, takes her advice and after he leaves, she visits the barn where she is hiding out the wounded Monte.

Melody, soon realizes that she has set him up as a decoy and returns to the ranch to confront her. That night Cherry, is shocked to find Melody in her bed and tells him that she wants to help Monte, her childhood friend. Cherry comes up with a plan.. to send Melody to lure the posse away from the ranch while Monte heads South. But, Melody is in love with Cherry and decides to return to the ranch with plans of his own.

*Note: Because of my blogger problems, I have to post all my western reviews here on N and CF.*




I thought this was a very entertaining western film with a wonderful combination of suspense, action, romance and comedy. Loretta Young, gives a wonderful performance as a woman torn between the bandit and the cowboy. Cooper gives one of his funniest performance.

Video: "Gary Cooper take me away."

Dan Duryea (January 23, 1907), was an actor of film, stage and television. He made his name on Broadway in the play, Dead End, followed by The Little Foxes.

He moved to Hollywood in 1940 to perform in the film version in the same role. He performed in similar roles as a weak characters in movies such as, The Pride of the Yankees.

As his career progressed throughout the 1940s he started to perform as a bad guy in a number of film noirs: Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window, Criss Cross, Black Angel and Too Late for Tears.

From the 1950s, Duryea was more often seen in Westerns, Winchester '73 (1950), Thunder Bay (1953), The Burglar (1957), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), and the primetime soap opera Peyton Place.

He also appeared in one of the first Twilight Zone episodes in 1959 as a drunken former gunfighter in "Mr. Denton on Doomsday," written by Rod Serling. He also guest starred on, The Barbara Stanwyck Show. In 1963, Duryea appeared as Dr. Ben Lorrigan in the episode, "Why Am I Grown So Cold , on the show,The Eleventh Hour.

Pawsome Pet Pictures: Gary Cooper.

Personal Quote:

This is a terrible place to spend your life in. Nobody in Hollywood is normal. Absolutely nobody. And they have such a vicious attitude toward one another ... They say much worse things about each other than outsiders say about them, and nobody has any real friends.

Beep Beep'm Beep Beep Yeah!



Gary Cooper 1951  Montery Mercruy



William Powell admires Gary Cooper's duesenberg .

The Duesenberg was considered one of the most popular luxury cars, driven by Clark Gable, Gary Cooper. Each driving one of the two very rare SSJ 125″ short-wheelbase convertibles. You can also add Al Capone, Evelyn Walsh McLean, Greta Garbo, Howard Hughes, Mae West, Marion Davies, Tyrone Power, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, William Randolph Hearst to the list of Duesnberg proud owners.

The following Pictures were provided by Gilby37.

Casanova Brown(1944).

Casanova Brown(1944). Cast: Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, and Frank Morgan. Directed by Sam Wood.It was nominated for three Academy Awards; for Best Score, Best Sound, Recording (Thomas T. Moulton) and Best Art Direction (Perry Ferguson, Julia Heron).

When Casanova asks Madge's father, J. J. Ferris, for permission to marry Madge, her father believes that he is only marrying her for her money turns him down. Casanova and Madge, decide to ignore her fathers wishes and go ahead with their marriage plans. On the day of the wedding rehearsal, Casanova receives a letter from a maternity hospital in Chicago, asking him to contact Dr. Martha Zernerke. He thinks back: to when he first met his ex- wife Isabel's parents and when her eccentric mother wanted to consult the stars about their future.



The stars predicted disaster and he accidentally burns down the Drury mansion. When Mrs. Drury, says the fire is a warning about their future, their marriage is annulled. After sharing his story, with J. J. he decides to go to Chicago, but plans to be back in time to marry Madge.

At the hospital, Casanova, sees his baby for the first time. Dr. Zernerke, tells him that Isabel, has put the baby up for adoption. Casanova confronts Isabel, about the adoption and admits to her that he still loves her. Isabel, reminds him of his up coming marriage. Casanova, then decides to kidnap the baby.

Meanwhile Madge, is dressed in her bridal gown, when Casanova calls J. J. to break the news about the baby. Now, he has to tell his wife and daughter, that Casanova cannot make the wedding. Casanova, takes the baby to his hotel room where, he is helped by the maid and the bell captain.

When the bell captain, still wearing his hotel uniform, visits the hospital, asking too many questions Casanova worries.. that they will trace the baby back to the hotel.

Madge and her father and Isabel and her father, arrive at Casanova's hotel room where the bell captain, informs them that Casanova has gone to City Hall to be married to the maid. Casanova, hides with the baby in a different hotel room. Who will Casanova end up with at the end of the day, the maid, Madge or will it be Isabel?

This is one of those fluffy romance movies, where the characters find themselves always at odds with each other. The cinematography is really wonderful. If you are a hopeless romantic you will love this film.

Anita Louise (January 9, 1915 – April 25, 1970), made her acting debut on Broadway at the age of six, and within a year was performing in Hollywood films. By her late teens she was being cast in leading and supporting roles in major productions, and was highly regarded for her delicate features and blonde hair.

As her popularity in Hollywood grew, she was frequently described as one of cinema's most fashionable and stylish women. Her reputation was further enhanced by her role as Hollywood society hostess, with her parties attended by the elite of Hollywood.

Among her film successes were: Madame Du Barry (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), Marie Antoinette (1938), The Sisters (1938) and The Little Princess (1939).

By the 1940s, she performed in minor roles and acted very infrequently until television provided her with better opportunities. She played one of her most widely seen roles as the mother, Nell McLaughlin, in the CBS television series, My Friend Flicka from 1956–1957.

Unconquered

I had a blast watching “Unconquered” (1947) the other night. It’s a very enjoyable movie – emphasis on the word movie. It’s not a film, it’s a movie. And not just any movie, but a Cecil B. DeMille movie.

I like DeMille movies enormously. They’re rarely boring and almost always very entertaining. I even enjoy the often tableaux-like staging of his dramatic scenes. With his start in silent films, where a picture was worth a thousand words, DeMille always knew how to stage his scenes for maximum impact.

“Unconquered” takes place in colonial America in 1763, in a period rarely covered by movies, the era between the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. It stars Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard in a two-and-a-half hour running time filled with action, romance, narrow escapes, hissable villains and last minute rescues. The budget was about $5 million, a huge amount at the time, and it’s all on the screen.

A better title for the film might be “The Perils of Paulette” for Miss Goddard undergoes enough trails and tribulations for a dozen movies. Her Abby character is placed on trial for murder and is sentenced to be hung, but is given the choice between hanging or being sold as a bond slave in the American colonies. She chooses the latter, and if that weren’t enough, through villainous chicanery she is sold not once but twice as a bond slave.

That’s what happens when your oily bond slaver is played by Porter Hall. DeMille also had Hall play Jack McCall, who shot Wild Bill Hickock (Gary Cooper) in the back in “The Plainsman” (1936). DeMille must have liked his sniveling manner to cast him in such roles. (Most audiences today are familiar with Porter Hall as the twitching psychiatrist Sawyer in the 1947 “Miracle on 34th Street”).

Abby is originally bought by Captain Christopher Holden (Gary Cooper) so she won’t be sold to his enemy Garth (Howard DaSilva). Holden knows Garth is selling guns and tomahawks to the Indians in hopes of instigating a war between the Indians and the white settlers. Holden immediately sets her free but Garth reclaims her as his.

There’s not a lot of physical action in the first half of “Unconquered” but it’s never boring. The Technicolor photography means it’s the shiniest version of colonial America you’ll ever see, but that’s fine with me. It’s not a history lesson, after all, but a rip roaring yarn.

Abby gets ogled by every man she meets – when you look like Paulette Goddard and there aren’t a lot of women around in the original 13, that’s bound to happen. She gets captured by Indians, and is threatened with burning at the stake by the Senecas. The Seneca chief is played by Boris Karloff and the medicine man is played by, of all people, Marc Lawrence. See what I mean, it’s a movie!

There’s an exciting canoe chase, a mad dash across the rapids, a waterfall sequence that has to be seen to be believed and an Indian siege of Fort Pitt complete with showers of fireballs and flaming arrows. Of course there’s only one man who can bring peace to the frontier and that’s Holden. The British Army wants him for desertion (he had to save Abby), but he’s going to do everything he can to save Fort Pitt and quench the uprising, all while falling in love with Abby and trying to settle his old score with Garth.

It all plays out magnificently with a memorable climax involving the last minute rescue of Fort Pitt. More I will not say, but that scene always made an impression on me.

The treatment of the Senecas is not very P.C. They’re presented as monosyllabic savages who accept the surrender of the settlers before massacring them. However, Katherine DeMille has a good role as Garth’s Indian wife Hannah who won’t stand by while her husband paws at Abby.

I couldn’t help but be amused at the sequence where Abby is tied to a stake during her Indian torture sequence. The Indian women come to tear at her clothes, but they don’t get away with much and we get a mere glimpse of leg. That’s the Hays Office for you.

I could only think back to the pre-code DeMille of “The Sign of the Cross” (1932) where young nubile Christian women martyrs were tied naked to stakes in the arena and threatened by gorillas and alligators, to the screeching delight of the Coliseum audiences.

If there was no Hays Office in 1947, I’m sure Paulette would have been barely clad in the stake sequence before her timely rescue by Captain Holden. As it is, by this point, I’m sure Abby was thinking she should have taken the hanging option back in England.

Cooper is a natural in roles like this. His best scenes are at the beginning when he outbids Garth for Abby by adding “and sixpence” to Garth’s bid. With his natural ease and likeability, it’s easy to see why Gary Cooper was one of the biggest stars the movies ever had. I wish there were someone like him today.

I Love Paris: Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon

"In Paris people make love . . . well, perhaps not better . . . but certainly more often. They do it any place, any time," says Maurice Chevalier at the beginning of Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon (1957). As he speaks these words in voice-over, we are treated to a montage of the people and sights of Paris, a montage filled with phallic symbols—an erect baguette, a soldier standing at attention with a ceremonial French flag projecting from a holster several feet out and up from his crotch, the Eiffel Tower, and finally a slow camera tilt up the Vendôme Column, at the top of which we find Chevalier.

Chevalier plays Claude Anet, a private detective who specializes in cases of marital infidelity, and he is in the process of photographing the wife of his latest client, Monsieur X (John McGiver), in a tryst with the notorious American playboy Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper) at the Ritz Hotel on the other side of the Place Vendôme. When Anet presents photographic evidence of his wife's infidelity to his client, the client vows to go to the hotel that evening and shoot Flannagan in a crime passionel. In the next room, Anet's daughter Ariane (Audrey Hepburn), a cello student at the music conservatory, overhears this and, horrified, determines to save Flannagan.

Thus is set in motion a thoroughly delightful sex comedy that, although a commercial failure when released, today seems one of Wilder's warmest, least sardonic films and contains one of Audrey Hepburn's most charming and underappreciated performances. It is also one of Wilder's most subversive movies in the way it deals with sexual situations entirely obliquely, constantly suggesting sex while rarely referring to it openly and never showing it. This risqué, Continental attitude toward sex and the allusive style of telling a story that is, after all, largely about sex, has caused many critics to call Love in the Afternoon Wilder's valentine to Ernst Lubitsch.

Of course, Wilder's films often dealt covertly with sex, and for much of his career he was engaged in a running battle with censors over how directly he could present the sexual content of his movies. He actually managed to get away with quite a lot. The very first movie he directed, The Major and the Minor, was about a man in his thirties who believed he was in love with a 12-year old girl (although the viewer knew from the start that she was actually Ginger Rogers masquerading as a rather long-in-the-tooth 12-year old). Pedophilia, anyone? Double Indemnity featured Fred MacMurray as a sucker held in sexual thrall by the sluttish Barbara Stanwyck. Sunset Boulevard suggested that William Holden was being kept by Gloria Swanson. The Seven Year Itch showed nerdy, lecherous Tom Ewell driven to distraction by his sexy neighbor, Marilyn Monroe, while his wife and child were out of town for the summer. By the time of Some Like It Hot (transvestism), The Apartment (workplace sexual harassment), and Irma la Douce (prostitution), Wilder was growing ever bolder in the sexual implications of his plots.

In a scene that is a cunning variation on the conventions of French bedroom farce, Ariane saves Flannagan's life by changing places with Madame X and impersonating her when her husband bursts into the hotel room with a pistol. Flannagan slyly maneuvers Ariane into a passionate kiss during this scene, and the romantic and impressionable girl immediately falls in love with him, agreeing to return to the hotel room the next afternoon, Flannagan's last day in Paris. When she arrives, Flannagan lays on the full array of his tools of seduction—champagne, a gypsy orchestra playing romantic music, and plenty of smooth talk. Later the gypsies are seen tiptoeing from the room, and the next we see of Ariane, she is standing in front of the bathroom mirror combing her hair—Wilder's shorthand to let us know that sex has taken place.

The first date at the Ritz

One year later Ariane and her would-be boyfriend are at the opera (the opera being performed is Tristan und Isolde, and Franz Waxman, the composer of the music score for Love in the Afternoon, is conducting Wagner's ultra-romantic music) when she spots Flannagan in the audience. Contriving to encounter him in the lobby, she finds that at first he automatically turns on the seductive charm without even recognizing her. When he does remember her (she has never told him her name; he knows her only as "Thin Girl"), they arrange a standing date in his hotel room every afternoon for the two weeks Flannagan will be in Paris. What follows is a two-week long idyll that even includes a memorably romantic picnic in the country.

A day in the country

At the end of the two weeks, Ariane, who has led him to believe she is far more sexually experienced than she really is, shows reluctant willingness to play the seduction game by Flannagan's rules and allow him to leave in pursuit of his next conquest. "I know the rules . . . love and run. Everybody's happy, nobody gets hurt," she tells him wistfully. "Works out great all around." This is followed by the crucial scene in the movie.

As Ariane prepares to leave the hotel room after their last afternoon together, she finds she is missing one of her shoes. (Flannagan is lounging in his dressing gown, the shoe hidden in his pocket. If there was ever any doubt about what was going on at these afternoon dates, this should settle the question.) As they search for the shoe together, Flannagan tells her how perfect she is and asks her how many men have told her that. (We know the answer: just one.) At that moment the telephone rings—another of his conquests wanting to arrange an assignation. As Ariane hides out in the bedroom, she spots Flannagan's dictaphone and impulsively decides to wind him up. Using her father's case files for inspiration, she decides to answer Flannagan's question about her past lovers by concocting a fictitious love life in which she catalogues her imaginary lovers. When Flannagan later listens to the recording, he is at first amused and then overcome with jealousy. Whether this was Ariane's intention or not, she now has him on the hook, and it is inevitable that she will eventually land him, although not before many complications are worked through.

When it was released, Love in the Afternoon was not a commercial success, and this was attributed to the obvious age difference between Cooper and Hepburn. Even today many viewers find this unnerving. Yet nobody seemed to find it odd that Cooper's bride in High Noon (1952) was played by Grace Kelly, who was the same age as Hepburn. And there had been few complaints when Wilder cast Humphrey Bogart opposite Hepburn in Sabrina just three years earlier. (Bogart was actually two years older than Cooper.) Bogart's own wife at the time was Lauren Bacall, who was some 25 years his junior, and they are considered one of Hollywood's legendary couples, both onscreen and off.

It's true that Wilder wanted Cary Grant, who was nearly the same age as Cooper, to play Frank Flannagan but that Grant turned down the part because he thought he was too old to be paired with Hepburn. (Grant also turned down Roman Holiday and Sabrina for the same reason. After he married Dyan Cannon, who was eight years younger than Hepburn, he finally relented and agreed to play opposite Hepburn in 1963's Charade.) It's also true that, unlike Grant, Cooper looked every year of his age (56), although pains were clearly taken to downplay his raddled appearance with flattering camera angles and lighting and by avoiding close-ups. Tellingly, he does clearly show his age in one very unflattering close-up, a reaction shot when Chevalier tells him that Ariane is his daughter. Add to all this the fact that Hollywood has a long tradition of teaming older men with younger women (and also that there is psychobiological evidence to explain such mutual attraction: men tend to equate youth in women with fertility, while women tend to equate age in men with the stability and material resources necessary to maintain a family), and such a romantic pairing as Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn—although certainly not fashionable in today's more age-conscious world—doesn't seem entirely implausible.

In fact, Wilder deals proleptically with the issue of age disparity in Love in the Afternoon. At one point he has Flannagan accuse Ariane of being too young to behave so promiscuously, to which she responds by asking him if he isn't a bit too old to be playing Casanova. At another point, when Flannagan wonders why she is interested in a man as mature as himself, she tells him, "Actually, I don't much care for young men. Never did. I find them conceited, clumsy, and very unimaginative."

The question of age difference aside, both Cooper and Hepburn give outstanding performances. I've never been a big fan of Cooper, who often strikes me as a rather stiff actor of limited range. In Love in the Afternoon, for once he doesn't play the kind of laconic he-man, naive idealist, or romantic innocent he specialized in. His Frank Flannagan is purely and simply a serial philanderer—at one point Ariane's father refers to him as "a hit-and-run lover"—a shallow sensualist who uses his money to lure, seduce, and sexually exploit women. In this performance he redirects the geniality he seemed to project so effortlessly to the role of a cad, a compulsive Don Juan.

But near the end of the movie, his character undergoes a radical transformation. As he listens to that recording of her fictitious sex life that Ariane leaves him, you can see the change in him happening. In the course of one sequence, Flannagan goes from bemused detachment to frantic jealousy, and Cooper is very, very good at showing this rapid Jeckyll and Hyde-like transformation from suave seducer to lovesick nervous wreck. Wilder shows the aftermath of this change when Flannagan gets drunk with his gypsy orchestra, even working in a very funny bit of business with Flannagan and the gypsies passing a rolling liquor cart back and forth between the bedroom and the sitting room as they get more and more drunk.

Of all the charming performances the young Audrey Hepburn gave in the 1950s, this is one of the richest and most varied, and it is perhaps the most subtly comic. As the innocent Ariane in the first part of the movie, she does exactly what the audience expects from her. But after that kiss from Flannagan awakens her latent eroticism, we see a very different side of her from the expected one. She becomes, in a word, a minx. Her deviousness is entirely benign, but its purpose is unambiguously sexual: she deceives her father, her boy friend, and even Frank himself in order to create and prolong an erotic encounter. Like Frank, Ariane undergoes her own transformation—from a romantic, innocent girl to a sexually experienced young woman. I don't think anyone else but Wilder working in his Lubitsch-inspired mode could have made such a transformation seem so inoffensive when it involved such a cinematic idealization of innocence and chastity as Audrey Hepburn. He even coaxed Hepburn, who was the fashion icon of the 1950s, into making fun of her looks. While she and Cooper are searching for the missing shoe, she complains that her feet are too big (they were, and Hepburn was notoriously sensitive about it), adding, "I'm too thin and my ears stick out and my teeth are crooked and my neck is much too long." If you look closely, you can see that the divine Audrey is actually correct in this physical self-assessment, although I'm inclined to agree with Frank's response: "Maybe so, but I love the way it all hangs together."

Wilder never wrote and directed another movie quite like this one, which is perhaps why it is so seldom mentioned in considerations of his oeuvre as a director. Wilder's films are typically shot through with a self-professed cynicism, a belief that people basically act to further their own self-interest. Even so, he has frequently been criticized for failing to follow through with the harsh world view that informs his movies. David Thomson, for instance, complains that Wilder was a director who "knew how to sweeten his own sour pills but who time and again slipped out of the ugly position of offering tough medicine." The decision to work entirely in the gentler Lubitsch mode in Love in the Afternoon was one that served Wilder well by making the film immune to such criticism. Rather than dishing out his usual bitter cynicism, Wilder here assumes a detached and whimsical point of view. Like Lubitsch, he stands back and observes the participants in the game of love and sex, emphasizing the ritual of their romantic dance rather than dwelling on the dark side of human nature.

All in all, Love in the Afternoon is, for Wilder, a movie of rare grace and charm. It is a beautifully written film (the first of twelve he wrote with long-time collaborator I. A. L. Diamond), one packed with incident, clever plot turns, witty dialogue, and memorable details and bits of business—all of which slot together in precise, clockwork fashion. It is in a way a fairy tale, containing elements of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, even Beauty and the Beast. And it is a valentine to Francophiles everywhere, presenting a story that feels, and a movie that looks, like the romanticized images in the minds of those who love all things Gallic.