05/15/2021 12:00
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Updated 05/15/2021 4:39 PM
Gary Cooper could have been a full-time cowboy.
But then, the cinema would not have counted on his services, the Hollywood sky would have had one less star and surely neither would he have gained the fame of conqueror that identifies him and the prestige that accompanies his posterity.
At age 18, the only thing that interested the boy who
was born on May 7, 1901
in Helena, a town in Montana, in the Northwest region of the United States, was to connect with the earth, away from the formalities of the living rooms and refined manners.
To such an extent that, after
an adolescent experience in England
, where mother Alice and father Charles Henry, a rancher as well as a local Supreme Court justice, had sent him to have a British training, the still called Frank James
decided to abandon the studies
to put on the cowboy hat and riding boots.
Gary Cooper learned the rudiments of the field from a very young age, and his cowboy image was a trademark of his identity.
By then, he was already carrying
a hip injury
resulting from a car accident
as a mark of identity
, which conditioned his way of walking and forced him to lean in a particular way when riding, an art he learned at Seven-Bar Nine, the ranch of 240 hectares that his father bought when he was just 5 years old.
But against the will of young Cooper, fate had another card in store for his life, which language teacher Ida Davis played to the full when
Daddy Charles tried to "redirect" him by
scoring him at Gallatin County High School in Bozeman, so that he could resume his studies.
It was then that
art definitely caught his attention
;
first through painting and later in the university setting of Grinnell College, which he dropped out anyway a year after entering, to try his luck in Chicago and end up returning to his native Helena.
From cowboy to actor
Finally, as in so many other cases, it was an almost chance event that defined what his long-term plan would be.
A trip by his parents to Los Angeles to take over the management of a couple of properties was the prelude to his own landing in the city.
And there there was no going back.
Gary Cooper in a still from the remarkable "At the Appointed Hour" (1952).
There, "mentored" by a couple of friends and rodeo champion Jay "Slim" Talbot, a
'Montane'
like him, discovered that his skills as a cowboy could be used for more than just herding his own cows, and
a casting opened the doors for him. doors to the world
of acting.
Extra for $ 5 a day and double action for 10
;
That was the agreement that Cooper closed, with the intention of gathering some mangoes to study acting.
Time would show him that he couldn't have made a better decision.
Between 1925 and 1926, Cooper
participated in the filming of 19 films
, as an extra, cowboy or Roman soldier;
from the initiation
Dick Turpin
to
Ben Hur
and
The Enchanted Hill
, passing through
The Black Eagle
, supporting Rodolfo Valentino and in the role of a masked Cossack.
Gary Cooper, along with Ingrid Bergman, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, the San Wood film about his friend Hemingway's novel.
At the end of the biennium, he had traded in his original "Frank" for the "Gary" with whom he would become famous, and had signed
a contract for $ 50 a week
with a certain Samuel Goldwin, who by then had already sold his company Goldwyn Pictures, including the lion, the creator of Metro-Goldwyn Meyer, whose management he had nothing to do with.
Since then,
Gary Cooper has participated in at least 90 films
.
Among them, Alas, the first film to win an Oscar for Best Film, in the first edition of the awards.
The delivery took place in 1929 at a hotel in Los Angeles, as part of a dinner with 270 people, at $ 5 a place setting.
From there to become
a kind of popular hero
, it was only a matter of time it took him to assume roles of different tenor in emblematic titles such as
Farewell to Arms
,
Desire
,
The secret of living
,
The spring
,
Sergeant York
,
His two passions
,
At the appointed time
...
Cooper's style, with a lot of expressive economy, captivated directors and audiences alike.
To such an extent that he took the attribution of changing the lines that did not seem appropriate for his characters to his liking, without anyone getting angry about it.
The filming of The Rebel was the scene of the beginning of the love story between Cooper and Patrick Neal.
PHOTO ARCHIVES: GARY COOPER
"They refuse to say or do anything that is not in keeping with their own characters," they say Lee Strasberg said about Cooper's line of actors.
And he assumed it as a virtue that was also highlighted, among many others, by the French director François Truffaut.
Characterized as a cowboy, a soldier, an irresistible romantic or a baseball player, it didn't matter, Cooper was increasing his acting figure, with
two Academy statuettes
as backing - he would get one more, in 1961, in recognition of his career - while in parallel he
added names to the list of women with whom he had some kind
of intimate bond.
Romances, an abortion and an accusation
The first relationship he was known - which is not to say that there had not been others before - was the one he had with
Clara Bow
, who boosted his career by helping him land one of his first important roles in
The Children of Divorce
.
They were followed by Evelyn Brent, a couple of years older than him;
and then the Mexican Lupe Vélez, while she also shared part of her time with Marlene Dietrich and the beautiful Carol Lombard.
They say that
after his marriage to Verónica Balfe, in 1933
, with whom he had a daughter, Maria, Cooper remained loyal to his partner for almost a decade.
Unverifiable.
Cooper and Bergman, a couple that also extended beyond the set.
Photo Slides nb-couleurs point archives 1943 film
But for the purposes of her official biography, the fact that that period has been interrupted by the appearance on the scene of Ingrid Bergman does not stop adding glamor and curiosity to a story whose next chapter was
titled Patricia Neal
.
By then, Cooper no longer cared so much about hiding his new "adventure", much less did it when things got more serious and ended up confessing to his wife that he
was really in love
with who would later become the wife of the writer Roald Dahl, author of wonders such as
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
and
Matilda
, among other great works.
Only this time the issue took on a shade of gray on the dark side, framed between the divorce that Balfe asked for, and
the abortion of a Cooper pregnancy
to which Neal underwent, who also
accused the actor of having hit her
when he found out that he had been on a date with
Kirk Douglas
.
During Cooper and Veronica's estrangement period, the Hollywood star continued to add names to her list of close friends.
Some of them sparkling, like
the very young Grace Kelly
, as well as those of Lorraine Chanel and Gisèle Pascal.
Gary Cooper and Patrick Neal's passionate relationship ended badly, with an abortion and alleged gender-based violence involved Miller ARCHIVES: GARY COOPER
Be that as it may, in 1953
Cooper returned to the home
he had shared with Verónica, with whom he recomposed his partner, which he kept unscathed even when it is suspected that
shortly afterwards it was the Spanish Sara Montiel
with whom Cooper extended his vocation to lead his fictional romances. to a more real plane.
A plane in which he also cultivated friendships with characters such as Ernest Hemingway, who was based on his figure when creating the character of Robert Jordan for his novel
For Whom the Bell Tolls
, or
Pablo Picasso
, whom he met in 1956, thanks to that love and respect for the painting that never lost.
Like his respect for the value of friendship, which Cooper brought to the fore when, despite his republicanism and avowed anti-communism, he kept silent at the "invitation" of the House
Committee on Anti-American Activities
to "flag" colleagues. that sympathize with ideas of the left.
In 1957, Cooper shared the film Afternoon Love with the beautiful Audrey Hepburn.
Photo AP-Allied Artists
And like the love he felt for going out hunting and wielding a gun, enjoying the outdoors, going fishing or "riding" some good sports car.
His decision to buy
his first Duesenberg
in 1930
, a J Derham Tourster model, somehow attests to
that passion, which he ratified five years later.
A gem called Duesenberg
So, in an attempt to revive its sales, the brand used its old J chassis to mount its SSJ model on it.
They made two units, one for Clark Gable and one for Cooper.
The marketing plan was to lend it to them for six months to test.
At the end of that period, the protagonist of
Gone with the Wind
returned his unit.
His colleague, on the other hand,
disbursed the 5,000 dollars
at which the vehicle was appraised, which he asked to change its color from a beige combined with brown, to an elegant combination of gray.
US inflation took those 5,000 to
about 92,000 dollars today
, of course without removing the zeros or anything like that.
But what dramatically amplified the value of Cooper's Duesenberg was that the brand saw the model as
not worth continuing to build
.
A gem: the 1935 Duesenberg SSJ that belonged to Gary Cooper, for which $ 22 million was paid.
Photo Miles Collier
Time passed, the SSJ passed from hands on a couple of occasions, until finally that decision had its most resounding repercussion in July 2018, when
the vehicle went up for auction
in the United States.
The most delusional projections ventured a value that would border the 10 million dollars.
The following August 27, the media
reported the sale of Cooper's car at 22 million.
A figure that made it
the most expensive American car in history
.
A cancer that he could not overcome
For his part, in April 1960 Cooper had to undergo
an operation to treat prostate cancer
that had spread to the colon.
The next step was, four months later, an intervention to remove a tumor from the intestine.
It was not enough.
Although the actor tried to maintain an active schedule, in January 1961
the disease had also affected his lungs and bones
.
Still, Cooper participated in a dinner hosted by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in his honor.
"The only achievement I'm proud of is the friends I've made in this community," they say he said then.
The following April 17, he saw on TV how his friend and colleague James Stewart received
the Oscar for his career
that the Hollywood Academy had awarded him.
The third of his harvest.
With the end just around the corner, the actor received messages of encouragement from Queen Elizabeth II, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and even from Pope John XXIII himself.
Gary Cooper died at 12:47 a.m. on Saturday, May 13, 1961
.
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