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(born September 15, 1922)
Cooper was born John Cooper, Jr. in Los Angeles, California.
 Cooper
first appeared in the short Boxing Gloves in 1929, one of the Our
Gang comedies. He was signed to a three year contract that was to
expire in 1932. He initially was only a supporting character in
1929, but by early 1930 he had done so well with the transition to
sound films that he had become a major character. He was the main
character on episodes like The First Seven Years, When The Wind
Blows, and others. His most notable Our Gang shorts explore his
crush on Miss Crabtree, the schoolteacher played by June Marlowe,
which included the trilogy of shorts Teacher's Pet, School's Out,
and Love Business.
Other movie studios liked Cooper's work. In the Spring of 1931,
Paramount signed him as well as recurring Our Ganger Donald Haines
to a long term contract to star in features. Both Jackie Cooper and
Donald Haines walked off the Our Gang set during the production of
the second to last episode Bargain Day" to begin work on their first
feature film over at Paramount. His first non-Our Gang role was in
1931, when Norman Taurog hired him to star in Skippy, for which he
was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor - the youngest
actor ever (at the age of 9) to be nominated for an Oscar as Best
Actor.
The movie catapulted young Cooper to super-stardom. Our Gang
producer Hal Roach sold Jackie's contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in
mid-1931, as he felt the youngster would have a better future in
features. He began a long on-screen relationship with actor Wallace
Beery in such films as The Champ (1931), The Bowery (1933), Treasure
Island (1934), and O'Shaughnessy's Boy (1935).
Not conventionally handsome as he approached adulthood, Cooper had
the typical child-actor problems finding roles as an adolescent, and
he served in World War II, so his career was at a nadir when he
starred in two popular television series, The People's Choice and
Hennesey. His television experience convinced him that he could
become a director and he successfully moved behind the camera to
become one of the busier Emmy Award-winning television directors. |
