Gary Cooper

Frank James Cooper ( born May 7, 1901 in Helena, Montana, USA, † May 13, 1961 in Beverly Hills, California ) was an American film actor. As a performer, straight, silent heroes Cooper enjoyed great popularity for decades. His most famous role was that of the Town Marshal Will Kane in Western classics 12 clock noon.

Life

Cooper initially grew in Montana, where his family belonged to the upper class: his father was a judge at the State Supreme Court. For the purpose of social groundwood and higher education of the young Gary was sent to England, where he attended a boarding school. Even he expressed himself to the effect that he was beaten up in England because of his American pronunciation and the U.S. English because of his accent. After returning to America, he first wanted to be a painter or cartoonist. When a car accident he broke a hip, which gave him his characteristic gait particularly in the older age and severe discomfort associated with it. He was advised to ride in order to speed up the recovery, which he perfected on the native ranch.

Cooper worked first time in 1925 with the film. He hired himself first as an extra in adventure and western films of the silent era, after realizing that it was easy to earn money as a rider and stuntman in his time fledgling film business. One of these unnamed roles he played in Ben Hur. Soon the large, above-average good-looking young man fell to the leading ladies, and in 1926 he was first mentioned in The Winning of Barbara Worth by name in a silent movie.

He came with the audience well and was still taken from the 1926 Paramount contract, where he was to be seen among others in Wings of Gold. Already in the late 1920s, Cooper was able to establish itself as a new star and was particularly in demand in Western. The actor, who had no acting training, was just during the transition from silent films to talkies popular because of its minimalist, realistic representation, which had nothing in common with the dramatizing, gestural game of silent film mimes. His breakthrough came in 1929 in the celebrated Western The man from Virginia, his first sound film. He retained his way in to play and put them mainly in Western and adventure films an effective, in which he silent, solitary hero played. He also impressed in character roles ( as in 1941 in Sergeant York, for which he won an Oscar ) and in numerous comedies (such as 1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ).

Cooper was one until his death by going to the popular Hollywood stars and was able to record at the box office successes regularly. He turned 110 films and was in the course of his career, an icon of American popular culture. For many viewers, he embodied, beyond his acting performances, the ideal of the upright, integrity, heroic U.S. American.

Three times Cooper was awarded the Oscar 1942 for Sergeant York and 1953 for twelve clock noon ( High Noon ). The honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement (1961 ), he could not accept himself, so this was taken by his friend James Stewart for him because of his cancer.

Private

Married since 1933 with Gary Cooper was "Rocky" Veronica Balfe from the New York High Society, with whom he had a daughter. Balfe had been under the pseudonym Sandra Shaw briefly actress. Mother and daughter were strict Catholics, and the daughter wanted to be a nun at first. Cooper converted to the Catholic faith and attended the two for the sake of even towards the end of his life the Pope. A close friend Cooper was said to have written with the writer Ernest Hemingway, the main character of his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls -made for him.

With the filming of The gallows tree he came only from pain in the saddle. With difficulty he could They came to Cordura and the not fear death finish. The diagnosis was prostate cancer, so that was no longer to think of a new collaboration with Fred Zinnemann in The endless horizon. In the spring of 1960, he underwent two cancer operations. For the first time since the beginning of his career came in 1960, no new film from him more in the cinemas. After a brief recovery, he began A man walks his way. However, the symptoms returned.

Gary Cooper died in 1961 of complications from prostate cancer that had spread by now, in the colon, lungs, and bones. It lies on the Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary Cemetery buried in Southampton on Long Iceland, New York.

Filmography (selection)

Synchronization

Various German speakers took the synchronization of Gary Cooper. Particularly noteworthy here are Wolfgang Lukschy, Paul Klinger, Hartmut Reck and Heinz Engelmann.

Awards

Autobiography

• Give the luck the spores. The story of my life. Henschel, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-362-00547-0.