Gary Cooper

Frank James “Gary” CooperFrank James “Gary” Cooper (May 7, 1901 – May 13, 1961) was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, individualistic, emotionally restrained, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made. His career spanned from 1925 until shortly before his death, and comprised more than one hundred films.
During his lifetime, Cooper received five Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning twice, for Sergeant York and High Noon. He also received an Honorary Award in 1961 from the Academy.
Decades later, the American Film Institute named Cooper among the AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Stars, ranking 11th among males from the Classical Hollywood cinema period. In 2003, hisFrank James “Gary” Cooper performances as Will Kane in High Noon, Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees, and Alvin York in Sergeant York made the AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Heroes and Villains list, all of them as heroes.
Cooper had high-profile relationships with actresses Clara Bow, Lupe Vélez, and the American-born socialite-spy Countess Carla Dentice di Frasso (née Dorothy Caldwell Taylor, formerly wife of British pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White). He is also believed to have had an affair with actor Anderson Lawler, with whom he lived, and who introduced him to Hollywood society.
On December 15, 1933, Cooper wed Veronica Balfe, (May 27 1913 – February 16 2000), known as “Rocky.” Balfe was a New York Roman Catholic socialite who had briefly acted under the name of Sandra Shaw. She appeared in the film No Other Woman, but her most widely seen role was in King Kong, as the woman dropped by Kong. Her third and final film was Blood Money. Her father was governor of the New York Stock Exchange, and her uncle was Cedric Gibbons. During the 1930s she also became the California state women’s Gary Cooperskeet shooting champion. They had one child, Maria, now Maria Cooper Janis, married to classical pianist Byron Janis.
Eventually, Cooper’s wife persuaded Cooper to convert to Catholicism in 1958. After he was married, but prior to his conversion, Cooper had affairs with several famous co-stars, including Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, and Patricia Neal. He pressured Neal to have an abortion in 1950, since fathering a child out of wedlock could have destroyed his career. Cooper’s daughter Maria, when she was a little girl, famously spat at Neal, but many years later, the two became friends. Cooper separated from his wife between 1951 and 1954.
Cooper was friends with Ernest Hemingway and spent many vacations with the writer in Sun Valley, Idaho.