Nobody involved in the making of High Noon thought they were making more than just another, hopefully, good little Western which cost all of $750,000. It was not filled with the expected action of cowboys vs. Indians chasing each other across the plains. However, in the talented hands of several artists from the Writer Carl Foreman to Director Fred Zinnemann, to its star, my father, Gary Cooper, the beautiful ladies Grace Kelly and Katy Jurado, the sinister villains including Lee Van Cleef and the wonderful theme song composed by Dimitri Tiomkin, this “little Western” turned into an iconic film that has affected and touched world leaders from Japan to Poland and shook up American politics at the time of one of our more shameful periods – the McCarthy hearings. According to those hearings, there was a Communist under every bed. My father was extremely close to High Noon’s writer Carl Foreman, in fact, he called him Uncle Carl and when the film’s producer Stanley Kramer wanted to take him off the film because of alleged Communist propaganda, my father simply said, “If Foreman goes, Cooper goes.”
Many books and articles have been written about High Noon. The story exposed the cross currents buried in human nature and politics. We see in the film a reflection of our own inner conscience and its struggle between fear and doing what you know is right – to do what you have to do for a greater good, or in the name of justice – concepts which are not limited to any one era. In fact, there’s a very interesting parallel between High Noon and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea – both challenge our own personal definitions of Honor, Courage, Justice and Fear. My father won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Marshal Kane. It was the first time the “hero” of a film was shown to be human and vulnerable.
I strongly recommend for further reading the recent book, High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel.
Maria Cooper Janis
This film was made in 1946 cast my father very much against type. his role as a nuclear scientist names Alvah Jasper was what the Austrian director Fritz Lang wanted to do, and he always said he based the character Jasper on our famous atomic scientist J. R. Oppenheimier.
I remember going out with my parents to visit Cal Tech where the studio had arranged for him to get a “little coaching” from the scientific community there. To get into the skin of an atomic scientist was not a role my father did with ease. He was coached in order to learn to speak with ease, some of the technical dialogue and acquire some information about the ‘splitting of atoms”!! He was in awe as we stood in the back of the classroom/laboratory and watched the professor fill a huge blackboard with numbers, diagrams, equations: He wrote so fast the images seemed to explode all over the board, like a meadow of Paul Klee creatures come to life. In an unusual way this was a challenging film for my father and he was nervous about delivering his scientific dialogue with enough conviction and knowledge. As for the physical ‘action” there are rough fights in this film and he did not use a double in spite of was suffering from an old hip and back injury.
The “message” of the movie about the dangers of Atomic Energy and its misuse in the wrong hands, created controversy. In a speech that Jasper gives he passionately says— “ Peace? There is no peace. It’s year ONE of the AtomicAge and God have mercy on us all——if we think we can wage other wars without destroying ourselves etc…”. It got thrown out by the studio and they insisted Jasper/Cooper deliver a bland, innocuous speech, which for me undermined some of the guts of the story.
Poppa loved working with Lily Palmer in this, her first American film. She became a close family friend as well a his co-star, and he felt was an extremely fine actress. This is a very different Gary Cooper film, but he always wanted to try out different personas …another facet of his versatile acting talents.
Maria Cooper Janis
THE WESTERNER
One of my father’s favorite directors to work with was William Wyler, from “The Westerner” in 1940, their first collaboration - to "Friendly Persuasion "in 1956. Both films created an important impact on the film career and character of Gary Cooper.
This unusual story/film- some half-truth and half-fiction was in the beginning a source of tremendous irritation and resentment between my father and producer Samuel Goldwyn’. My father thought that he would be portraying the historical, colorful and infamous Judge Roy Bean. To his shock he discovered that Goldwyn had cast Walter Brennen in that plum part. When Cooper objected strongly, Goldwyn tried to placate him by saying don’t worry we will he will expand your part!
His role in the shooting script did not please my father at all, but he finally agreed to - fulfill his contractual obligations “under a formal written protest”!
It was another one of those tough physical locations in the desert near Tuscan, Arizona with extreme temperature fluctuations endured by the cast and crew.The role GaryCooper inhabited- a character named Cole Harden, has to use his wit, cleverness and devious tendencies in order to save his own skin, when Judge Bean wants to see him DEAD. To avoid being hung, Harden cleverly plays on Bean’s obsession with the real-life famous beauty, singer and entertainer of the day, Lily Langtry, Walter Brennen and my father became buddies while making the film. They joked around with each other with Brennen making phone calls to my father impersonating Sam Goldwyn’s angry diatribes at Cooper!! The screenwriter Niven Bush and my father also became friends as he praised how helped his writing with the factual knowledge of the real was that was so important in developing the story line.
Maria Cooper Janis
The intersection of lives is a fascinating occurrence as it unfolds in time. The lives of Sargent Alvin York World War 1 hero and the life of film actor Gary Cooper were melded together when Alvin York told Hollywood that theonly way he would allow his story to be told would be if Gary Cooper portrayed him. It won my father his first Academy Award and it spread the story of York’s heroism to millions of moviegoers around the world.
Some 75 years later at an event paying tribute to the WW1 medal of honor winners in the historical Park Ave. Armory hosted an evening at which both the Cooper family and the York family were together listening to a beautiful song — Song for a Hero composed by Maria Cooper Janis’s concert pianist husband Byron Janis written as a tribute to heros everywhere. It was beautifully sung by singer opera/ broadway artist Frank Basille. Following that was a one act play newly written about Alvin York by… I am so glad to meet and be getting to know the York family, both Col. Gerald York and last year met with one of York’s sons Andrew Jackson York at an event when each of us unveiled US Postal service stamps depicting our fathers. A truly unique and moving moment
A most memorable moment for me happened a few years ago when I found myself sharing a stage with one of the sons of Sargent Alvin York. We both unveiled 2 large paintings of our Fathers, commissioned by the US Postal Service, as the images for one of the new “forever” stamps that were going to be circulated in post offices around the country.This was held at the amazing World War 1 Museum in Kansas City on the anniversary of Armistice day November 11th.York had become such an American hero—though a reluctant one- as he was a pacifist and did not believe in fighting or killing. Hollywood tried to woo the uninterested and elderly Alvin York, who refused to give the rights to his story to any film makers…unless… they could get Gary Cooper to portray him in a life story movie. My father was so extremely honored and humbled by York'srequest and, the challenge to take on that role. The two men met and got along beautifully. And so, a beautiful film was made, an inspiring story told, and Gary Cooper won his first Academy Award.
Maria Cooper Janis
CASSANOVA BROWN
This film is a very different Cooper type role. He plays a sweet, rather awkward and naive man…not your typical Gary Cooper heroic character. My father was a co-producer on this movie followed by Along Came Jones, however wearing those 2 hats cured him of the “producing “ bug. He was co-starred with Teresa Wright, the wonderful wife of Lou Gehrig in the Pride of The Yankees, but not so wonderful in Cassanova Brown. The husband/wife relationship was quite the opposite, in fact dramatically so!The comedy that plays thru this film did not work all the time. That was a frustration for my father, as he in fact had a real flair and natural timing for comedy, something that is shown off wonderfully well in his film Bluebeard’s 8th Wife with Claudette Colbert, written by that master Billy Wilder and directed by Ernst Lubitch. Claudette Colbert and her husband Dr. Joel Pressman were close friends of my family, and we spent many happy weekends together at our tennis courtand around the swimming pool.
Maria Cooper Janis
NOW AND FOREVER
As Now and Forever was made in 1934 my father was still kind of “newlywed"(1933 marriage) and he didn’t want to accept more than one picture that year. My memories years later of his comments about that film revolved mainly around one very little, cute, adorable…and highly annoying little girl named Shirley Temple who played his daughter. She already had made a name for herself in the industry. He admired a lot her intelligence and talentbut was highly irritated with her annoying habit of knowing not only her own, but everybody else’s lines when shooting a scene. Little Shirley was not shy about speaking up and correcting you in front of the cast if you made a dialogue mistake and said “and” instead of “but”. Understandably, this is never done and it drove him crazy!!!But he overcame that frustration and they actually got along very well. and their relationship and scenes together are touching and memorable. By contrast, his co-star Carol Lombard and he have an explosive relationship in the film. The contact and dynamics work very well for the story. Off screen Carole was a family friend and there was many a weekend afternoon with the Coopers and she and Clark Gable who were madly in love with each other, just relaxing, playing tennis, swimming. I have been told she could hold her own with the guys when it came to swearing—quite a shock coming from this very feminine blond!The movie was a “sleeper” and a much better picture than popularly acknowledged by the critics at the time. But the public was very happy!
Maria Cooper Janis
THE HANGING TREE
The Hanging Tree is a film that was particularly close to my father’s heart. Certain things resonated for him relating to his Montana childhood, the lure of the gold rush days in 1873 and many of the flaws in our human nature so graphically depicted in the plot of the film. As the main character, a doctor named Joe Frail, it also provided my father with a chance to play a much darker role than usually attributed to Gary Cooper. The atypical Cooper role in the persona of Dr. Frail is not one his public was used to seeing him in and he relished the chance to play a role that stretched him. The superb cast of Maria Schell (her first American film), the wonderful Karl Malden, seasoned director Delmer Daves, came together to make this the unique film that it is. Del Daves sometimes seemed to vanish from the camp near Yakima, Washington. In the course of filming, it was discovered that he was an avid amateur geologist and rock/mineral collector and he would venture off on his own personal expeditions to find a special kind of ancient rock formation – or perhaps it was the remnants of some gold nuggets flushed out of the mountains after a heavy rain. At one point, Daves took ill and Karl Malden came to the rescue encouraged by my father to take the reins as needed. I still have a gold nugget from the site that my father made into a pendant.
As I watched my father Gary Cooper's film The Hanging Tree now, 60 plus years after it was made, I am more aware than ever of how natural Gary Cooper’s acting style was - though I don’t think he would have referred to himself as having an “acting style.” He worked at immersing himself in the character and then let his intuitive feelings and emotions about who that character was, what drove him to be and do the things he did, come naturally then he said, “I don’t have to act.” As an unusual Gary Cooper type in The Hanging Tree, he portrays a much “darker” hero and his face reflects layers of inner conflicts not usually identified with a typical Western hero, particularly Gary Cooper. His character, a doctor named Joe Frail, is trying to escape his past memories - most raw, his personal wounding by his betrayal by his wife with his own brother. Maria Schell, the beautiful talented actress from Germany, is given her first American film and she is given a more complex female role than those usually handed to women in a Western film - she is neither a prostitute nor a school marm. There is a haunting musical score by Max Steiner and performed by Marty Robbins that threads through the film as it captures the emotional drama of anger, sadness and ultimately love which is portrayed at the end of the film.
Maria Cooper Janis
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP
Before taking on a role, my father always liked to read and learn as much as possible about the life conditions and the background of the characters he portrayed. For The Devil and The Deep he did a lot of research on submarines, their technology of the day —1932— and the experience of living under the pressures imposed by life in a sub, and all of that woven into a passionate love triangle. Tallulah Bankhead and the great actor Charles Laughton provided that conflict.Tallulah noticed when making the film, my father spent a lot of time talking with a naval officer who the studio had hired to provide a ‘reality check” for all concerned “What's that got to do with acting?” she asked Gary. “The point is, Poppa replied, “ if I know what I’m doing I don’t have to act”. I think one of the unique things about Gary Cooper is that he embodied a very balanced blend of the masculine and feminine—which we all have in us in varying degrees. The portrayal of his character in this film is that of a man with a beautiful and elegant persona yet ultimately strong and commanding and able to become the “hero” at the end of it all.Charles Laughton admired my father’s acting talents, and is quoted as saying, “Gary had something I should never have. It is something pure and he doesn’t know it’s there. In truth, that boy doesn’t have the least idea of how well he acts…He gets at it from the inside, from his own pure way of looking at life.”
Maria Cooper Janis
BEAU GESTE
Beau Geste was made first as a silent movie in 1926 with Ronald Coleman as the major lead. In 1939 paramount did a remake “talkie” with my father Gary Cooper chosen to play one of theGeste brothers, who run off together to join the French foreign legion— the others portrayed by Robert Preston and Ray Milland.I remember my mother telling me that it was a very tough location, filmed in the Mojave Desert,some miles from Yuma, Arizona. The studio built a complete “movie town” with tents that had wooden floor and actual working bathroom for a crew of over 700 people.
I was told a dramatic story as I was growing up about how my father had gotten word that I was very sickbut with no details. So being stuck out in the desert he highjacked a camel and rode at full gallop to the nearest highway, where he ties the camel to a telephone pole and hitchhiked into Yuma and to the nearest hotel telephone to “phone home” to see if I was alright. Well, I later learned that colorful story was totally dreamed upby an eager PR person who fed it to the tabloids of the day!!! The adventure story itself of Beau Geste praises courage and appealed to my father’s early training and sense of values—and his belief in the importance of loyalty and self-sacrifice
Maria Cooper Janis
Mr. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN
I have a new insight into the background of one of my favorite of my father's films, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, chosen by The New York Film Critic’s Circle as the Best Film of the Year (1936) and it garnered 5 nominations from the Motion Picture Academy - Frank Capra won for Best Director. It is one of the key films in the career of Gary Cooper and was directed by the great Frank Capra. Now I am having the pleasure of reading about Robert Riskin, who wrote the screenplay of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, in a most interesting new book written by his daughter Victoria Riskin. She writes about her father and mother, Fay Wray one of the beautiful actresses of that era. When asked about her father and which films most closely reflected his personal philosophy, she named Mr. Deeds as one of them. His development of the character Mr. Longfellow Deeds embodies the fact of the essential goodness of ordinary people and the ability of one man to stand up to the corruption and power plays of the rich and influential. The film comments on that and the vulnerability of human nature. This all came together marvelously directed by Capra and sensitively portrayed by my father with some good bits of humor thrown in. The chemistry between Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper was hidden in the beginning but poignant when finally revealed. I strongly recommend seeing this film if you never have, or - again, and do get a copy of Victoria Riskin’s book - it gives an extremely accurate and fascinating look into the Hollywood of that time.
Maria Cooper Janis
PRIDE OF YANKEES
The season starts to change— it stays light a little later each day and, Good news “BASEBALL SPRING TRAINING starts in Florida…which brings my mind always- to one of my father’s favorite films. THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES in which he plays the role of Lou Gehrig, referred to as The Iron Horse. He batted .300 for 12 straight seasons. His baseball career and life was tragically cut short as he was afflicted by the disease: ALS (Amyatropic Lateral Sclerosis)— known even today as the Lou Gehrig Disease. How awful that even today some 75 years plus later, science and medicine have still not been able to find a cure.
My father was very honored to be chosen to play the role of Lou Gehrig, but he balked at first and he knew one of his major challenges would be to try to be “a lefty” as my father was right handed.Sam Goldwyn, the producer, engaged the ‘training” services of Yankee trainer Lefty O’Doul to coach my father how to throw and bat left handed… I love this photo where O’Doul who believed that chopping wood with a long ax and from the left shoulder— with the wood-chopping stride and rhythm was essentially the same as the batting swing… made an early comment about my father’s efforts… You throw a ball like an old woman tossing a hot biscuit!!”
“Poppa” worked out hard himself at home too, working with a large boxing/punching bag and practicing bowling with his left hand so that using it would become more natural.The idea of playing such a known and beloved person kind of intimidated my father. He said “You can’t “trick up” a part like this with mannerisms or gimmicks.” So many millions of people knew Gehrig, watched him and knew how he handled himself.
When Gehrig was honored at Yankee Stadium he gave one of the most famous ‘farewell” speeches heard either in real life or on the screen.Nothing needed to be added as he walked off the field to cheers, national public admiration and tears.Lou Gehrig continues to be an inspiration to ballplayers and people everywhere who know his story. My husband, concert pianist Byron Janis, who is a huge baseball fan and I brought this Lobby card from the movie as a gift to George Steinbrenner when we sat with him at an “Old Timers Day” game atYankee Stadium. He said ‘Oh, would you like me to take this down to the locker room and get the “boys” to sign it?” Of course I said”. Byron and I love looking at both sides!
Maria Cooper Janis
WINGS
This film WINGS is about the use of airplanes in World War 1 and the talented and brave men who flew them to daredevil extremes. It notably won the First Best Picture of the Year Academy Award in Hollywood in 1927 and introduced on screen, oh so briefly, a young handsome unknown actor who we literally- hear say a only a couple of lines—his last words being “Luck or no Luck when your time comes you’re going to get it”! and he walks out of the tent. Brief minutes later we see a shadow pass over the tent, hear a loud crash, and we know the pilot’s luck ran out! The movie audiences reacted so strongly and flooded the studio with letters wanting to know who was that incredible looking young man who gets killed? And so, a Star was born, who became one of the Icons of the Movie Industry. In those 90 seconds Gary Cooper captured the audience with a force of personality and a look in his eyes that overshadowed the 2 established stars of Wings, Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. Director William Wellman, a terrific pilot himselfwho was part of the group of American pilots who joined to fight for the French in WW1 called the Lafayette Escadrille, directed the air fight scenes. One scene called for a plane to cash into a farmhouse. None of the stunt men wanted to do it, and Bill said “Never mind- I’ll do it myself”. You have never seen air combat scenes like this anywhere on the screen—even today, and, with no trick photography! My father’s career was launched by Wings. He never forgot that humble beginning which introduced one of the most revered stars and actors of the 20th century. With his looks, personality and integrity Cooper came to represent the best a Hero can be …the best an American can strive to beon screen and off.
Maria Cooper Janis
A FAREWELL TO ARMS
It does seem like Gary Cooper and Ernest Hemingway were destined to meet and become friends, although Farewell to Arms was made before those two men had encountered each other.My father’s co-star was Helen Hayes, the First Lady of the American theater. The story takes place in war torn Italy in World War 2, and the two of them fall in love. In real life Helen, by her own admission, became totally smitten by my father. She said “ …if only he had wiggled his finger at me tocome meet him, I would have left my husband, the writer Charles McArthur, and child and gone off with him.” She said that during one of their love scenes in the picture- in between ‘takes’ she was looking adoringly into Coopers eyes. Gary looked back at me, took me firmly by my shoulders- and said “ NO, HELEN , NO”. But they remained friends even through much of her acting life was still devoted to the theater and in New York City… The studio shot 2 different endings for the film…the Hemingway ending in which she dies in in her lovers arms, and the Hollywood “Happy Ending—she lives.. The theater distributors opted for the happy ending. However when the movie was released in 1948 and the war had ended, the studio re edited it and used Hemingway ending-- she dies in Coopers arms. When I met Miss Hayes for the first time, my husband and I were invited to visit her at her home in Nyack, New York. She greeted us at the front door and as she opened it, saw me kind of silhouetted against the sunlight outside, she exclaimed “ Oh, you look just like Gary standing there, tall and quiet.” It was a very emotional moment for me…I really did not know what to say…only had deep feelings running through me. And a long ago connection was still there. And how beautiful she was then and now…She was angel.
Maria Cooper Janis
DALLAS
Dallas was made as one of a group of films the studio offered my father with not much leeway in choosing yeah or nay. It was a Western between two non-Westerns - Bright Leaf, based on a true tobacco family drama and Distant Drums, that dealt with not the American West but the Seminole Indians in Florida. Getting “back in the saddle” was something my father was always comfortable with, but an actor/artist always wants to stretch his own limits and feel he’s moving in new directions, honing his craft. Was he able to do that in Dallas? I don’t know, he never spoke about it and I suspect, as Picasso said, “I learn from the paintings that don’t work.” Maybe to study Dallas, one can see what spurred my father to move on and bring other elements to his roles in Westerns.
Maria Cooper Janis
VERA CRUZ
For my father going to Mexico both for work and vacation was eagerly anticipated or planned. Any time a film location was set for there he was delighted. Vera Cruzthe script was being worked on day by day, so no time to learn lines ahead of timenot my father’s favorite way to work. But the drama for himcame when he and Lancaster are in a cabin surrounded by the ‘bad guys” shooting out of windows to save their lives. Burt was standing behind my father and his gun went off by accident, shooting the “Blanks into my father’s left shoulder. An inch higher it would have taken off his left ear or scarred the side of his face. As it was, the wadding from the blank left a tattoo type of scar the size of a silver dollar in Poppas skin The tension between the two characters in the film builds— who gets the gold, who gets the woman??? And then---the final shoot out.
Maria Cooper Janis
THE VIRGINIAN
It’s hard to realize that in 1929 out of 20 thousand movie theaters only1500 were wired for sound. My father had a naturally deep voice that served him well as the “talkies” transformed the film industry. Owen Wister’s The Virginian hit the screens with a huge impact—the book itself from which the film was made had sold 1.6 million copies in those days, and it gave my father one of the classic lines in Western movie history… ”If you want to call me that, Smile”. The story is not ‘dated” and in fact there is a resonance with another film classic of Gary Cooper’s, High Noon. The point being you don’t run away from your duty- even as it puts your own life on the line. The romantic cowboy/hero image of my father pulls you into the very essence of the story, in fact, to the essence of Gary Cooper himself… on screen and off.
Maria Cooper Janis
MOROCCO
The film Morocco stands out as a high point in Gary Cooper’s early career.
With his co-star Marlena Dietrich and his director, the infamous Josef von Sternberg it was quite a leap into the fire.The physical chemistry between Cooper and Dietrich was obvious on screenand off. This did not please their director who was obsessed with her and jealous.
He was known for being a tyrant on the set, but did get great performances from his primary love Marlena. My Father felt the rest of the cast was pretty much left on their own to lay their scenes. And no one ever “bullied” Gary Cooper. He stood up to Sternberg and told him offverbally and physically when the occasion arose.
His role as a devastatingly handsome American in the French Foreign Legion who, “loved women and left them”, was the epitome of the Wild Legionnaire. Coopers role was highly praised in this film of unrequited love, adventure, and those seeking revenge.
Maria Cooper Janis
SARATOGA TRUNK
As the chemistry was strong between Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, it was a natural coupling for them to be paired in the film adaption of Edna Ferber’s best selling novel, Saratoga Trunk. Both movies were directed by Sam Woods but Saratoga Trunk had any number of problems including a lack of directorial vision to make the film come off, costing $1.75 million to make and coming in 42 days behind schedule. Stories don’t always move well from the page to the stage and even though it was a pleasure to watch Cooper and Bergman together on the big screen, it was not at the top of anyone’s must-see list.
As a sidebar - the white Stetson hat that my father wore in Saratoga Trunk is the hat that he gave to Pablo Picasso many years later when we visited the great painter in the South of France. In several of David Douglas Duncan’s fabulous photography books on Picasso, you can find the artist proudly wearing this hat - he carried it off well!
Maria Cooper Janis
CHILDREN OF DIVORCE
Children of Divorce made in 1927, represented an early major learning curve in Gary Cooper's acting career.
A much publicized romance with the "IT "girl Clara Bow and himself had the gossip columns buzzing. In fact, it was she who helped him get the part in that film. It turned out to be a tough moment for my father as he was not used to playing the kind of character the role required - that of a fast talkin' society boy type, sophisticated and spoiled. It was a big jump from the "born in the saddle" western cowboy and his other smaller roles.
In one scene where he is supposed to be smartly drinking champagne with Clara Bow, he apparently spilled it all over her in 23 straight takes! Up tight and flustered, Cooper got himself fired and became very depressed thinking his acting career was over.
B.P. Schulberg, a major Associate Producer at Paramount, went to bat for my father, arranged to have him re-hired, and talked to his other leading lady, Ester Ralston, encouraging her to be extra kind to him. When a new director Josef von Sternberg was hired, things on set took a better turn, my father’s confidence returned and so the magic that emanated from Gary Cooper on screen become evident again.
The romance between him and Clara Bow ran its course. In fact, her way of life he found depressing but he remained fond of her and was grateful for her part in shaping his early Hollywood life.
Maria Cooper Janis
Not knowing what the next film my father was to do, our family was in the South of France on Cap d’Antibes and my mother, ever the adventurer, got the idea to hire a teacher and we all learned how to scuba dive. Of course, we did it all wrong – my mother and I foolishly and vainly did not want to get our hair wet – so we dove with our bathing caps on only to learn later we could have burst our eardrums!
But we loved the sport and back home took proper lessons from certified professional divers who then, after “graduation,” took us out on their boat to Catalina Island where we dove in the ocean swimming between the massive forests of kelp beds looking for groupers, sand sharks and Moray eels. My father loved it and one weekend we found ourselves a tourist attraction when the Marineland of the Pacific aquarium invited us to come and swim in their big tank which was home to hundreds of fish of all sizes enclosed in glass walls at every level so the visitors could look in and see Gary Cooper – wife and daughter – swimming and weaving our way among the giant turtles and Manta rays.
So when The The Wreck of the Mary Deare was presented to my father to do as a film with his old friend Charlton Heston, he jumped at it. It is a gripping story and it gave my father a chance to do his own stunt work and use his newfound skills underwater. Acting through a facemask and a breathing tube is a real challenge. He was able to do all his own shots though a little more difficult than falling off a horse.
Maria Cooper Janis
The movie Love in the Afternoon was taken from a popular french story titled “Arianne."
It is a film in which Gary Cooper plays not to his typical film image at all. Every actor wants to ‘stretch his abilities, and take on different personas. He had gotten a piece of advice in the early days from Sam Goldwyn who said in effect-" to be careful Coop and never let your public down. They don’t want to see you as other than the “hero,” in whatever form…”
His character Frank Flannagan in Love in the Afternoon is a tycoon/playboy of a “certain age” who has been definitely around the track many times and is romancing a very young, beautiful, charming cello student, Audrey Hepburn, who lives with her detective father, Maurice Chevalier. It reunites professionally Cooper and the great director Billy Wilder, who were close personal friends (their first film together was with Claudette Colbert in Bluebeards’s Eighth Wife in 1938 ).
Wilders first choice for this role was Cary Grant or Yul Brynner, however schedules didn’t permit, but given Coopers age Wilder felt it could work very well with him portraying such a sophisticated scoundrel. My father was tired playing ‘virtuous” roles, wanted to do the film, work with Billy again, and then--location in Paris was NO hardship!
One of the lovelier scenes takes place when he is having a picnic in the Bois ( the park) in Paris. I was visiting the shoot that day and when the crew took a lunch break my father said to me,” Do you want to go for a row on the lake.? It was beautiful as he got his daily workout by rowing very energetically around the little islands of trees and flowers, but funny to see all the crowds lining the banks of the large lake..all pointing and wondering who was the young lady in the rowboat with Gary Cooper????
Does the comedy give Cooper the chance to redeem himself in the end??. I invite you to watch a kind of magical romance and find out for yourself.
Maria Cooper Janis
Friendly Persuasion is a film my father, Gary Cooper, was not at all sure he should do because it would have been the first time his role was as a father and he strongly questioned the wisdom of that as a career choice. The wonderful Director William Wyler, had wanted to do this picture for years with Cooper but had to postpone making it because previous film commitments made my father unavailable. Thank goodness they finally got together.
The Wylers and the Coopers were friends and the chance to work together made my father very happy. The story itself was written by Jessamyn West but the writer for the script was Michael Wilson. This was a resonance to a darker time in Hollywood when Michael Wilson’s name was withheld from the credits because the studio chose, “their right to deny credit to a writer who had been accused of being a member of the Communist Party or refused to answer charges of Communist affiliations.” Wilson had invoked the 5th Amendment when summoned to be a witness by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951. This script was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adaptation but was judged ineligible! It’s quite an irony this story actually was based on an article written by a cousin of President Richard Nixon about their great great-grandparents – how strange – a pacifist screenplay written by a blacklisted writer about the ancestors of President Nixon.
The beautiful music score was composed by the Academy Award winning composer of High Noon, Dimitri Tiomkin. My father loved the music for the film and went around the house humming the theme song Thee I Love. The studio never asked Gary Cooper to sing it, they got Pat Boone instead and tried my father out on a song called Marry Me, Marry Me about which he said, “I hope all of this won’t ruin my career!”
It is interesting that this film along with Sergeant York and High Noon has as part of its essence a person’s conflict between civic and religious duty and how the lead character handles those decisions. In preparing for his role as Jess Birdwell, the head of a Quaker family, Jessamyn West took my father to several Quaker meetings so that he would have the experience of the fervor and simplicity of the meetings and get to know some members of the congregation. I remember my father saying, “I really like going to those meetings, they are still and they are quiet. I like being with them.” My father was asked how he felt about his role in the film and he answered with a smile, “Well, I played a backsliding Quaker.”
His eldest son, played by Anthony Perkins, is a young man again dealing with a conflict of conscience versus religious conviction and in the film they have a very touching relationship. One day my mother and I visited the set when they were filming a country fair. In a perhaps prescient moment, considering my 53-year long marriage to the world renowned concert pianist Byron Janis, my father went to one of the booths where there was a wonderful glass blower and after about a half hour he presented me with a box with 2 intricately designed glass figures – a concert piano and a man sitting playing it!
Maria Cooper Janis
It was rare that my mother and I would join my father on location but it was Christmastime and we wanted to be together as a family so there we were in Cuernavaca, Mexico while the shooting was taking place in the nearby countryside and at the foot of the mountains. It was very rugged territory around Uruapan with a mixture of jungles, black volcanic rock and sinister looking black sand. The Director was a longtime family friend, Henry Hathaway, who had in fact directed my father in 7 previous films.
For the most part, we were all based in Cuernavaca and it was wonderful to be around the Hathaways whom I called Uncle Henry and Aunt Skip. Henry was a passionate and exacting Director and the frustrations of this location drove him crazy. I’ll never forget one complex scene in particular. The “good guys” are trapped in a ravine with cliffs rising high above them, over 1,000 feet, creating a narrow escape route for my father and his team. Of course, the Indians did not like their territory being invaded by the “white man” and were not friendly. The great dramatic shot was supposed to have my father and friends trapped in this ravine with the canyon walls looming over them. Hundreds of Indians on horseback were supposed to appear at the rime of the mesa. A great shot if they were lined up like the Rockettes. They were supposed to appear all at the once silhouetted against the blue cloudless sky.
This was not the day of cellphones. The walkie-talkies we had were not working and Henry was obliged to yell all directions through a gigantic bullhorn. But I guess the wind was blowing the wrong direction because Henry’s instructions seemed to be of no avail. The Indians who were supposed to appear all at once at the rim of the plateau didn’t seem to hear him and with retake after retake, there were only clumps of Indians, not looking very threatening - no dramatic effect at all. Henry yelled and cursed, turned crimson in rage – I was afraid a heart attack was imminent.
My father’s costars were Susan Hayward and Richard Widmark and were fun to hang out with after a day’s shooting and I had the pleasure of being part of the group and dancing with Mr. Widmark. One of the other costars made a bit of a scene off camera with Miss Hayward. One morning he appeared on the set with 4 deep, red, long, fingernail gashes across his cheek. The part called for him to look rather beaten up so the makeup woman did not have to camouflage too much.
My father loved Mexico – its people, their food and the wildness of its natural environments – and relished every time a film could be shot on location in that country.
Maria Cooper Janis
ALONG CAME JONES
This film was my father’s first time wearing a Producer’s hat at the same time as acting in it. Judging by his personal comments about wearing 2 hats, I know he would be in huge admiration today for the multi-talented Clint Eastwood. My father hated being a Producer. Cooper portrays a character named Melody Jones, a quiet simple cowboy, who finds himself mistaken for a crook with the same initials, Monte Jared. Melody Jones does not even know how to handle a gun. He lives his life with humor, charm and naivete but his being mistaken for the outlaw changes the trajectory of his life as he tries to cope with having the same initials as the villain. His character lacked the skills of a typical Gary Cooper hero. Samuel Goldwyn chewed him out about that. Cooper kind of makes fun of the Western hero and Goldwyn said, “ You shouldn’t do that sort of thing – never play anything that lets the public down – your public.” The Producer Nunnally Johnson and my father got along very well even with some of the parody of the Western, Johnson said, “To me, Cooper was always The Western Man - eternally gallant, eternally defeated and the movie itself is one long bitter laugh at life.” But in the process, the picture gave Cooper a Saturday Evening Post cover painted by the great American illustrator Norman Rockwell. A special personal moment – my mother had given his saddle used in the film to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. It had carved into it in large letters the initials MJ for Melody Jones/Monty Jared. My husband Byron Janis and I were in Oklahoma City for a concert and we wanted to visit the museum and see where my father’s saddle was exhibited. So there I am standing next to his saddle with my current initial (Maria Janis) also represented! The saddle kind of leaped out at me saying a warm, “Hello.”
Maria Cooper Janis
THE FOUNTAINHEAD
Ayn Rand, adored by many, disliked by many. Her philosophy and persona I find abhorrent. One of her famous novels, The Fountainhead, became the movie vehicle for my father to star in - playing a loosely reminiscent characterization of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In her novel, the character Howard Roark, adheres to her “philosophy of man as a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life.” This is just so opposite to everything Gary Cooper stood for - it was a most curious artistic stretch for my father to portray that kind of person - someone whose life glorified selfish individualism. Just about the opposite as you could get from Mr. Deeds or Meet John Doe
Roark is a ruthless character and Ayn Rand insisted that Gary Cooper was the only person she wanted to play the role. Warner Brothers, who produced the film, originally thought of Humphrey Bogart to play my father’s part as they felt he could portray a man more fanatical and extreme. But he did not cut the mustard with Ayn Rand as she wanted the romantic figure that Gary Cooper represented - and she called the shots even to the point of writing the script herself. She was able to intimidate Warner Brothers and it was quite amazing that the film in those days got released because of quite sexually exploitive and violent scenes which the censors tried to curtail.
It was only the second film for the budding young actress Patricia Neal who fit the role of Dominique Francon, a sexually aggressive woman who is a manipulator, seducer and a destroyer. The relationship on screen between Howard and Dominique was volcanic and in many cases very over the top. The film, at the time, received very poor reviews but somehow through the years it has become a kind of cult classic.
Maria Cooper Janis