ADELE FERGUSON 5/19/11

Jackie Cooper’s autobiography

JACKIE COOPER slipped out of this world with very little fanfare when he died the other day at 88 in a nursing home in Santa Monica, Calf.

He was probably the second most popular and best known of all the child stars in Hollywood, exceeded only by Shirley Temple.

I always thought he was a poor actor as a kid but the early child actors weren’t hired or known for their acting ability. They just had to look like they fit the part they were playing and be able to memorize their lines.

Cooper was a rarity, however, in that he went on in the acting business, later turning to directing, and was a success there, too. He became a much better actor as an adult although he never was in any of the big epics.

He’s remembered for playing the editor of the newspaper Clark Kent worked for in all four of Christopher Reeve’s Superman movies.

But what I remember him for is his autobiography which I picked up one day at St.Vincent De Paul’s, where I buy most of my books, and found it to be one of the most interesting bios I ever read. Stuff skimpy obits failed to show.

I WROTE A FEW columns out of it, and it is somewhere in my house now although I couldn’t find it for this column. Nor could I rustle up the columns because I can’t remember what I filed them under. I scanned the list of the over 600 topics columns are filed over but can’t figure out which I used.

Anyway, he had a stemwinder of a beginning which I can remember fairly well. He was driving somewhere away from home in his convertible when the rag top began tearing in the wind. He was nearing a small town and figured it would wiser to stop there and see if he could find somebody to mend it before it tore beyond fixing.

He pulled up at a service station garage and made arrangements for the job. The station owner asked if he was Jackie Cooper. He said yes he was.

Well, said the station owner, you’re going to be here a little while. I wonder if you’d like to say hello to your dad. You see that building right behind here? That’s where he lives and I know he’s in there right now.

COOPER HADN’T seen his father in years. His parents had separated when he was a child and he lived with his mother who managed his affairs then. At one point, after he had become famous and was making money, they were contacted by the father who wanted in on the money. To get him off their backs and avoid bad publicity, the mother agreed to send him a regular check which went on for many years.

Even when money was hard to come by, the old man got his check. Cooper wrote that he had always resented the fact that the father abandoned him and his mother and only reappeared when he wanted in on the money the kid was making.

Did be want to say hello to his father? No. And he left without doing so.

AS A DIRECTOR, he handled some of the “Mash” TV shows. They filmed not too far from an Army camp and the soldiers frequently asked for visits from the actors. Cooper put it to them but no such luck. Alan Alda, the star, and the others except one flatly refused to have anything to do with the soldiers. The only one who agreed to do it and did so numerous times, was Larry Linville, who played Frank Burns, the jerky boyfriend of Hot Lips Houlihan.

Funny how actors often become to the public the persona of roles they play. And how wrong we can be about them when we don’t know the real story.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)