Saturdays with the Stars: Gary Cooper

Each month of 2023 we are taking a look at a star who made their name in westerns, rustling cattle & riding horses during the brief time when cowboys ruled Hollywood.  To start things out, we are going to focus on a figure who was a leading man virtually the entire run of Classical Hollywood, from humble beginnings in the early 1930's right up until his death in 1961.  While he would star in virtually every genre imaginable, frequently to critical & commercial success, modern audiences know him best as Sheriff Will Kane, the man without a friend who is facing a ticking clock to his doom in one of the quintessential westerns of the 1950's, High Noon.  This month's star is Gary Cooper.

Born in Helena, Montana to the son of English immigrant ranchers, Cooper's young life hardly seemed the place for a future actor.  But a chance meeting with a rodeo champion who worked in Poverty Row westerns changed his life.  Desperate for money, he moved into extra work and played in stunts & as a young, handsome lover in a number of films before finally creating The Virginian, which was a smash hit film for Paramount and would become the first major western of the Sound Era.  Cooper's tall, lanky frame and striking face was perfect for westerns, and indeed, he'd spend the next thirty years headlining marquees.

Gary Cooper is an interesting choice to start this run with, even if he's an obvious option.  An actor of his caliber who spent decades making westerns, including one as important to the future of the genre as The Virginian (and a movie as steeped in lore as High Noon), seems inevitable for this series.  But Cooper is a star I struggle with, and have never really found my footing with-he is good-looking (bordering on the beautiful), but I don't feel a connection with him.  In past seasons I've found actors that I didn't realize I could love, and I'm hoping that happens this month.  As I said when I kicked off this series, we're going to mix both western & non-western roles from Cooper, including one of his Oscar-nominated turns, and I'm hopeful that I will soon realize why audiences made Cooper one of the biggest names of the Golden Age.