“You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper

Cary Grant had a funny theory about Hollywood and how stardom was being like a crowded streetcar. Peter Bogdonavich asked Cary Grant to elaborate. Grant said:

Becoming a movie star is something like getting on a streetcar. Actors and actresses are packed in like sardines.

When I arrived in Hollywood, Carole Lombard, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Warner Baxter, Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, and others were crammed onto the car. A few stood, holding tightly to leather straps to avoid being pushed aside. Others were firmly seated in the center of the car. They were the big stars. At the front, new actors and actresses pushed and shoved to get aboard. Some made it and slowly moved toward the center.

When a new “star” came aboard, an old one had to be edged out the rear exit. The crowd was so big you were pushed right off. There was room for only so many and no more.

One well-known star, Adolphe Menjou, was constantly being pushed off the rear. He would pick himself up, brush himself off, and run to the front to fight his way aboard again. In a short time he was back in the center only to be pushed off once more. This went on for years. He never did get to sit down.

It took me quite a while to reach the center. When I did make it, I remained standing. I held on to that leather strap for dear life. Then Warner Baxter fell out the back, and I got to sit down.

When Gregory Peck got on, it was Ronald Colman who fell off.

The only man who refused to budge was Gary Cooper. Gary was firmly seated in the center of the car. He just leaned back, stuck those long legs of his out in the aisle, and tripped everyone who came along.

Gary Cooper “refused to budge”! He really did! He was stolid, dependable, and yet charismatic – and gorgeous – aging like the proverbial fine wine. He was like Cary Grant in that people still found him a valid leading man even when he got way too old. Not that you’re ever too old for love, that’s not what I’m saying. But “movies” were casting him as a romantic lead opposite much younger women (Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon, for example), and it made him uncomfortable. It made Cary Grant so uncomfortable (he, too, was paired opposite the much younger Audrey Hepburn in Charade) he stopped making movies. Cooper was self-conscious about how much older he looked than Hepburn – so there’s all this soft-focus stuff going on with his face, as though he’s later Joan Crawford. Cooper was not vain, but he did know what he had.

And let’s face it. There’s handsome, and then there’s Gary Cooper. It’s just different. He was so masculine, so strong, so classically taciturn – shy, almost – John Wayne was taciturn too but he wasn’t shy. Cooper could be believably flustered in love. But he could also move with purpose, never a wasted gesture. He was so COMPACT as an actor. Nothing “extra”. So controlled. He was truly made for the movies. He didn’t come out of a theatre tradition. Gary Cooper wouldn’t “register” onstage at all. He needed the movie camera to capture him, he needed that intimacy to pick up on every teeny fleeting thought, every momentary hesitation and impulse.

Frank James Cooper was born in Montana. As a child, he spent 10 years in England. Somehow, he ended up in California. Perhaps looking for work? Not clear. If he had ambitions to be a great actor, he wasn’t behaving that way. He met up with two friends strolling down the street in full Western garb. They told him you could make good money as an extra in cowboy movies. If you could ride a horse, you might make some cash. This was in the early 1920s. So Cooper got his start playing extras in cowboy movies. There was no indication he had any gift for acting, but he knew how to ride a horse. Also, I mean …. LOOK at him.

Then came a “big break” in the form of a scene in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926), starring Ronald Colman, a scene which ended up getting cut. I’m interested in this story because it is the birth of the actor. Or, if not the birth, then the “reveal”. He was an extra in Barbara Worth. I don’t think he was even credited. He was a faceless nobody. Who knows what was going on in Gary Cooper, who knows what his dreams were. He had already lived quite an interesting life by this point, and he was still a young man. He was taken under the wing of an older woman who showed him the fine life, taught him how to dress, behave, perhaps showed him some other stuff, too. (The guy was a legend in the sack. Ingrid Bergman went BANANAS for him. I mean, they all did.) If you see photos of him hanging out at his house “casually”, he always looks immaculate. Not in a dandyish way, just elegant, masculine, beautiful. He had been taught. The “gigolo” rumors wafted around him, but he sailed above it, unconcerned, dressed to the nines, casually elegant, every detail perfect (it’s a good strategy.) But what else did he want out of life? Did he dream of being a star? It’s not clear. He wandered quite a bit before landing in Hollywood.

I am telling this story from my memory of reading A. Scott Berg’s biography of Sam Goldwyn, so some of the details might be fuzzy but the central event is clear. Barbara Worth was shot on location. They were having difficulties with an actor who was to play a small but important part. I think he hadn’t shown up, and he kept getting delayed. Henry King finally decided he couldn’t wait any longer and handed the role to the totally untried Gary Cooper. All Cooper had to do was knock on the door of the cabin. The woman inside would open the door, and he would collapse from exhaustion, basically falling into the room. That was the part. That was what he had to do.

Long afterwards, when asked about Cooper, Henry King would describe the first day of shooting with this unknown kid who had never acted before. It remained vivid in his mind. By coincidence, Sam Goldwyn himself was on location that day as well (this is a key detail).

Henry King knew this young beautiful kid had never acted before so he pulled him aside to give him some tips on what was needed. He said, on repeat, “Just remember your character is tired. You have been riding for days. You are tired, tired, tired … When that door opens, I need to see a man who is licked … who can barely stand … tired, tired, tired…”

King OVER-explained it to Cooper because King didn’t think Gary Cooper was an actor. Maybe Gary Cooper didn’t yet think that Gary Cooper was an actor.

Whenever there was a 5-minute break, a 10-minute break, King came back over to Cooper’s side, whispering, “Tired, tired, tired …”

Sam Goldwyn saw all this, saw how much attention the director was giving this glorified EXTRA, and grumbled about it. “Henry, am I paying you so you can give an extra acting lessons?”

King protested, “The kid isn’t an actor … I’ve got to explain to him what he has to do …”

Finally it was time to shoot.

Action!

The interior scene began. It was interrupted by the TIREDEST most weary knock on the door the world has ever heard. King said later you could barely hear the knock. The person knocking did not have the strength to lift his hand up high enough to knock properly. He was too weak. When the door opened, there he was… King said, “He had become, in the 30 seconds hidden behind that door, a completely different man. A sad sack.” Cooper took one step forward, and collapsed onto the floor … gracefully, naturally … It looked as though his legs buckled underneath him, he could not hold himself up anymore. The camera operator realizing some DAMN FINE ACTING was going on, had the presence of mind to follow Cooper’s swoon down to the floor. And cameras were gigantic back then! King called “CUT.”

Right after King called “Cut”, Sam Goldwyn gestured him to come over. Goldwyn could be quite terrifying, especially when he was really calm. In this moment, Goldwyn was eerily calm.

Goldwyn murmured, “You say that kid’s not an actor?”

King said, “He was an extra until this morning.”

Goldwyn replied, “Henry, that kid is the greatest goddamn actor I have ever seen in my life.”

Young actors can learn a lot about acting for the camera from Gary Cooper. He did so little (seemingly). There were times when directors were like “Jesus Christ, it’s like he’s sleepwalking through this. It’s AWFUL.” And then they watched the dailies. And realized the error of their ways. Oh ye of little faith. Cooper’s performance was all there. You couldn’t feel it ‘in the room’, but the camera caught it all.

What Gary Cooper didn’t know about film acting isn’t worth knowing.

 
 
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