:Gary Cooper

File:Gary Cooper 1903.jpg

Frank James Cooper was born in Helena, Montana, on May 7, 1901, the younger of two sons of English immigrant parents Alice (née Brazier; 1873–1967) and Charles Henry Cooper (1865–1946).Meyers 1998, pp. 1, 4–5, 198, 259. His brother, Arthur, was six years his senior. Cooper's father came from Houghton Regis, EnglandMeyers 1998, p. 1. and became a prominent lawyer, rancher, and Montana Supreme Court justice.Arce 1979, pp. 17–18. His mother hailed from Gillingham, England, and married Charles in Montana.Meyers 1998, pp. 4–5. In 1906, Charles purchased the {{convert|600|acre|ha|adj=mid}} Seven-Bar-Nine cattle ranch,Arce 1979, p. 18.Swindell 1980, p. 10. about {{convert|50|mi|spell=in}} north of Helena, near Craig.Meyers 1998, pp. 7–8. Cooper and Arthur spent their summers at the ranch and learned to ride horses, hunt and fish.Meyers 1998, p. 8.Swindell 1980, p. 25. Cooper attended Central Grade School in Helena.Meyers 1998, p. 6.

Alice wanted their sons to have a British education, so she took them back to the United Kingdom in 1909 to enroll them in Dunstable Grammar School in Dunstable, England. While there, Cooper and his brother lived with their father's cousins, William and Emily Barton, at their home in Houghton Regis.Meyers 1998, pp. 10–12.Benson 1986, pp. 191–95. Cooper studied Latin, French and English history at Dunstable until 1912.Swindell 1980, p. 19. While he adapted to English school discipline and learned the requisite social graces, he never adjusted to the formal Eton collars he was required to wear.Swindell 1980, p. 21. He received his confirmation in the Church of England at the Church of All Saints in Houghton Regis on December 3, 1911.Meyers 1998, p. 13. His mother accompanied their sons back to the U.S. in August 1912 and Cooper resumed his education in Montana, at Johnson Grammar School in Helena.

At age fifteen, Cooper injured his hip in a car accident. On his doctor's recommendation, he returned to the Seven-Bar-Nine ranch to recuperate with horseback riding.Swindell 1980, p. 29. The misguided therapy left Cooper with his characteristic stiff, off-balanced walk and slightly angled horse-riding style.Meyers 1998, p. 17. He left Helena High School after two years in 1918 and returned to the family ranch to work full-time as a cowboy. In 1919, his father arranged for his son to attend Gallatin County High School in Bozeman,Swindell 1980, p. 33.Meyers 1998, p. 21. where English teacher Ida Davis encouraged him to focus on academics and participate in debating and dramatics.Arce 1979, p. 21. Cooper later called Davis "the woman partly responsible for [his] giving up cowboy-ing and going to college".

While in high school in 1920, Cooper took three art courses at Montana Agricultural College (now Montana State University) in Bozeman. His interest in art was inspired years earlier by the Western paintings of Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington.Meyers 1998, pp. 15–16. Cooper especially admired and studied Russell's Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole (1910), which still hangs in the state capitol building in Helena.

File:Gary Cooper Grinnell College 1922.jpg (top row, second from the left), 1922]]

In 1922, to continue his art education, Cooper enrolled in Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. He did well academically in most of his courses,Swindell 1980, p. 41. but was not accepted into the school's drama club. His drawings and watercolor paintings were exhibited throughout the dormitory and he was named art editor for the college yearbook.Swindell 1980, p. 46. During the summers of 1922 and 1923, Cooper worked at Yellowstone National Park as a tour guide driving the yellow open-top buses.Meyers 1998, p. 24.Swindell 1980, p. 43. Despite a promising first 18 months at Grinnell, he left college suddenly in February 1924, spent a month in Chicago looking for work as an artist and then returned to Helena,Swindell 1980, pp. 47–48. where he sold editorial cartoons to the local Independent newspaper.Swindell 1980, p. 49.

In autumn 1924, Cooper's father left the state supreme court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles to administer the estates of two relatives,Meyers 1998, p. 26.Dickens 1970, p. 3. and Cooper joined his parents there in November at his father's request. After briefly working a series of unpromising jobs, he met two friends from Montana,Arce 1979, p. 23.Swindell 1980, p. 52. who were working as film extras and stunt riders in low-budget Western films for the small movie studios on Poverty Row.Meyers 1998, p. 27. They introduced him to another Montana cowboy, rodeo champion Jay "Slim" Talbot, who took him to see a casting director. Wanting money for a professional art course, Cooper worked as a film extra for five dollars a day and as a stunt rider for $10. Cooper and Talbot became close friends and hunting companions; Talbot later worked as Cooper's stuntman and stand-in for over three decades.

File:Gary Cooper in The Winning of Barbara Worth 1926.jpg, 1926]]

File:Gary Cooper 1926.jpg

In early 1925, Cooper began his film career in silent pictures such as The Thundering Herd and Wild Horse Mesa with Jack Holt,Swindell 1980, p. 62. Riders of the Purple Sage and The Lucky Horseshoe with Tom Mix,Swindell 1980, p. 63.Swindell 1980, p. 61. and The Trail Rider with Buck Jones. He worked for several Poverty Row studios, but also the already emergent major studios, Famous Players–Lasky and Fox Film Corporation.Dickens 1970, pp. 23–24. While his skilled horsemanship led to steady work in Westerns, Cooper found the stunt work, which sometimes injured horses and riders, "tough and cruel". Hoping to move beyond the risky stunt work and obtain acting roles, Cooper paid for a screen test and hired casting director Nan Collins to work as his agent.Meyers 1998, p. 28. Knowing that other actors were using the name "Frank Cooper", Collins suggested he change his first name to "Gary" after her hometown of Gary, Indiana.Meyers 1998, p. 29.Swindell 1980, p. 66.Arce 1979, p. 25. Cooper immediately liked the name.Swindell 1980, p. 67.{{refn|Cooper's popularity is largely responsible for that of the given name Gary from the 1930s to the present day.Hanks and Hodges 2003, p. 106.|group=Note}}

Cooper also found work in a variety of non-Western films, appearing, for example, as a masked Cossack in The Eagle (1925), as a Roman guard in Ben-Hur (1925), and as a flood survivor in The Johnstown Flood (1926). Gradually, he began to land credited roles that offered him more screen time, in films such as Tricks (1925), in which he played the film's antagonist, and the short film Lightnin' Wins (1926).Rainey 1990, p. 66. As a featured player, he began to attract the attention of major film studios.Swindell 1980, p. 69. On June 1, 1926, Cooper signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn Productions for $50 a week.Meyers 1998, p. 30.

Cooper's first important film role was a supporting part in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) starring Ronald Colman and Vilma Bánky, in which he plays a young engineer who helps a rival suitor save the woman he loves and her town from an impending dam disaster.Dickens 1970, p. 29. Cooper's experience living among the Montana cowboys gave his performance an "instinctive authenticity", according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers.Meyers 1998, p. 31. The film was a major success.Swindell 1980, pp. 73–74. Critics singled out Cooper as a "dynamic new personality" and future star.Meyers 1998, p. 32.Swindell 1980, p. 74. Goldwyn rushed to offer Cooper a long-term contract, but he held out for a better deal – a five-year contract with Jesse L. Lasky at Paramount Pictures for $175 a week. In 1927, with help from Clara Bow, Cooper landed high-profile roles in Children of Divorce and Wings (both 1927), the latter being the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. That year, Cooper also appeared in his first starring roles in Arizona Bound and Nevada, both films directed by John Waters.Dickens 1970, pp. 35, 39.

Paramount paired Cooper with Fay Wray in The Legion of the Condemned and The First Kiss (both 1928), advertising them as the studio's "glorious young lovers".Arce 1979, p. 51. Their on-screen chemistry failed to generate much excitement with audiences.Meyers 1998, p. 44.Dickens 1970, p. 7. With each new film, Cooper's acting skills improved and his popularity continued to grow, especially among female movie-goers. During this time, he was earning as much as $2,750 per filmMeyers 1998, p. 47. and receiving 1,000 fan letters a week.Swindell 1980, p. 93. Looking to exploit Cooper's growing audience appeal, the studio placed him opposite popular leading ladies such as Evelyn Brent in Beau Sabreur, Florence Vidor in Doomsday, and Esther Ralston in Half a Bride (all 1928).Swindell 1980, pp. 98–99. Around the same time, Cooper made Lilac Time (1928) with Colleen Moore for First National Pictures, his first movie with synchronized music and sound effects. It became one of the most commercially successful films of 1928.

File:Gary Cooper and Mary Brian in The Virginian 1929.jpg in The Virginian, 1929]]

Cooper became a major movie star in 1929 playing the lead role in his first talking picture, The Virginian (1929), which was directed by Victor Fleming and co-starred Mary Brian and Walter Huston. Based on the popular novel by Owen Wister, The Virginian was one of the first sound films to define the Western code of honor and helped establish many of the conventions of the Western movie genre that persist to the present day.Meyers 1998, pp. 51–52. According to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, the romantic image of the tall, handsome, and shy cowboy hero who embodied male freedom, courage, and honor was created in large part by Cooper in the film.Meyers 1998, pp. 52–53. Unlike some silent-film actors who had trouble adapting to the new sound medium, Cooper transitioned naturally, with his "deep and clear" and "pleasantly drawling" voice, which perfectly suited the characters he portrayed on screen.Meyers 1998, p. 49. Looking to capitalize on Cooper's growing popularity, Paramount cast him in several Westerns and wartime dramas, including Only the Brave, The Texan, Seven Days' Leave, A Man from Wyoming, and The Spoilers (all released in 1930).Dickens 1970, pp. 70–84. Norman Rockwell depicted Cooper in his role as The Texan for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on May 24, 1930.{{cite web |url=https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/02/rockwell-hollywood/cover_9300524/|title=cover_9300524: Gary Cooper as "The Texan", Norman Rockwell, May 24, 1930|work=Saturday Evening Post|date=February 2010|access-date=February 9, 2020}}

File:Lili Damita-Gary Cooper in Fighting Caravans.jpg and Cooper in Fighting Caravans, 1931]]

One of the most important performances in Cooper's early career was his portrayal of a sullen legionnaire in Josef von Sternberg's film Morocco (also 1930)Meyers 1998, p. 61. with Marlene Dietrich in her introduction to American audiences.Dickens 1970, p. 9. During production, von Sternberg focused his energies on Dietrich and treated Cooper dismissively. Tensions came to a head after von Sternberg yelled directions at Cooper in German. The {{convert|6|ft|3|in|cm|adj=on}} actor approached the {{convert|5|ft|4|in|cm|adj=on}} director, picked him up by the collar, and said, "If you expect to work in this country, you'd better get on to the language we use here."Meyers 1998, pp. 63–64.Swindell 1980, p. 122. Despite the tensions on the set, Cooper produced "one of his best performances", according to Thornton Delehanty of the New York Evening Post.Dickens 1970, p. 87.

After returning to the Western genre in Zane Grey's Fighting Caravans (1931) with French actress Lili Damita,Dickens 1970, pp. 89–91. Cooper appeared in the Dashiell Hammett crime film City Streets (also 1931), co-starring Sylvia Sidney and Paul Lukas, playing a westerner who gets involved with big-city gangsters to save the woman he loves.Dickens 1970, pp. 92–93. Cooper concluded the year with appearances in two unsuccessful films: I Take This Woman (also 1931) with Carole Lombard, and His Woman with Claudette Colbert.Dickens 1970, pp. 95–98. The demands and pressures of making 10 films in two years left Cooper exhausted and in poor health, suffering from anemia and jaundice.Meyers 1998, p. 73. He had lost {{convert|30|lb|kg|abbr=on}},Swindell 1980, p. 129. and felt lonely, isolated, and depressed by his sudden fame and wealth.Meyers 1998, p. 75.Arce 1979, p. 71. In May 1931, Cooper left Hollywood and sailed to Algiers and then Italy, where he lived for the next year.

During his time abroad, Cooper stayed with the Countess Dorothy di Frasso, the former Dorothy Cadwell Taylor, at the Villa Madama in Rome, where she taught him about good food and vintage wines, how to read Italian and French menus, and how to socialize among Europe's nobility and upper classes.Meyers 1998, p. 77. After guiding him through the great art museums and galleries of Italy, she accompanied him on a 10-week big-game hunting safari on the slopes of Mount Kenya in East Africa,Swindell 1980, p. 137. where he was credited with more than 60 kills, including two lions, a rhinoceros, and various antelopes.Swindell 1980, p. 138.Meyers 1998, p. 79. His safari experience in Africa had a profound influence on Cooper and intensified his love of the wilderness. After returning to Europe, the countess and he set off on a Mediterranean cruise of the Italian and French Rivieras.Swindell 1980, p. 139. Rested and rejuvenated by his year-long exile, a healthy Cooper returned to Hollywood in April 1932Meyers 1998, p. 82. and negotiated a new contract with Paramount for two films per year, a salary of $4,000 a week, and director and script approval.Swindell 1980, p. 142.

File:Gary Cooper-Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms.jpg in A Farewell to Arms, 1932]]

In 1932, after completing Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead to fulfill his old contract,Swindell 1980, p. 143 Cooper appeared in A Farewell to Arms,Dickens 1970, pp. 106–108. the first film adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel.Baker 1969, p. 235 Co-starring Helen Hayes, a leading New York theatre star and Academy Award winner,Meyers 1998, p. 89. and Adolphe Menjou, the film presented Cooper with one of his most ambitious and challenging dramatic roles, playing an American ambulance driver wounded in Italy, who falls in love with an English nurse during World War I. Critics praised his highly intense and emotional performance,Arce 1979, p. 95.Swindell 1980, p. 152. and the film became one of the year's most commercially successful pictures. In 1933, after making Today We Live with Joan Crawford and One Sunday Afternoon with Fay Wray, Cooper appeared in the Ernst Lubitsch comedy film Design for Living, based on the successful Noël Coward play.Meyers 1998, p. 95.Swindell 1980, p. 163. Co-starring Miriam Hopkins and Fredric March, the film was a box-office success,{{cite news|last=Churchill|first=Douglas W.|date=December 30, 1934|title=The Year in Hollywood: 1934 May Be Remembered as the Beginning of the Sweetness-and-Light Era|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1934/12/30/archives/the-year-in-hollywood-1984-may-be-remembered-as-the-beginning-of.html|work=New York Times|page=X5}} ranking as one of the top-10 highest-grossing films of 1933. All three of the lead actors{{snd}}March, Cooper, and Hopkins{{snd}}received attention from this film, as they were all at the peak of their careers. Cooper's performance, as an American artist in Europe competing with his playwright friend for the affections of a beautiful woman, was singled out for its versatilityMeyers 1998, p. 96. and revealed his genuine ability to do light comedy.Swindell 1980, p. 165. Cooper changed his name legally to "Gary Cooper" in August 1933.Arce 1979, p. 126.

File:Gary Cooper and Anna Sten in The Wedding Night 1935.jpg and Cooper in The Wedding Night, 1935]]

In 1934, Cooper was lent out to MGM for the Civil War drama film Operator 13 with Marion Davies, about a beautiful Union spy who falls in love with a Confederate soldier.Dickens 1970, pp. 119–22. Despite Richard Boleslawski's imaginative direction and George J. Folsey's lavish cinematography, the film did poorly at the box office.Swindell 1980, p. 171.

Back at Paramount, Cooper appeared in his first of seven films by director Henry Hathaway,Meyers 1998, p. 107. Now and Forever, with Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple.Dickens 1970, pp. 123–25. In the film, he plays a confidence man who tries to sell his daughter to the relatives who raised her, but is eventually won over by the adorable girl.Dickens 1970, p. 125. Impressed by Temple's intelligence and charm, Cooper developed a close rapport with her, both on and off screen.{{refn|Cooper bought the child actress toys and taught her how to draw using colored pencils during setups. He found it mildly irritating to be corrected by the five-year-old, who knew everyone's lines.|group=Note}} The film was a box-office success.

In 1935, Cooper was lent to Samuel Goldwyn Productions to appear in King Vidor's romance film The Wedding Night with Anna Sten,Dickens 1970, pp. 126–28. who was being groomed as "another Garbo".Arce 1979, p. 138.Meyers 1998, p. 112. In the film, Cooper plays an alcoholic novelist who retreats to his family's New England farm, where he meets and falls in love with a beautiful Polish neighbor. Cooper delivered a performance of surprising range and depth, according to biographer Larry Swindell.Swindell 1980, p. 179. Despite receiving generally favorable reviews,Dickens 1970, p. 127. the film was not popular with American audiences, who may have been offended by the film's depiction of an extramarital affair and its tragic ending.

Also in 1935, Cooper appeared in two Henry Hathaway films: the melodrama Peter Ibbetson with Ann Harding, about a man caught up in a dream world created by his love for a childhood sweetheart,Dickens 1970, pp. 132–35. and the adventure film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, about a daring British officer and his men who defend their stronghold at Bengal against rebellious local tribes.Dickens 1970, pp. 129–31. While the former, championed by the surrealistsJohnson, G. Allen. A young Gary Cooper, the French Surrealists and the ethereal world of Peter Ibbetson available on Blu-Ray. August 10, 2021, Updated: August 25, 2021, 4:28 pm. became more successful in Europe than in the United States, the latter was nominated for seven Academy AwardsDickens 1970, p. 131. and became one of Cooper's most popular and successful adventure films.Dickens 1970, p. 130.Meyers 1998, p. 113. Hathaway had the highest respect for Cooper's acting ability, calling him "the best actor of all of them".

File:Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town trailer.JPG in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1936]]

Cooper's career took an important turn in 1936.Meyers 1998, p. 116. After making Frank Borzage's romantic comedy film Desire with Marlene Dietrich at Paramount, in which he delivered a performance considered by some contemporary critics as one of his finest, Cooper returned to Poverty Row for the first time since his early silent-film days to make Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town with Jean Arthur for Columbia Pictures.Swindell 1980, p. 188. In the film, Cooper plays Longfellow Deeds, a quiet, innocent writer of greeting cards who inherits a fortune, leaves behind his idyllic life in Vermont, and travels to New York City, where he faces a world of corruption and deceit.Dickens 1970, p. 140. Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin were able to use Cooper's well-established screen persona as the "quintessential American hero"{{snd}}a symbol of honesty, courage, and goodnessMeyers 1998, p. 119.Swindell 1980, p. 192.Kaminsky 1979, p. 78.{{snd}}to create a new type of "folk hero" for the common man.Arce 1979, p. 144. Commenting on Cooper's impact on the character and the film, Capra observed:Swindell 1980, p. 190.

{{Blockquote|As soon as I thought of Gary Cooper, it wasn't possible to conceive anyone else in the role. He could not have been any closer to my idea of Longfellow Deeds, and as soon as he could think in terms of Cooper, Bob Riskin found it easier to develop the Deeds character in terms of dialogue. So it just had to be Cooper. Every line in his face spelled honesty. Our Mr. Deeds had to symbolize incorruptibility, and in my mind Gary Cooper was that symbol.}}

Both Desire and Mr. Deeds opened in April 1936 to critical praise and were major box-office successes.Meyers 1998, p. 121. In his review in The New York Times, Frank Nugent wrote that Cooper was "proving himself one of the best light comedians in Hollywood". For his performance in Mr. Deeds, Cooper received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

File:Gary Cooper in The Plainsman 1936.jpg in The Plainsman, 1936]]

Cooper appeared in two other Paramount films in 1936. In Lewis Milestone's adventure film The General Died at Dawn with Madeleine Carroll, he plays an American soldier of fortune in China who helps the peasants defend themselves against the oppression of a cruel warlord.Dickens 1970, pp. 144–46.Swindell 1980, p. 203. Written by playwright Clifford Odets, the film was a critical and commercial success.Swindell 1980, p. 202.

In Cecil B. DeMille's sprawling frontier epic The Plainsman, his first of four films with the director, Cooper portrays Wild Bill Hickok in a highly fictionalized version of the opening of the American western frontier.Dickens 1970, pp. 147–49. The film was an even greater box-office hit than its predecessor,Meyers 1998, p. 124. due in large part to Jean Arthur's definitive depiction of Calamity Jane and Cooper's inspired portrayal of Hickok as an enigmatic figure of "deepening mythic substance".Swindell 1980, p. 204. That year, Cooper appeared for the first time on the Motion Picture Herald exhibitor's poll of top-10 film personalities, where he remained for the next 23 years.

In late 1936, Paramount was preparing a new contract for Cooper that would raise his salary to $8,000 a week,Swindell 1980, p. 200. when Cooper signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn for six films over six years with a minimum guarantee of $150,000 per picture.Meyers 1998, p. 126. Paramount brought suit against Goldwyn and Cooper, and the court ruled that Cooper's new Goldwyn contract afforded the actor sufficient time to also honor his Paramount agreement.Swindell 1980, p. 201. Cooper continued to make films with both studios, and by 1939, the United States Treasury reported that Cooper was the country's highest wage earner, at $482,819 (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|0.482819|1939|r=2}}{{spaces}}million in {{Inflation-year|US}}).Dickens 1970, p. 13.Arce 1979, p. 161.

In contrast to his output the previous year, Cooper appeared in only one picture in 1937, Henry Hathaway's adventure film Souls at Sea.Dickens 1970, pp. 150–52. A critical and box-office failure,Swindell 1980, p. 205. Cooper referred to it as his "almost picture", saying, "It was almost exciting, and almost interesting. And I was almost good." In 1938, he appeared in Archie Mayo's biographical film The Adventures of Marco Polo.Dickens 1970, pp. 153–55. Plagued by production problems and a weak screenplay,Meyers 1998, p. 131. the film became Goldwyn's biggest failure to date, losing $700,000.Meyers 1998, p. 132. During this period, Cooper turned down several important roles,Swindell 1980, p. 208. including the role of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.Selznick 2000, pp. 172–73. Cooper was producer David O. Selznick's first choice for the part. He made several overtures to the actor,Swindell 1980, pp. 209–10. but Cooper had doubts about the project, and did not feel suited to the role.Arce 1979, p. 147. Cooper later admitted, "It was one of the best roles ever offered in Hollywood{{spaces}}... But I said no. I didn't see myself as quite that dashing, and later, when I saw Clark Gable play the role to perfection, I knew I was right."{{refn|Cooper also turned down the leading roles in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939)Kaminsky 1979, p. 99. and Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940).McGilligan 2003, p. 259.|group=Note}}

File:Bluebeards-eighth-wife.jpg in Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, 1938]]

Back at Paramount, Cooper returned to a more comfortable genre in Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938) with Claudette Colbert.Dickens 1970, pp. 156–58. In the film, Cooper plays a wealthy American businessman in France who falls in love with an impoverished aristocrat's daughter and persuades her to become his eighth wife.Dickens 1970, p. 157. Despite the clever screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder,Arce 1979, p. 154. and solid performances by Cooper and Colbert, American audiences had trouble accepting Cooper in the role of a shallow philanderer. It succeeded only at the European box-office market.

In the fall of 1938, Cooper appeared in H. C. Potter's romantic comedy The Cowboy and the Lady with Merle Oberon, about a sweet-natured rodeo cowboy who falls in love with the wealthy daughter of a presidential hopeful, believing her to be a poor, hard-working lady's maid.Dickens 1970, pp. 159–61. The efforts of three directors and several eminent screenwriters could not salvage what could have been a fine vehicle for Cooper.Meyers 1998, p. 134. While more successful than its predecessor, the film was Cooper's fourth consecutive box-office failure in the American market.Meyers 1998, p. 135.

In the next two years, Cooper was more discerning about the roles he accepted and made four successful large-scale adventure and cowboy films. In William A. Wellman's adventure film Beau Geste (1939), he plays one of three daring English brothers who join the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara to fight local tribes.Dickens 1970, pp. 162–165. Filmed in the same Mojave Desert locations as the original 1926 version with Ronald Colman,Swindell 1980, p. 220. Beau Geste provided Cooper with magnificent sets, exotic settings, high-spirited action, and a role tailored to his personality and screen persona.Dickens 1970, p. 164. This was the last film in Cooper's contract with Paramount.

In Henry Hathaway's The Real Glory (1939), he plays a military doctor who accompanies a small group of American Army officers to the Philippines to help the Christian Filipinos defend themselves against Muslim radicals.Dickens 1970, pp. 166–68. Many film critics praised Cooper's performance, including author and film critic Graham Greene, who recognized that he "never acted better".Meyers 1998, p. 138.

Cooper returned to the Western genre in William Wyler's The Westerner (1940) with Walter Brennan and Doris Davenport, about a drifting cowboy who defends homesteaders against Roy Bean, a corrupt judge known as the "law west of the Pecos".Dickens 1970, pp. 169–73. Screenwriter Niven Busch relied on Cooper's extensive knowledge of Western history while working on the script.Meyers 1998, p. 139. The film received positive reviews and did well at the box office,Swindell 1980, p. 226. with reviewers praising the performances of the two lead actors.Dickens 1970, pp. 172–73. That same year, Cooper appeared in his first all-Technicolor feature,Swindell 1980, p. 227. Cecil B. DeMille's adventure film North West Mounted Police (1940).Dickens 1970, pp. 174–77.{{refn|Cooper previously appeared in the all-star feature Paramount on Parade (1930), which included scenes in two-color Technicolor, including his "Let Us Drink to the Girl of My Dreams" sequence.Dickens 1970, pp. 8, 73–74. He also appeared as himself in the Technicolor short films Star Night at the Coconut Grove (1935) and La Fiesta de Santa Barbara (1936).|group=Note}} In the film, Cooper plays a Texas Ranger who pursues an outlaw into western Canada, where he joins forces with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who are after the same man, a leader of the North-West Rebellion.Meyers 1998, pp. 141–42. While not as popular with critics as its predecessor,Meyers 1998, p. 140. the film was another box-office success, the sixth-highest grossing film of 1940.Arce 1979, p. 163.

File:Meet John Doe 1941 (3).jpg, Barbara Stanwyck, Cooper, and Walter Brennan in Meet John Doe, 1941]]

The early 1940s were Cooper's prime years as an actor.Dickens 1970, p. 14. In a relatively short period, he appeared in five critically successful and popular films that produced some of his finest performances. When Frank Capra offered him the lead role in Meet John Doe before Robert Riskin even developed the script, Cooper accepted his friend's offer, saying, "It's okay, Frank, I don't need a script."Meyers 1998, p. 144. In the film, Cooper plays Long John Willoughby, a down-and-out bush-league pitcher hired by a newspaper to pretend to be a man who promises to commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest all the hypocrisy and corruption in the country.Dickens 1970, pp. 178–180. Considered by some critics to be Capra's best film at the time,Swindell 1980, p. 230. Meet John Doe was received as a "national event" with Cooper appearing on the front cover of Time on March 3, 1941.Meyers 1998, pp. 146–147. In his review in the New York Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes called Cooper's performance a "splendid and utterly persuasive portrayal"Dickens 1970, p. 180. and praised his "utterly realistic acting which comes through with such authority". Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, wrote, "Gary Cooper, of course, is 'John Doe' to the life and in the whole{{snd}}shy, bewildered, nonaggressive, but a veritable tiger when aroused."

File:Joan Fontaine and Gary Cooper.jpg and Cooper at the Academy Awards, 1942]]

That same year, Cooper made two films with director and good friend Howard Hawks.Meyers 1998, p. 153. In the biographical film Sergeant York, Cooper portrays war hero Alvin C. York,Swindell 1980, p. 231. one of the most decorated American soldiers in World War{{spaces}}I.Owens 2004, pp. 97–98. The film chronicles York's early backwoods days in Tennessee, his religious conversion and subsequent piety, his stand as a conscientious objector, and finally his heroic actions at the Battle of the Argonne Forest, which earned him the Medal of Honor.Dickens 1970, pp. 181–83. Initially, Cooper was nervous and uncertain about playing a living hero, so he traveled to Tennessee to visit York at his home, and the two quiet men established an immediate rapport and discovered they had much in common.Meyers 1998, p. 152. Inspired by York's encouragement, Cooper delivered a performance that Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune called "one of extraordinary conviction and versatility", and that Archer Winston of the New York Post called "one of his best".Dickens 1970, p. 183. After the film's release, Cooper was awarded the Distinguished Citizenship Medal by the Veterans of Foreign Wars for his "powerful contribution to the promotion of patriotism and loyalty".Arce 1979, p. 177. York admired Cooper's performance and helped promote the film for Warner Bros. Sergeant York became the top-grossing film of the year and was nominated for 11 Academy Awards.Meyers 1998, p. 157. Accepting his first Academy Award for Best Actor from his friend James Stewart, Cooper said, "It was Sergeant Alvin York who won this award. Shucks, I've been in the business 16 years and sometimes dreamed I might get one of these. That's all I can say{{spaces}}... Funny when I was dreaming I always made a better speech."

File:Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire trailer 2.jpg and Cooper in Ball of Fire, 1941]]

Cooper concluded the year back at Goldwyn with Howard Hawks to make the romantic comedy Ball of Fire with Barbara Stanwyck.Dickens 1970, pp. 184–86. In the film, Cooper plays a shy linguistics professor who leads a team of seven scholars who are writing an encyclopedia. While researching slang, he meets Stanwyck's flirtatious burlesque stripper Sugarpuss O'Shea who blows the dust off their staid life of books.Meyers 1998, p. 161. The screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder provided Cooper the opportunity to exercise the full range of his light comedy skills. In his review for the New York Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes wrote that Cooper handled the role with "great skill and comic emphasis" and that his performance was "utterly delightful".Dickens 1970, pp. 185–86. Though small in scale, Ball of Fire was one of the top-grossing films of the yearArce 1979, p. 179. and Cooper's fourth consecutive picture to make the top 20.

Cooper's only film appearance in 1942 was also his last under his Goldwyn contract.Swindell 1980, p. 237. In Sam Wood's biographical film The Pride of the Yankees,Dickens 1970, pp. 187–189. Cooper portrays baseball star Lou Gehrig, who established a record with the New York Yankees for playing in 2,130 consecutive games.Meyers 1998, p. 162. Cooper was reluctant to play the seven-time All-Star, who had died only the previous year from ALS (now commonly called "Lou Gehrig's disease").Meyers 1998, p. 163. Beyond the challenges of effectively portraying such a popular and nationally recognized figure, Cooper knew very little about baseballSwindell 1980, p. 238. and was not left-handed like Gehrig.

After Gehrig's widow visited the actor and expressed her desire that he portray her husband, Cooper accepted the role that covered a 20-year span of Gehrig's life: his early love of baseball, his rise to greatness, his loving marriage, and his struggle with illness, culminating in his farewell speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, before 62,000 fans.Dickens 1970, pp. 188–89. Cooper quickly learned the physical movements of a baseball player and developed a fluid, believable swing.Meyers 1998, p. 164. The handedness issue was solved by reversing the print for certain batting scenes.Swindell 1980, p. 239. The film was one of the year's top-10 pictures and received 11 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Cooper's third).

File:For Whom The Bell Tolls trailer.jpg and Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943]]

Soon after the publication of Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, Paramount paid $150,000 for the film rights with the express intent of casting Cooper in the lead role of Robert Jordan,Arce 1979, p. 183. an American explosives expert who fights alongside the Republican loyalists during the Spanish Civil War.Meyers 1998, p. 180. The original director, Cecil B. DeMille, was replaced by Sam Wood, who brought in Dudley Nichols for the screenplay. After the start of principal photography in the Sierra Nevada in late 1942, Ingrid Bergman was brought in to replace ballerina Vera Zorina as the female lead, a change supported by Cooper and Hemingway.Meyers 1998, pp. 178–179. The love scenes between Bergman and Cooper were "rapturous" and passionate.Meyers 1998, p. 179.Swindell 1980, p. 247. Howard Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune wrote that both actors performed with "the true stature and authority of stars".Dickens 1970, p. 193. While the film distorted the novel's original political themes and meaning,Arce 1979, p. 184.Meyers 1998, pp. 181–182. For Whom the Bell Tolls was a critical and commercial success and received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Cooper's fourth).

File:StateLibQld 1 107016 Asking for Gary Cooper's autograph, November 1943.jpg during his tour of the South West Pacific, November 1943]]

Due to his age and health, Cooper did not serve in the military during World War II, but like many of his colleagues, he got involved in the war effort by entertaining the troops.Meyers 1998, p. 167. In June 1943, he visited military hospitals in San Diego, and often appeared at the Hollywood Canteen serving food to the Servicemen.Arce 1979, p. 189. In late 1943, Cooper undertook a {{convert|23000|mi|km|adj=mid}} tour of the South West Pacific with actresses Una Merkel and Phyllis Brooks and accordionist Andy Arcari.Swindell 1980, p. 250.

Traveling on a B-24A Liberator bomber, the group toured the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Queensland, Brisbane{{snd}}where General Douglas MacArthur told Cooper he was watching Sergeant York in a Manila theater when Japanese bombs began falling{{snd}}New Guinea, Jayapura then throughout the Solomon Islands.Meyers 1998, pp. 167–68.

The group often shared the same sparse living conditions and K-rations as the troops.Meyers 1998, p. 169. Cooper met with the servicemen and women, visited military hospitals, introduced his attractive colleagues and participated in occasional skits. The shows concluded with Cooper's moving recitation of Lou Gehrig's farewell speech. When he returned to the United States, he visited military hospitals throughout the country. Cooper later called his time with the troops the "greatest emotional experience" of his life.

File:Gary Cooper in Along Came Jones 1945.jpg in Along Came Jones, 1945]]

In 1944, Cooper appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's wartime adventure film The Story of Dr. Wassell with Laraine Day{{snd}}his third movie with the director.Dickens 1970, pp. 194–196. In the film, Cooper plays American doctor and missionary Corydon M. Wassell, who leads a group of wounded sailors through the jungles of Java to safety.Meyers 1998, pp. 189–190. Despite receiving poor reviews, Dr. Wassell was one of the top-grossing films of the year.Swindell 1980, p. 251. With his Goldwyn and Paramount contracts now concluded, Cooper decided to remain independent and formed his own production company, International Pictures, with Leo Spitz, William Goetz, and Nunnally Johnson.Meyers 1998, p. 191. The fledgling studio's first offering was Sam Wood's romantic comedy Casanova Brown with Teresa Wright, about a man who learns his soon-to-be ex-wife is pregnant with his child, just as he is about to marry another woman.Dickens 1970, pp. 197–98. The film received poor reviews,Meyers 1998, p. 192. with the New York Daily News calling it "delightful nonsense",Dickens 1970, p. 198. and Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, criticizing Cooper's "somewhat obvious and ridiculous clowning". The film was barely profitable.Swindell 1980, p. 253.

In 1945, Cooper starred in and produced Stuart Heisler's Western comedy Along Came Jones with Loretta Young for International.Dickens 1970, pp. 199–200. In this lighthearted parody of his past heroic image,Meyers 1998, p. 194. Cooper plays comically inept cowboy Melody Jones, who is mistaken for a ruthless killer. Audiences embraced Cooper's character, and the film was one of the top box-office pictures of the year{{snd}}a testament to Cooper's still vital audience appeal.Arce 1979, p. 212. It was also International's biggest financial success during its brief history before being sold off to Universal Studios in 1946.Swindell 1980, p. 255.

Cooper's career during the postwar years drifted in new directions as American society was changing. While he still played conventional heroic roles, his films now relied less on his heroic screen persona and more on novel stories and exotic settings.Schickel 1985, pp. 24–26. In November 1945, Cooper appeared in Sam Wood's 19th-century period drama Saratoga Trunk with Ingrid Bergman, about a Texas cowboy and his relationship with a beautiful fortune hunter.Dickens 1970, pp. 201–03. Filmed in early 1943, the movie's release was delayed for two years due to the increased demand for war movies.Meyers 1998, p. 183. Despite poor reviews, Saratoga Trunk did well at the box officeSwindell 1980, p. 258. and became one of the top moneymakers of the year for Warner Bros.Arce 1979, p. 188. Cooper's only film in 1946 was Fritz Lang's romantic thriller Cloak and Dagger, about a mild-mannered physics professor recruited by the Office of Strategic Services during the last years of World War II to investigate the German atomic-bomb program.Dickens 1970, pp. 204–205. Playing a part loosely based on physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, Cooper was uneasy with the role and unable to convey the "inner sense" of the character.Meyers 1998, pp. 195–97. The film received poor reviews and was a box-office failure.Swindell 1980, p. 260. In 1947, Cooper appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's epic adventure film Unconquered with Paulette Goddard, about a Virginia militiaman who defends settlers against an unscrupulous gun trader and hostile Indians on the Western frontier during the 18th century.Dickens 1970, pp. 206–08. The film received mixed reviews, but even long-time DeMille critic James Agee acknowledged the picture had "some authentic flavor of the period".Arce 1979, p. 220. This last of four films made with DeMille was Cooper's most lucrative, earning the actor over $300,000 (equal to ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|300000|1947}}}} today) in salary and percentage of profits.Meyers 1998, p. 199. Unconquered was his last unqualified box-office success for the next five years.

File:Gary Cooper The Fountainhead 1949.jpg, 1949]]

In 1948, after making Leo McCarey's romantic comedy Good Sam,Dickens 1970, pp. 211–13. Cooper sold his company to Universal Studios and signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. that gave him script and director approval and a guaranteed $295,000 (equal to ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|295000|1948}}}} today) per picture. His first film under the new contract was King Vidor's drama The Fountainhead (1949) with Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey.Dickens 1970, pp. 214–217. In the film, Cooper plays an idealistic and uncompromising architect who struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism in the face of societal pressures to conform to popular standards.Meyers 1998, p. 215. Based on the novel by Ayn Rand, who also wrote the screenplay, the film reflects her philosophy and attacks the concepts of collectivism while promoting the virtues of individualism.Meyers 1998, pp. 215, 219. For most critics, Cooper was hopelessly miscast in the role of Howard Roark.Dickens 1970, pp. 216–17. In his review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther concluded he was "Mr. Deeds out of his element".Meyers 1998, p. 220. Cooper returned to his element in Delmer Daves' war drama Task Force (1949), about a retiring rear admiral, who reminisces about his long career as a naval aviator and his role in the development of aircraft carriers.Dickens 1970, pp. 220–22. Cooper's performance and the Technicolor newsreel footage supplied by the United States Navy made the film one of Cooper's most popular during this period.Arce 1979, p. 227. In the next two years, Cooper made four poorly received films: Michael Curtiz' period drama Bright Leaf (1950), Stuart Heisler's Western melodrama Dallas (1950), Henry Hathaway's wartime comedy You're in the Navy Now (1951), and Raoul Walsh's Western action film Distant Drums (1951).Dickens 1970, pp. 223–34.

File:Kelly-Cooper-Jurado.jpg while Katy Jurado stares at them in High Noon, 1952]]

Cooper's most important film during the postwar years was Fred Zinnemann's Western drama High Noon (1952) with Grace Kelly and Katy Jurado for United Artists.Dickens 1970, pp. 235–37. In the film, Cooper plays retiring sheriff Will Kane, who is preparing to leave town on his honeymoon when he learns that an outlaw he helped put away and his three henchmen are returning to seek their revenge. Unable to gain the support of the frightened townspeople, and abandoned by his young bride, Kane nevertheless stays to face the outlaws alone.Dickens 1970, p. 236. During the filming, Cooper was in poor health and in considerable pain from stomach ulcers.Swindell 1980, p. 293. His ravaged face and discomfort in some scenes "photographed as self-doubt", according to biographer Hector Arce,Arce 1979, p. 242. and contributed to the effectiveness of his performance. Considered one of the first "adult" Westerns for its theme of moral courage,Arce 1979, p. 238. High Noon received enthusiastic reviews for its artistry, with Time placing it in the ranks of Stagecoach and The Gunfighter.Meyers 1998, p. 249. Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, wrote that Cooper was "at the top of his form", and John McCarten, in The New Yorker, wrote that Cooper was never more effective.Dickens 1970, p. 237. The film earned $3.75{{spaces}}million in the United States and $18{{spaces}}million worldwide.Meyers 1998, p. 250. Following the example of his friend James Stewart,Arce 1979, pp. 238–39. Cooper accepted a lower salary in exchange for a percentage of the profits, and ended up making $600,000. Cooper's understated performance was widely praised, and earned him his second Academy Award for Best Actor.Swindell 1980, p. 294.{{refn|John Wayne accepted the Oscar for Cooper, who was out of the country at the time, saying, "Coop and I have been friends, hunting and fishing, for more years than I like to remember. He's one of the nicest fellows I know. I don't know anybody any nicer."|group=Note}}

File:Gary Cooper 2.jpg (1954)}}]]

After appearing in Andre de Toth's Civil War drama Springfield Rifle (1952)Dickens 1970, pp. 238–240.{{snd}}a standard Warner Bros. film that was overshadowed by the success of its predecessorDickens 1970, p. 240.{{snd}}Cooper made four films outside the United States.Meyers 1998, p. 253. In Mark Robson's drama Return to Paradise (1953), Cooper plays an American wanderer who liberates the inhabitants of a Polynesian island from the puritanical rule of a misguided pastor.Dickens 1970, pp. 241–242. Cooper endured spartan living conditions, long hours, and ill health during the three-month location shoot on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa.Meyers 1998, pp. 254, 256. Despite its beautiful cinematography, the film received poor reviews.Dickens 1970, p. 242. Cooper's next three films were shot in Mexico. In Hugo Fregonese's action adventure film Blowing Wild (1953) with Barbara Stanwyck, he plays a wildcatter in Mexico, who gets involved with an oil-company executive and his unscrupulous wife with whom he once had an affair.Dickens 1970, pp. 243–244.

In 1954, Cooper appeared in Henry Hathaway's Western drama Garden of Evil, with Susan Hayward, about three soldiers of fortune in Mexico hired to rescue a woman's husband.Dickens 1970, pp. 245–247. That same year, he appeared in Robert Aldrich's Western adventure Vera Cruz with Burt Lancaster. In the film, Cooper plays an American adventurer hired by Emperor Maximilian{{spaces}}I to escort a countess to Vera Cruz during the Mexican Rebellion of 1866.Dickens 1970, pp. 248–51. All these films received poor reviews, but did well at the box office.Arce 1979, p. 255. For his work in Vera Cruz, Cooper earned $1.4{{spaces}}million in salary and a percentage of the gross.Meyers 1998, p. 269.

File:Gary Cooper in Friendly Persuasion 1956.jpg in Friendly Persuasion, 1956]]

During this period, Cooper struggled with health problems. He suffered a severe shoulder injury during the filming of Blowing Wild when he was hit by metal fragments from a dynamited oil well, as well as his ongoing treatment for ulcers. During the filming of Vera Cruz, he reinjured his hip by falling from a horse, and was burned when Lancaster fired his rifle too close and the wadding from the blank shell pierced his clothing.

Cooper appeared in Otto Preminger's 1955 biographical war drama The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, about the World War{{spaces}}I general who tried to convince government officials of the importance of air power, and was court-martialed after blaming the War Department for a series of air disasters.Dickens 1970, pp. 252–54. Some critics felt Cooper was miscast,Dickens 1970, p. 253. and that his dull, tight-lipped performance did not reflect Mitchell's dynamic and caustic personality.Meyers 1998, pp. 275–76. In 1956, Cooper was more effective playing a gentle Indiana Quaker in William Wyler's Civil War drama Friendly Persuasion with Dorothy McGuire.Dickens 1970, pp. 255–58. Like Sergeant York and High Noon, the film addresses the conflict between religious pacifism and civic duty.Meyers 1998, p. 281. For his performance, Cooper received his second Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to earn $8{{spaces}}million worldwide.Arce 1979, p. 256.

File:Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon 1957.jpg in Love in the Afternoon, 1957]]

Cooper traveled to France in 1956 to make Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon with Audrey Hepburn and Maurice Chevalier.Meyers 1998, p. 317. In the film, Cooper plays a middle-aged American playboy in Paris who is pursued by—and eventually falls in love with—a much younger woman.Dickens 1970, pp. 259–261. Despite receiving some positive reviews, including from Bosley Crowther, who praised the film's "charming performances",Dickens 1970, p. 261. most reviewers concluded that Cooper was simply too old for the part.Arce 1979, p. 260. While audiences may not have welcomed seeing Cooper's heroic screen image tarnished by his playing an aging roué having an affair with a young girl, the film was still a box-office success. The following year, Cooper appeared in Philip Dunne's romantic drama Ten North Frederick.Dickens 1970, pp. 262–64. In the film, which was based on the novel by John O'Hara,Meyers 1998, p. 289. Cooper plays an attorney whose life is ruined by a double-crossing politician and his own secret affair with his daughter's young roommate. While Cooper brought "conviction and controlled anguish" to his performance, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, it was not enough to save what Bosley Crowther called a "hapless film".Arce 1979, p. 264.

File:Gary Cooper in Man of the West 1958.jpg, 1958]]

Despite his ongoing health problems and several operations for ulcers and hernias, Cooper continued to work in action films.Meyers 1998, p. 291. In 1958, he appeared in Anthony Mann's Western drama Man of the West (1958) with Julie London and Lee J. Cobb, about a reformed outlaw and killer who is forced to confront his violent past when the train in which he is riding is held up by his former gang members.Dickens 1970, pp. 265–266. The film has been called Cooper's "most pathological Western", with its themes of impotent rage, sexual humiliation, and sadism. According to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, Cooper, who struggled with moral conflicts in his personal life, "understood the anguish of a character striving to retain his integrity{{spaces}}... [and] brought authentic feeling to the role of a tempted and tormented, yet essentially decent man".Meyers 1998, p. 290. Mostly ignored by critics at the time, the film is now well-regarded by film scholarsSwindell 1980, p. 297. and is considered Cooper's last great film.

After his Warner Bros. contract ended, Cooper formed his own production company, Baroda Productions, and made three unusual films in 1959 about redemption.Meyers 1998, pp. 291, 301. In Delmer Daves' Western drama The Hanging Tree, Cooper plays a frontier doctor who saves a criminal from a lynch mob, and later tries to exploit his sordid past.Dickens 1970, pp. 267–68. Cooper delivered a "powerful and persuasive" performance of an emotionally scarred man whose need to dominate others is transformed by the love and sacrifice of a woman.Meyers 1998, pp. 296–97. In Robert Rossen's historical adventure They Came to Cordura with Rita Hayworth, he plays an army officer who is found guilty of cowardice and assigned the degrading task of recommending soldiers for the Medal of Honor during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916.Dickens 1970, pp. 271–73. While Cooper received positive reviews, Variety and Films in Review felt he was too old for the part.Dickens 1970, p. 272.

In Michael Anderson's action drama The Wreck of the Mary Deare with Charlton Heston, Cooper plays a disgraced merchant-marine officer who decides to stay aboard his sinking cargo ship to prove the vessel was deliberately scuttled and to redeem his good name.Dickens 1970, pp. 274–75. Like its two predecessors, the film was physically demanding.Meyers 1998, p. 299. Cooper, who was a trained scuba diver, did most of his own underwater scenes. Biographer Jeffrey Meyers observed that in all three roles Cooper effectively conveyed the sense of lost honor and desire for redemptionMeyers 1998, p. 301.{{snd}}what Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim called the "struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be".Conrad 1992, p. 81.

File:Gary Cooper and Veronica Balfe 1933.jpg and Cooper, November 1933]]

Cooper was formally introduced to his future wife, 20-year-old New York debutante Veronica Balfe,{{refn|Balfe worked briefly as an actress in 1933 using the professional name Sandra Shaw.Meyers 1998, p. 100. She appeared in uncredited bit parts in No Other Woman, King Kong, and Blood Money.|group=Note}} on Easter Sunday 1933 at a party given by her uncle, art director Cedric Gibbons.Janis 1999, p. 22.Meyers 1998, p. 98.Arce 1979, p. 121. Called "Rocky" by her family and friends, she grew up on Park Avenue and attended finishing schools.Meyers 1998, p. 99. Her stepfather was Wall Street tycoon Paul Shields. Cooper and Rocky were quietly married at her parents' Park Avenue residence on December 15, 1933.Meyers 1998, p. 102. According to his friends, the marriage had a positive impact on Cooper, who turned away from past indiscretions and took control of his life. Athletic and a lover of the outdoors, Rocky shared many of Cooper's interests, including riding, skiing, and skeet-shooting.Meyers 1998, p. 104. While she organized their social life, her wealth and social connections provided Cooper access to New York high society.Meyers 1998, p. 106. Cooper and his wife owned homes in the Los Angeles area in Encino (1933–36),Meyers 1998, p. 103. Brentwood (1936–53), and Holmby Hills (1954–61),Meyers 1998, p. 271. and owned a vacation home in Aspen, Colorado (1949–53).Meyers 1998, pp. 214–15.{{refn|After their wedding, Cooper and his wife lived on a {{convert|10|acre|ha|adj=mid}} ranch at 4723 White Oak Avenue in Encino, from 1933 to 1936. In 1936, they built a large white Bermuda-Georgian house at 11940 Chaparal in Brentwood, where they lived from 1936 to 1953.

In 1948, they purchased {{convert|15|acre|ha}} of land in Aspen, Colorado, and built a four-bedroom house, where they vacationed from 1949 to 1953. In July 1953, they began building a lavish, {{convert|6000|sqft|m2|adj=mid}} mansion on {{convert|1.5|acre|ha}} of land at 200 North Baroda Drive in Holmby Hills, a modernistic four-bedroom house with an open floor plan, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a sculpted garden. They lived there from September 1954 until his death.|group=Note}}

Gary and Veronica Cooper's daughter, Maria Veronica Cooper, was born on September 15, 1937.Meyers 1998, p. 128. By all accounts, he was a patient and affectionate father, teaching Maria to ride a bicycle, play tennis, ski, and ride horses. Sharing many of her parents' interests, she accompanied them on their travels and was often photographed with them. Like her father, she developed a love for art and drawing.Meyers 1998, p. 270.{{refn|Maria attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles for four years and became an artist, with exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York.|group=Note}} As a family, they vacationed together in Sun Valley, Idaho, spent time at Rocky's parents' country house in Southampton, New York, and took frequent trips to Europe. Cooper and Rocky were legally separated on May 16, 1951, when Cooper moved out of their home. For over two years, they maintained a fragile and uneasy family life with their daughter.Meyers 1998, pp. 264–266. Cooper moved back into their home in November 1953,Carpozi 1970, p. 197.Arce 1979, p. 253. and their formal reconciliation occurred in February 1954.

File:Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal The Fountainhead 1949.jpg and Cooper in The Fountainhead, 1949]]

Prior to his marriage, Cooper had a series of romantic relationships with leading actresses, beginning in 1927 with Clara Bow, who advanced his career by helping him get one of his first leading roles in Children of Divorce.Meyers 1998, pp. 36, 40.{{refn|Cooper and Bow began their affair during the production of one of her most popular films, It (1927), for which she had the studio film an extra scene that included Cooper.Swindell 1980, p. 78.

During the "It girl" publicity campaign,Swindell 1980, p. 79. columnists started referring to Cooper as the "It boy".Kaminsky 1979, p. 31.|group=Note}} Bow was also responsible for getting Cooper a role in Wings, which generated an enormous amount of fan mail for the young actor.Kaminsky 1979, p. 34. In 1928, he had a relationship with another experienced actress, Evelyn Brent, whom he met while filming Beau Sabreur.Meyers 1998, p. 43. In 1929, while filming The Wolf Song, Cooper began an intense affair with Lupe Vélez, which was the most important romance of his early life.Meyers 1998, p. 45. During their two years together, Cooper also had brief affairs with Marlene Dietrich while filming Morocco in 1930Meyers 1998, p. 62. and with Carole Lombard while making I Take This Woman in 1931.Meyers 1998, p. 68. During his year abroad in 1931–32, Cooper had an affair with the married Countess Dorothy di Frasso, the former Dorothy Cadwell Taylor, while staying at her Villa Madama near Rome.

After he was married in December 1933, Cooper remained faithful to his wife until the summer of 1942, when he began an affair with Ingrid Bergman during the production of For Whom the Bell Tolls.Wayne 1988, p. 100. Their relationship lasted through the completion of filming Saratoga Trunk in June 1943.Meyers 1998, pp. 179, 183. In 1948, after finishing work on The Fountainhead, Cooper began an affair with Patricia Neal, his co-star.Meyers 1998, p. 225. At first, they kept their affair discreet, but eventually it became an open secret in Hollywood, and Cooper's wife confronted him with the rumors, which he admitted were true. He also confessed that he was in love with Neal, and continued to see her.Shearer 2006, p. 124.Meyers 1998, p. 226. Cooper and his wife were legally separated in May 1951,Meyers 1998, p. 229. but he did not seek a divorce.Shearer 2006, pp. 114–22. Neal later claimed that Cooper hit her after she went on a date with Kirk Douglas, and that he arranged for her to have an abortion when she became pregnant with Cooper's child. Neal ended their relationship in late December 1951.Shearer 2006, pp. 126–27. During his three-year separation from his wife, Cooper was rumored to have had affairs with Grace Kelly,Meyers 1998, p. 231. Lorraine Chanel,Meyers 1998, pp. 259–63. and Gisèle Pascal.Meyers 1998, pp. 263–64.

Cooper biographers have explored his relationship in the late '20s with the actor Anderson Lawler, with whom Cooper shared a house on and off for a year, while at the same time seeing Clara Bow, Evelyn Brent, and Lupe Vélez.{{cite book |last1=Shearer |first1=Stephen |title=Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life |date=2006 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |location=Lexington, Kentucky |isbn=978-0813123912 |page=[https://archive.org/details/patricianealunqu00shea/page/66 66] |url=https://archive.org/details/patricianealunqu00shea |url-access=registration |quote=.anderson lawler. |access-date=May 10, 2019}}{{cite book |last1=Mann |first1=William J. |title=Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910–1969 |url=https://archive.org/details/behindscreenhowg00mann |url-access=registration |date=2001 |publisher=Viking |location=NY |isbn=978-0670030170 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/behindscreenhowg00mann/page/103 103–10] }}{{cite book |last1=Conner |first1=Floyd |title=Lupe Velez and Her Lovers |date=1993 |publisher=Barricade Books |location=NY |isbn=978-0942637960 |pages=85–86}}{{cite book |last1=Swindell |first1=Larry |title=The Last Hero: A Biography of Gary Cooper |url=https://archive.org/details/lastherobiograp00swin |url-access=registration |date=1980 |publisher=Doubleday |location=NY |isbn=978-0385143165 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/lastherobiograp00swin/page/104 104–05]}} Vélez once told Hedda Hopper of Lawler's alleged affair with Cooper; whenever he would come home after seeing Lawler, she would sniff for Lawler's cologne.{{cite book|last1=Fleming|first1=E. J.|title=The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine|date=2004|publisher=McFarland|location=Jefferson MO|isbn=978-0-7864-2027-8|page=92|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f0usSUISUUMC&pg=PA92|access-date=July 13, 2018}} Vélez's biographer Michelle Vogel wrote that Vélez consented to Cooper's alleged sexual behavior with Lawler, but only as long as she, too, could participate.{{cite book |last1=Vogel |first1=Michelle |title=Lupe Velez: The Life and Career of Hollywood's "Mexican Spitfire" |date=2012 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=978-0786461394 |page=71 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Qt_kZTt4JYC&q=anderson+lawler+gary+cooper&pg=PA71 |access-date=December 5, 2018}}

In later life, Cooper became involved with costume designer Irene, and was, according to her, "the only man she ever loved". A year after his death in 1961, Irene committed suicide by jumping from the 11th floor of the Knickerbocker Hotel, after telling Doris Day of her grief over Cooper's death.Hotchner, A. E. Doris Day: Her Own Story{{Page needed|date=February 2024}}

According to CooperJanis 1999, p. 42.

{{Blockquote|... the really satisfying things I do are offered me, free, for nothing. Ever go out in the fall and do a little hunting? See the frost on the grass and the leaves turning? Spend a day in the hills alone, or with good companions? Watch a sunset and a moonrise? Notice a bird in the wind? A stream in the woods, a storm at sea, cross the country by train, and catch a glimpse of something beautiful in the desert, or the farmlands? Free to everybody{{spaces}}...}}

File:Hemingway SunValley.jpg, Bobbi Powell, and Cooper at Silver Creek, Idaho, 1959]]

Cooper's 20-year friendship with Ernest Hemingway began at Sun Valley in October 1940.Meyers 1998, p. 173. The previous year, Hemingway drew upon Cooper's image when he created the character of Robert Jordan for the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.Meyers 1998, p. 176. The two shared a passion for the outdoors, and for years they hunted duck and pheasant, and skied together in Sun Valley. Both men admired the work of Rudyard Kipling; Cooper kept a copy of the poem "If—" in his dressing room, and retained as adults Kipling's sense of boyish adventure.Meyers 1998, p. 175.

As well as admiring Cooper's hunting skills and knowledge of the outdoors, Hemingway believed his character matched his screen persona, once telling a friend, "If you made up a character like Coop, nobody would believe it. He's just too good to be true." They saw each other often, and their friendship remained strong through the years.Meyers 1998, p. 315.{{refn|Cooper's friendship with Ernest Hemingway is explored in the documentary Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen (2013).|group=Note}}

Cooper's social life generally centered on sports, outdoor activities, and dinner parties with his family and friends from the film industry, including directors Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, William Wellman, and Fred Zinnemann, and actors Joel McCrea, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Taylor.Meyers 1998, pp. 104–05, 153, 313.Janis 1999, p. 98.Swindell 1980, pp. 300–01. Cooper, in addition to hunting, enjoyed riding, fishing, skiing, and later in life, scuba diving.Meyers 1998, pp. 59, 299.Janis 1999, p. 124. He never abandoned his early love for art and drawing, and over the years, he and his wife acquired a private collection of modern paintings, including works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Georgia O'Keeffe.Meyers 1998, pp. 285–286. Cooper owned several works by Pablo Picasso, whom he met in 1956. Cooper also had a lifelong passion for automobiles, with a collection that included a 1930 Duesenberg.Meyers 1998, p. 59.Janis 1999, p. 121.

Cooper was naturally reserved and introspective, and loved the solitude of outdoor activities.Meyers 1998, p. 53. Not unlike his screen persona, his communication style frequently consisted of long silences with an occasional "yup" and "shucks".Janis 1999, p. 6. He once said, "If others have more interesting things to say than I have, I keep quiet."Meyers 1998, p. 54. According to his friends, Cooper could also be an articulate, well-informed conversationalist on topics ranging from horses, guns, and Western history to film production, sports cars, and modern art. He was modest and unpretentious, frequently downplaying his acting abilities and career accomplishments.Kaminsky 1979, p. 217. His friends and colleagues described him as charming, well-mannered, and thoughtful, with a lively, boyish sense of humor. Cooper maintained a sense of propriety throughout his career and never misused his movie-star status; he never sought special treatment or refused to work with a director or leading lady.Meyers 1998, p. 55. His close friend Joel McCrea recalled, "Coop never fought, he never got mad, he never told anybody off that I know of; everybody [who] worked with him liked him."

Like his father, Cooper was a conservative Republican; he voted for Calvin Coolidge in 1924 and Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932, and campaigned for Wendell Willkie in 1940.Meyers 1998, p. 202. When Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented fourth presidential term in 1944, Cooper campaigned for Thomas E. Dewey and criticized Roosevelt for being dishonest and adopting "foreign" ideas.Meyers 1998, p. 206. In a radio address he had paid for himself just before the election, Cooper said, "I disagree with the New Deal belief that the America all of us love is old and worn-out and finished{{snd}}and has to borrow foreign notions that don't even seem to work any too well where they come from{{spaces}}... Our country is a young country that just has to make up its mind to be itself again."Carpozi 1970, p. 168. He also attended a Republican rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that drew 93,000 Dewey supporters.Jordan 2011, pp. 231–32. In 1952, Cooper, along with John Wayne, Adolphe Menjou and Glenn Ford, supported Robert A. Taft over Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Republican primaries.Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism; Alfred S. Regnery, 2008Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft; James T. Patterson, 1972

Cooper was one of the founding members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals,Swindell 1980, p. 256. a conservative organization dedicated, according to its statement of principles, to preserving the "American way of life" and opposing communism and fascism. The organization (members included Walter Brennan, Laraine Day, Walt Disney, Clark Gable, Hedda Hopper, Ronald Reagan, Barbara Stanwyck, and John Wayne) advised the United States Congress to investigate communist influence in the motion-picture industry.Meyers 1998, p. 207. On October 23, 1947, Cooper was subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and was asked if he had observed any "communistic influence" in Hollywood.

Cooper recounted statements he had heard suggesting the Constitution was out of date and that Congress was an unnecessary institution, comments which Cooper said he found to be "very un-American", and testified that he had rejected several scripts because he thought they were "tinged with communist ideas". Unlike some other witnesses, Cooper did not name any individuals or scripts.Meyers 1998, p. 210.

In 1951, while making High Noon, Cooper befriended the film's screenwriter, Carl Foreman, who had been a member of the Communist Party. When Foreman was subpoenaed by the HUAC, Cooper put his career on the line to defend Foreman. When John Wayne and others threatened Cooper with blacklisting himself and the loss of his passport if he did not walk off the film, Cooper gave a statement to the press in support of Foreman, calling him "the finest kind of American". When producer Stanley Kramer removed Foreman's name as screenwriter, Cooper and director Fred Zinnemann threatened to walk off the film if Foreman's name were not restored. Foreman later said that of all his friends and allies and colleagues in Hollywood, "Cooper was the only big one who tried to help. The only one."{{cite magazine |title=High Noon's Secret Backstory |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/02/high-noons-secret-backstory |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=February 22, 2017 |language=en}} Cooper even offered to testify in Foreman's behalf before the committee, but character witnesses were not allowed. Foreman always sent future scripts to Cooper for first refusal, including The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Key, and The Guns of Navarone. Cooper had to turn them down because of his age.{{cite news |title=Best books of 2017: The best nonfiction |url=https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-holiday-books-best-nonfiction-20171130-htmlstory.html |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=November 30, 2017}}

Cooper was baptized in the Church of All Saints, Houghton Regis, in Bedfordshire, England, in December 1911, and was raised in the Episcopal Church in the United States.Carpozi 1970, p. 205. While he was not an observant Christian for most of his adult life, many of his friends believed he had a deeply spiritual side.Meyers 1998, p. 293.

On June 26, 1953, Cooper accompanied his wife and daughter, who were devout Catholics, to Rome, where they had an audience with Pope Pius XII.Carpozi 1970, p. 207.Meyers 1998, p. 266. Cooper and his wife were still separated at the time, but the papal visit marked the beginning of their gradual reconciliation.Carpozi 1970, p. 208. In the following years, Cooper contemplated his mortality and his personal behavior, and started discussing Catholicism with his family. He began attending church with them regularly, and met with their parish priest, who offered Cooper spiritual guidance. After several months of study, Cooper was baptized as a Catholic on April 9, 1959, before a small group of family and friends at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.

File:Gary Cooper's Grave.jpg

On April 14, 1960, Cooper underwent surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had metastasized to his colon.Meyers 1998, p. 304. He fell ill again on May 31 and underwent further surgery at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles in early June to remove a malignant tumor from his large intestine. After recuperating over the summer, Cooper took his family on vacation to the south of FranceJanis 1999, p. 163. before traveling to the UK in the fall to star in The Naked Edge. In December 1960, he worked on the NBC television documentary The Real West,Meyers 1998, p. 308. which was part of the company's Project 20 series.Arce 1979, p. 276.{{refn|In March 1961, Cooper traveled to New York to record the off-camera narration for the documentary{{snd}}his last work as an actor.Meyers 1998, p. 311.|group=Note}}

On December 27, his wife learned from their family doctor that Cooper's cancer had spread to his lungs and bones and was inoperable.Meyers 1998, pp. 308, 312. His family decided not to tell him immediately.Janis 1999, p. 164.

On January 9, 1961, Cooper attended a dinner given in his honor and hosted by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at the Friars Club. The dinner was attended by many of his industry friendsMeyers 1998, pp. 308–309. and concluded with a brief speech by Cooper, who said, "The only achievement I'm proud of is the friends I've made in this community."Swindell 1980, pp. 302–03.

In mid-January, Cooper took his family to Sun Valley for their last vacation together. Cooper and Hemingway hiked through the snow together for the last time.Meyers 1998, p. 319. On February 27, after returning to Los Angeles, Cooper learned that he was dying.Meyers 1998, p. 313. He later told his family, "We'll pray for a miracle; but if not, and that's God's will, that's all right, too."Janis 1999, p. 165. On April 17, Cooper watched the Academy Awards ceremony on television and saw his good friend James Stewart, who had presented Cooper with his first Oscar years earlier, accept on Cooper's behalf an honorary award for lifetime achievement{{snd}}his third Oscar.Meyers 1998, p. 314. Holding back tears, Stewart said, "Coop, I'll get this to you right away. And Coop, I want you to know this, that with this goes all the warm friendship and the affection and the admiration and the deep, the deep respect of all of us. We're very, very proud of you, Coop. All of us are tremendously proud."{{refn|The award dedication read, "To Gary Cooper for his many memorable screen performances and the international recognition he, as an individual, has gained for the motion picture industry."|group=Note}} The following day, newspapers around the world announced that Cooper was dying. In the coming days, he received numerous messages of appreciation and encouragement, including telegrams from Pope John XXIIIArce 1979, p. 278. and Queen Elizabeth II,Swindell 1980, p. 303. and a telephone call from President John F. Kennedy.

In his last public statement on May 4, 1961, Cooper said, "I know that what is happening is God's will. I am not afraid of the future." He received the last rites on Friday, May 12, and died quietly the next day.Meyers 1998, p. 320.

A requiem was held on May 18 at the Church of the Good Shepherd, attended by many of Cooper's friends, including James Stewart, Jack Benny, Henry Hathaway, Joel McCrea, Audrey Hepburn, Jack L. Warner, John Ford, John Wayne, Edward G. Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Fred Astaire, Randolph Scott, Walter Pidgeon, Bob Hope, and Marlene Dietrich.Meyers 1998, pp. 320–321.{{refn|Hemingway was too ill to attend the funeral.Kaminsky 1979, p. 214. He took his own life on July 2, 1961, less than two months after Cooper died.|group=Note}} Cooper was buried in the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.Swindell 1980, p. 304. In May 1974, after his family relocated to New York, Cooper's remains were exhumed and reburied in Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton.Meyers 1998, p. 322.Janis 1999, p. 167. His grave is marked next to a three-ton boulder from a Montauk quarry.

{{Blockquote|Naturalness is hard [for me] to talk about, but I guess it boils down to this: you find out what people expect of your type of character and then you give them what they want. That way, an actor never seems unnatural or affected, no matter what role he plays.Meyers 1998, p. 120.}}

Cooper's acting style consisted of three essential characteristics - his ability to project elements of his own personality onto the characters he portrayed, to appear natural and authentic in his roles, and to underplay and deliver restrained performances calibrated for the camera and the screen. Acting teacher Lee Strasberg once observed: "The simplest examples of Stanislavsky's ideas are actors such as Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Spencer Tracy. They try not to act, but to be themselves, to respond or react. They refuse to say or do anything they feel not to be consonant with their own characters."Meyers 1998, p. 156. Film director François Truffaut ranked Cooper among "the greatest actors" because of his ability to deliver great performances "without direction". This ability to project elements of his own personality onto his characters produced a continuity across his performances to the extent that critics and audiences were convinced he was simply "playing himself".

Cooper's ability to project his personality onto his characters played an important part in his appearing natural and authentic on screen. Actor John Barrymore said of Cooper, "This fellow is the world's greatest actor. He does without effort what the rest of us spend our lives trying to learn{{snd}}namely, to be natural." Charles Laughton, who played opposite Cooper in Devil and the Deep agreed, "In truth, that boy hasn't the least idea how well he acts{{spaces}}... He gets at it from the inside, from his own clear way of looking at life." William Wyler, who directed Cooper in two films, called him a "superb actor, a master of movie acting".Dickens 1970, pp. 18–19.

In his review of Cooper's performance in The Real Glory, Graham Greene wrote, "Sometimes his lean photogenic face seems to leave everything to the lens, but there is no question here of his not acting. Watch him inoculate the girl against cholera{{snd}}the casual jab of the needle, and the dressing slapped on while he talks, as though a thousand arms had taught him where to stab and he doesn't have to think anymore."

Cooper's style of underplaying before the camera surprised many of his directors and fellow actors. Even in his earliest feature films, he recognized the camera's ability to pick up slight gestures and facial movements.Kaminsky 1979, pp. 2–3. Commenting on Cooper's performance in Sergeant York, director Howard Hawks observed, "He worked very hard and yet he didn't seem to be working. He was a strange actor because you'd look at him during a scene and you'd think{{spaces}}... this isn't going to be any good. But when you saw the rushes in the projection room the next day you could read in his face all the things he'd been thinking." Sam Wood, who directed Cooper in four films, had similar observations about Cooper's performance in Pride of the Yankees, noting, "What I thought was underplaying turned out to be just the right approach. On the screen he's perfect, yet on the set you'd swear it's the worst job of acting in the history of motion pictures."Meyers 1998, p. 165.

Fellow actors admired his abilities as an actor. Commenting on her two films playing opposite Cooper, actress Ingrid Bergman concluded, "The personality of this man was so enormous, so overpowering{{snd}}and that expression in his eyes and his face, it was so delicate and so underplayed. You just didn't notice it until you saw it on the screen. I thought he was marvelous; the most underplaying and the most natural actor I ever worked with."

Tom Hanks declared, "In only one scene in the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, we see the future of screen acting in the form of Gary Cooper. He is quiet and natural, somehow different from the other cast members. He does something mysterious with his eyes and shoulders that is much more like 'being' than 'acting'."{{cite journal |last1=Thomson |first1=David |title=Why Goldwyn Wore Jodhpurs |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n12/david-thomson/why-goldwyn-wore-jodhpurs |journal=London Review of Books |pages=22–23 |date=June 22, 2000|volume=22 |issue=12 }}

Daniel Day-Lewis said, "I don't particularly like westerns as a genre, but I do love certain westerns. High Noon means a lot to me{{snd}}I love the purity and the honesty, I love Gary Cooper in that film, the idea of the last man standing."{{cite web |title=Daniel Day-Lewis's All-Time Top Westerns |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/magazine/11daylewislist.html?mtrref=en.wikipedia.org&gwh=B823D5F803DBE98DBC496BFA35919015&gwt=pay&assetType=REGIWALL |website=The New York Times |date=November 10, 2007}}

Chris Pratt stated, "I started watching Westerns when I was shooting in London about four or five years ago. I really fell in love with Gary Cooper, and his stuff. That sucked me into the Westerns. Before, I never got engrossed in the story. I'd just dip in, and there were guys in horses in black and white. High Noon's later Gary Cooper, I liked that. But I liked The Westerner. That's my favorite one. I have that poster hung up in my house because I really like that one."{{cite web |title='The Magnificent Seven': Chris Pratt, Denzel Washington share favorite Westerns |url=https://ew.com/article/2016/08/11/magnificent-seven-chris-pratt-denzel-washington/ |website=EW.com |language=en}}

To Al Pacino, "Gary Cooper was a phenomenon{{snd}}his ability to take some thing and elevate it, give it such dignity. One of the great presences."{{cite web |title=AL PACINO: THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW (1979) |url=https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/02/16/al-pacino-playboy-interview-1979/ |website=Scraps from the loft |date=February 16, 2018}}

Mylène Demongeot first met Gary Cooper at the opening of the first escalator to be installed in a cinema, at the Rex Theatre in Paris, on June 7, 1957. She declared in a 2015 filmed interview: "Gary Cooper{{spaces}}... il est sublime ! Aaahhh (Mylène pushing a cry of love not to say ecstasy) il est sublime{{spaces}}... Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! Là je dois dire que ça fait partie des stars, y'a Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, John Wayne, ces grands Américains que j'ai rencontrés comme ça, c'est vraiment des mecs incroyables. Y'en a plus des comme ça ! Euh non. (Gary Cooper was sublime, there I have to say, now he, was part of the stars, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, John Wayne, those great

Americans who I've met really were unbelievable guys, there aren't any like them anymore)."{{Cite news|date=July 5, 2015|title=Rencontre avec mylène demongeot|work=Mac Mahon Filmed Conferences Paris|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I-cqo6QES8| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211114/-I-cqo6QES8| archive-date=November 14, 2021 | url-status=live|access-date=October 24, 2021}}{{cbignore}}

File:Los Angeles (California, USA), Hollywood Boulevard, Gary Cooper -- 2012 -- 4981.jpg]]

Cooper's career spanned thirty-six years, from 1925 to 1961.Dickens 1970, p. 2. During that time he appeared in eighty-four feature films in a leading role.Kaminsky 1979, p. 1. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era to the end of the golden age of Classical Hollywood. His natural and authentic acting style appealed powerfully to both men and women,Meyers 1998, p. xi. and his range of performances included roles in most major movie genres, including Westerns, war films, adventure films, drama films, crime films, romance films, comedy films, and romantic comedy films. He appeared on the Motion Picture Herald exhibitor's poll of top ten film personalities for twenty-three consecutive years, from 1936 to 1958. According to Quigley's annual poll, Cooper was one of the top money-making stars for eighteen years, appearing in the top ten in 1936–37, 1941–49, and 1951–57. He topped the list in 1953. In Quigley's list of all-time money-making stars, Cooper is listed fourth, after John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Tom Cruise. At the time of his death, it was estimated that his films grossed well over $200{{spaces}}million (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|0.2|1961|r=2}}{{spaces}}billion in {{Inflation-year|US}}).

In more than half his feature films, Cooper portrayed Westerners, soldiers, pilots, sailors, and explorers, all men of action.Kaminsky 1979, p. 2. In the rest, he played a wide range of characters, included doctors, professors, artists, architects, clerks, and baseball players. Cooper's heroic screen image changed with each period of his career.Kaminsky 1979, p. 219. In his early films, he played the young naive hero sure of his moral position and trusting in the triumph of simple virtues (The Virginian). After becoming a major star, his Western screen persona was replaced by a more cautious hero in adventure films and dramas (A Farewell to Arms). During the height of his career, from 1936 to 1943, he played a new type of hero: a champion of the common man willing to sacrifice himself for others (Mr. Deeds, Meet John Doe, and For Whom the Bell Tolls).

In the postwar years, Cooper attempted broader variations on his screen image, which now reflected a hero increasingly at odds with the world, who must face adversity alone (The Fountainhead and High Noon).Kaminsky 1979, pp. 219–20. In his final films, Cooper's hero rejects the violence of the past, and seeks to reclaim lost honor and find redemption (Friendly Persuasion and Man of the West).Kaminsky 1979, pp. 220–21. The screen persona he developed and sustained throughout his career represented the ideal American hero{{snd}}a tall, handsome, and sincere man of steadfast integrityDickens 1970, p. 1. who emphasized action over intellect, and combined the heroic qualities of the romantic lover, the adventurer, and the common man.Meyers 1998, p. 324.

On February 6, 1960, Cooper was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6243 Hollywood Boulevard for his contribution to the film industry. He was also awarded a star on the sidewalk outside the Ellen Theater in Bozeman, Montana.

On May 6, 1961, Cooper was awarded the French Order of Arts and Letters in recognition of his significant contribution to the arts. On July 30, 1961, he was posthumously awarded the David di Donatello Special Award in Italy for his career achievements.

In 1966, Cooper was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. In 2015, he was inducted into the Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Hall of Fame.{{cite web|title=Hall of Fame Inductees – Gary Cooper|url=http://utahcowboymuseum.org/nominations/hall-of-fame-inductees/|website=Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum|access-date=January 8, 2018}} The American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Cooper 11th on its list of the 25 male stars of classic Hollywood. Three of his characters{{snd}}Will Kane, Lou Gehrig, and Sergeant York{{snd}}made AFI's list of the 100 greatest heroes and villains, all of them as heroes. His Lou Gehrig line, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.", is ranked by AFI as the 38th greatest movie quote of all time.

More than half a century after his death, Cooper's enduring legacy, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, is his image of the ideal American hero preserved in his film performances.Meyers 1998, pp. 323–324. Charlton Heston once observed, "He projected the kind of man Americans would like to be, probably more than any actor that's ever lived."Kaminsky 1979, p. 206.

In the 1930s hit song "Puttin' On the Ritz", Cooper is referenced in the line "dress up like a million-dollar trooper/Tryin' hard to look like Gary Cooper, Super duper!" More than two decades after Cooper's death, a new version of the song was released in 1983 by Taco; the original lyrics were kept, including the references to Cooper.

Gary Cooper is referenced several times in the critically acclaimed television series The Sopranos, with protagonist Tony Soprano asking, "Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type..." whilst complaining about his problems to his therapist Dr. Melfi.{{cite news |title=That shrinking feeling: TV's uneasy relationship with therapy |url=https://www.ft.com/content/ee0c25a3-0942-474a-b54c-b050e2a4498c |work=Financial Times}}

Patricia Neal named the Abbey of Regina Laudis' outdoor theater building The Gary-The Olivia in honor of Cooper and her daughter Olivia Dahl.Mother Dolores Hart, O.S.B. & Richard DeNeut, The Ear of the Heart, An Actress' Journey from Hollywood to Holy Vows, page 352, Ignatius Press, 2013

A San Antonio, Texas, subdivision has several streets named after Hollywood stars, including a Gary Cooper Drive.{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Merrisa |date=September 30, 2014 |title=San Antonio street names and groupings |url=https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/slideshow/San-Antonio-street-names-and-groupings-94695.php |website=MySA |publisher=Hearst Newspapers}}

{{Main|Gary Cooper filmography}}

The following is a list of feature films in which Cooper appeared in a leading role.Swindell 1980, pp. 308–328.Dickens 1970, pp. 29–278.

{{Div col|colwidth=18em}}

• The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)
• Children of Divorce (1927)
• Arizona Bound (1927)
• Wings (1927)
• Nevada (1927)
• It (1927)
• The Last Outlaw (1927)
• Beau Sabreur (1928)
• The Legion of the Condemned (1928)
• Doomsday (1928)
• Half a Bride (1928)
• Lilac Time (1928)
• The First Kiss (1928)
• The Shopworn Angel (1928)
• Wolf Song (1929)
• Betrayal (1929)
• The Virginian (1929)
• Only the Brave (1930)
• The Texan (1930)
• Seven Days' Leave (1930)
• A Man from Wyoming (1930)
• The Spoilers (1930)
• Morocco (1930)
• Fighting Caravans (1931)
• City Streets (1931)
• I Take This Woman (1931)
• His Woman (1931)
• Devil and the Deep (1932)
• If I Had a Million (1932)
• A Farewell to Arms (1932)
• Today We Live (1933)
• One Sunday Afternoon (1933)
• Design for Living (1933)
• Alice in Wonderland (1933)
• Operator 13 (1934)
• Now and Forever (1934)
• The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
• The Wedding Night (1935)
• Peter Ibbetson (1935)
• Desire (1936)
• Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
• The General Died at Dawn (1936)
• The Plainsman (1936)
• Souls at Sea (1937)
• The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938)
• Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)
• The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)
• Beau Geste (1939)
• The Real Glory (1939)
• The Westerner (1940)
• North West Mounted Police (1940)
• Meet John Doe (1941)
• Sergeant York (1941)
• Ball of Fire (1941)
• The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
• The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)
• Casanova Brown (1944)
• Along Came Jones (1945)
• Saratoga Trunk (1945)
• Cloak and Dagger (1946)
• Unconquered (1947)
• Good Sam (1948)
• The Fountainhead (1949)
• Task Force (1949)
• Bright Leaf (1950)
• Dallas (1950)
• You're in the Navy Now (1951)
• It's a Big Country (1951)
• Distant Drums (1951)
• High Noon (1952)
• Springfield Rifle (1952)
• Return to Paradise (1953)
• Blowing Wild (1953)
• Garden of Evil (1954)
• Vera Cruz (1954)
• The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
• Friendly Persuasion (1956)
• Love in the Afternoon (1957)
• Ten North Frederick (1958)
• Man of the West (1958)
• The Hanging Tree (1959)
• They Came to Cordura (1959)
• The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)
• The Naked Edge (1961)

{{div col end}}

{{Reflist|24em|group=Note}}

{{Reflist|22em|refs=

{{cite web|title=AFI's 100 Greatest Heroes & Villains |publisher=American Film Institute |url=http://www.afi.com/100Years/handv.aspx |access-date=December 6, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120214195710/http://www.afi.com/100Years/handv.aspx |archive-date=February 14, 2012 }}

{{cite web|title=AFI's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time |publisher=American Film Institute |url=http://www.afi.com/100Years/quotes.aspx |access-date=December 6, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151116134035/http://www.afi.com/100Years/quotes.aspx |archive-date=November 16, 2015 }}

{{cite web|title=AFI's 50 Greatest American Screen Legends |publisher=American Film Institute |url=http://www.afi.com/100years/stars.aspx |access-date=December 6, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130113043532/http://www.afi.com/100years/stars.aspx |archive-date=January 13, 2013 }}

{{cite web|title=The Motion Picture Alliance ... |publisher=Hollywood Renegades Archive |url=http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/huac_alliance.htm |access-date=November 30, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140603145322/http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/huac_alliance.htm |archive-date=June 3, 2014 }}

{{cite web |title=David speciale 1961 |publisher=Premi David di Donatello |url=http://www.daviddidonatello.it/cercavincitori2.php?idsoggetto=142&vin= |access-date=March 4, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303212351/http://www.daviddidonatello.it/cercavincitori2.php?idsoggetto=142&vin= |archive-date=March 3, 2016 }}

{{cite journal|title=Gary Cooper Visits Dunstable |newspaper=Dunstable Borough Gazette |date=March 30, 1932}}

{{cite journal|last=Kendall |first=Mary Claire |title=Gary Cooper's Quiet Journey of Faith |journal=Forbes |date=May 13, 2013 |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryclairekendall/2013/05/13/gary-coopers-quiet-journey-of-faith/ |access-date=September 20, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924045005/http://www.forbes.com/sites/maryclairekendall/2013/05/13/gary-coopers-quiet-journey-of-faith/ |archive-date=September 24, 2014 }}

{{cite web|title=Great Western Performers|publisher=National Cowboy Museum|url=http://nationalcowboymuseum.org/awards-halls-of-fame|access-date=September 18, 2014 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150321182555/http://nationalcowboymuseum.org/awards-halls-of-fame|archive-date=March 21, 2015}}

{{cite news|last=Erickson|first=Hal|title=Gary Cooper: Full Biography|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/14817/Gary-Cooper/biography|access-date=September 18, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150211103728/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/14817/Gary-Cooper/biography|work=The New York Times|date=2015|archive-date=February 11, 2015}}

{{cite news|last=Crowther|first=Bosley|title='Casanova Brown' ...|newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 15, 1944|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E00E2D7103DE13BBC4D52DFBF66838F659EDE|access-date=January 18, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150118162740/http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E00E2D7103DE13BBC4D52DFBF66838F659EDE|archive-date=January 18, 2015}}

{{cite news|last=Nugent|first=Frank S.|title=Mr. Deeds Goes to Town |newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 17, 1936|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1731E26EBC4F52DFB266838D629EDE|access-date=December 18, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219131117/http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1731E26EBC4F52DFB266838D629EDE|archive-date=December 19, 2014}}

{{cite news|title=Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936): Awards|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/33624/Mr-Deeds-Goes-to-Town/details|access-date=December 26, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219152446/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/33624/Mr-Deeds-Goes-to-Town/details|work=The New York Times|date=2014|archive-date=December 19, 2014}}

{{cite news|last=Crowther|first=Bosley|title=High Noon|newspaper=The New York Times|date=July 25, 1952|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1952/07/25/arts/high-noon-oscars.html|access-date=December 18, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130530235833/http://www.nytimes.com/1952/07/25/arts/high-noon-oscars.html|archive-date=May 30, 2013}}

{{cite news|last=Crowther |first=Bosley |title='Meet John Doe,' An Inspiring Lesson in Americanism |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 13, 1941 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9501EFDD1E38E33BBC4B52DFB566838A659EDE |access-date=December 18, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219133858/http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9501EFDD1E38E33BBC4B52DFB566838A659EDE|archive-date=December 19, 2014}}

{{cite web|title=The 1st Academy Awards, 1929|date=October 8, 2014 |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1929|access-date=January 5, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150127003620/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1929|archive-date=January 27, 2015}}

{{cite news|title=The 9th Academy Awards, 1937|newspaper=Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1937|access-date=January 5, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706093710/http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/9th-winners.html|archive-date=July 6, 2011}}

{{cite web|title=The 14th Academy Awards, 1942|publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1942|access-date=January 5, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706093733/http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/14th-winners.html|archive-date=July 6, 2011}}

{{cite web|title=The 15th Academy Awards, 1943|publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1943 |access-date=January 5, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706093739/http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/15th-winners.html|archive-date=July 6, 2011}}

{{cite web|title=The 16th Academy Awards, 1944|date=October 5, 2014 |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1944|access-date=January 5, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502002444/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1944|archive-date=May 2, 2015}}

{{cite web|title=The 25th Academy Awards, 1953|publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1953|access-date=January 5, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706093830/http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/25th-winners.html|archive-date=July 6, 2011}}

{{cite web|title=The 33rd Academy Awards Memorable Moments|date=August 27, 2014|publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscar/ceremonies/1961/memorable-moments|access-date=January 5, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150127055100/http://www.oscars.org/oscar/ceremonies/1961/memorable-moments|archive-date=January 27, 2015}}

{{cite news|url=http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/100/newsmakers/bozeman-s-hollywood-star-gary-cooper/article_0e674068-57f3-11e0-8bf7-001cc4c002e0.html|title=Bozeman's Hollywood star: Gary Cooper|work=Bozeman Daily Chronicle|date=May 27, 2011|access-date=October 25, 2015|author=Ricker, Amanda}}

{{cite web|title=Top Ten Money Making Stars|publisher=Quigley Publishing|url=http://www.quigleypublishing.com/MPalmanac/Top10/Top10_lists.html|access-date=December 5, 2014|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130114130743/http://www.quigleypublishing.com/MPalmanac/Top10/Top10_lists.html|archive-date=January 14, 2013}}

{{cite web|last=McGee|first=Scott|title=High Noon (1952)|publisher=Turner Classic Movies|url=https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/71585|access-date=December 12, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220112721/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/71585%7C0/Trivia.html|archive-date=December 20, 2014}}

{{cite news|last=Bacon|first=James|title=Battling Until End, Gary Cooper Dies|newspaper=The Tuscaloosa News|date=May 14, 1961|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19610514&id=ABYfAAAAIBAJ&pg=5558,1742925|access-date=September 20, 2014}}

{{cite journal|last=Scheib|first=Ronnie|title=Film Review: Cooper and Hemingway: The True Gen|journal=Variety|date=November 5, 2013|url=https://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/film-review-cooper-and-hemingway-the-true-gen-1200799508|access-date=March 28, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150328064621/http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/film-review-cooper-and-hemingway-the-true-gen-1200799508|archive-date=March 28, 2015}}

{{cite web|title=Gary Cooper: Excerpts of Testimony before HUAC|publisher=University of Virginia|date=October 23, 1947|url=https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/Wild_Wild_Cold_War/files/2011/11/GaryCooperHUAC.pdf |access-date=September 18, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304025015/https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/Wild_Wild_Cold_War/files/2011/11/GaryCooperHUAC.pdf|archive-date=March 4, 2016|url-status=live}}

{{cite web|title=Gary Cooper|publisher=Hollywood Walk of Fame|url=http://www.walkoffame.com/gary-cooper |access-date=December 6, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150626143919/http://www.walkoffame.com/gary-cooper|archive-date=June 26, 2015}}

{{cite web|url=http://people.com/archive/patricia-neal-looks-back-at-a-glorious-and-grueling-life-vol-29-no-18/|title=Patricia Neal Looks Back at a Glorious and Grueling Life|last=Chambers|first=Andrea|date=May 9, 1988|website=PEOPLE.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810210454/http://people.com/archive/patricia-neal-looks-back-at-a-glorious-and-grueling-life-vol-29-no-18|archive-date= August 10, 2017|access-date=August 26, 2017}}}}

{{Refbegin|25em}}

• {{cite book|last=Arce |first=Hector |title=Gary Cooper: An Intimate Biography |publisher=William Morrow and Company |location=New York |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-688-03604-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/garycooperintima00arce }}
• {{cite book|last=Baker |first=Carlos |author-link=Carlos Baker |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |location=New York |year=1969 |isbn=978-0-02-001690-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/ernesthemingwayl00carl }}
• {{cite book|last=Benson |first=Nigel |title=Dunstable in Detail |publisher=The Book Castle |location=Dunstable, Bedfordshire, UK |year=1986 |isbn=978-0-9509773-2-4}}
• {{cite book|last=Carpozi |first=George Jr. |title=The Gary Cooper Story |publisher=Arlington House |location=New Rochelle, New York |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-87000-075-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/garycooperstory00carp }}
• {{cite book|last=Conrad |first=Joseph |title=Lord Jim |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |year=1992 |orig-date=1900 |isbn=978-0-679-40544-3}}
• {{cite book|last=Dickens |first=Homer |title=The Films of Gary Cooper |publisher=Citadel Press |location=New York |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-8065-0010-2}}
• {{cite book|last1=Hanks |first1=Patrick |last2=Hodges |first2=Flavia |title=A Dictionary of First Names |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-19-211651-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffirs00hank }}
• {{cite book|last=Hoffmann |first=Henryk |title=Western Movie References in American Literature |publisher=McFarland & Company |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-7864-6638-2}}
• {{cite book|last=Janis |first=Maria Cooper |title=Gary Cooper Off Camera: A Daughter Remembers |publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |location=New York |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8109-4130-4}}
• {{cite book|last=Jordan |first=David M. |title=FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-253-00970-8}}
• {{cite book|last=Kaminsky |first=Stuart |author-link=Stuart Kaminsky |title=Coop: The Life and Legend of Gary Cooper |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-312-16955-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/cooplifelegen00kami }}
• Adrien Le Bihan, Gary Cooper, le prince des acteurs, LettMotif, 2021, 358p.({{ISBN|978-2-36716-332-1}})
• {{cite book|last=McGilligan |first=Patrick |title=Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light |publisher=Regan Books |location=New York |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-06-039322-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/alfredhitchcockl00mcgi }}
• {{cite book|last=Meyers |first=Jeffrey |title=Gary Cooper: American Hero |publisher=William Morrow |location=New York |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-688-15494-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/garycooperameric00meye }}
• {{cite book|last=Owens |first=Robert |title=Medal of Honor: Historical Facts and Figures |publisher=Turner Publishing |location=Nashville |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-56311-995-8}}
• {{cite book|last=Rainey |first=Buck |title=Those Fabulous Serial Heroines: Their Lives and Films |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, Maryland |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-8108-1911-5}}
• {{cite book|last1=Roberts |first1=Randy |last2=Olson |first2=James S. |title=John Wayne: American |publisher=Bison Books |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-8032-8970-3}}
• {{cite book|last=Schickel |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Schickel |title=Gary Cooper |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |series=Legends |location=Boston |chapter=Introduction |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-316-77307-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/garycooper00schi }}
• {{cite book|last=Selznick |first=David O. |editor=Rudy Behlmer |title=Memo from David O. Selznick |publisher=Modern Library |location=New York |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-375-75531-6}}
• {{cite book|last=Shearer |first=Stephen Michael |title=Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life |publisher=The University Press of Kentucky |location=Lexington, Kentucky |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-8131-2391-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/patricianealunqu00shea }}
• {{cite book|last=Swindell |first=Larry |title=The Last Hero: A Biography of Gary Cooper |url=https://archive.org/details/lastherobiograp00swin |url-access=registration |publisher=Doubleday |location=New York |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-385-14316-5}}
• {{cite book|last=Wayne |first=Jane Ellen |title=Cooper's Women |publisher=Prentice Hall Press |location=New York |year=1988 |isbn=978-0-13-172438-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/cooperswomen0000wayn }}

{{Refend}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{Official website}}
• {{IMDb name}}
• {{TCMDb name}}

{{Navboxes

|title = Awards for Gary Cooper

|list =

{{AcademyAwardBestActor 1941–1960}}

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}}

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