Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper
John Cooper, Jr., known as Jackie Cooper, was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination. At age nine, he was also the youngest performer to have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role—an honor that he received for the film Skippy. For nearly 50 years, Cooper...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth15 September 1922
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
I was thrilled, naturally, at that age, if somebody wanted me to look and act a couple of years older than I was.
To me, the series was the end of the actor, when the series ended.
Well, they just don't know anything else except that one form of their business, acting, and they don't really want to learn any other part of it, or they would. Directing and producing and putting a show together is very creative, for me.
So if I keep making mistakes on Broadway or tape or film, producing, directing or acting, I can go along and do it - so long as I'm not investing too much capital in these things.
Keep 'em clear of things like leaves and tree branches and stuff. They run hot.
But the working I would always want to do.
From that, I became very anxious to produce something of my own.
I was a terrible little do-gooder, saccharine, most unreal kind of a character - except once in a while a director or script or combination of the two came along where I began to look like something else and sound like something else.
I would love to have a good director working with me and going through the early stages of putting a play together with me.
People like Spencer Tracy held up because they had the background originally, but to this day they never have changed Mr. Gable's role, or most of them.
I got schooled over at NBC on a soap opera, and I had a Sunday-afternoon show, an hour show sponsored by the Ford Foundation, a documentary, half live with film integration. I directed that.
We definitely would have to look for other funding.
But I want to do good work, after this series.
The studio didn't ask them to learn their trade, they just worked them, and when that personality or that gimmick or whatever they had ran dry at the box office, they were dropped and out.