COOPER, Gary

(1901–1961)

   Born in Montana, Gary Cooper had a long career in Hollywood, starring in nearly every film genre. He was nominated for five Academy Awards and won two. He was also awarded an Honorary Academy Award just months before his death in 1961. Cooper began his career in the silent era and played a bit part in The Vanishing American (1925), but his first major film was The Virginian (1929), one of the earliest sound Westerns. This film, based on Owen Wister’s 1902 novel, has one of the most famous lines in any Western. In a saloon, Trampas (Walter Huston) calls the Virginian (Cooper) a “son of a bitch.” Cooper whips out his gun and slowly drawls, “If you want to call me that, smile.” Most agree, however, that Gary Cooper’s greatest Western was High Noon (1952), the great cold war Western. Cooper’s character, sheriff Will Kane, finds himself alone in a desperate attempt to save the town from Frank Miller and his boys, who are out to exact revenge after years in prison. Everywhere he turns, Kane is rejected: His wife leaves him. His deputy abandons him. People at the church simply pray. The saloon crowd jeers. Meanwhile the clock ticks down to noon when, by himself, Kane faces the outlaws. Cooper won one of his Oscars for this role.

   Gary Cooper is known for his solid, masculine persona — a man of few words. Essentially, he represents the stereotypical strong and silent cowboy hero of the classic Western. Perhaps his tendency toward few words results from his role as mediator between peace-loving townspeople and violent savages outside the town. Sometimes it appears that Cooper has fewer words in the script than anyone else. “Like his gun, language is a weapon the hero rarely uses, but when he does, it is with precise and powerful effectiveness. In addition, the hero’s taciturnity reflects his social isolation and his reluctance to commit himself to the action that he knows will invariably lead to another violent confrontation” (Cawelti 1999, 41).

   See also VERA CRUZ; THE VIRGINIAN.