Cooper, Gary

1901–1961

American Actor

Alongside John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, and Jimmy Stewart, the actor Gary Cooper has become one of the foremost masculine archetypes in classic American film. In his most [Page 110]memorable roles, Cooper manifested a quiet, self-effacing, and long-suffering strength that earned him the epithet, “The Last American Hero.” Best known for his Oscar-winning performances in Sergeant York (1941) and High Noon (1952), as well as for his portrayal of Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Cooper became an ideal of American masculinity for moviegoers from the 1930s through the early 1950s.

Born Frank Cooper, Gary Cooper began his film career as a stunt rider in early Westerns. As his fame grew, Cooper became acutely conscious of cultural expectations, explaining at one point that “[t]o get folks to like you…I figured you had to be sort of their ideal. I don't mean a handsome knight riding a white horse, but a fella who answered the description of a right guy” (Lanche). Throughout the course of his career, both on- and offscreen, Cooper constructed such an image so effectively that, by the 1950s, his universal appeal seemed unimpeachable. He was the quiet, capable, principled man, his vulnerability offset by a commitment to his unerring moral compass.

Cooper's image evokes the simple confidence of an America flush with the patriotic triumph of the post–World War II era, as well as the moral certainty that typically characterized the United States through much of the conservative 1950s. During the Cold War era, despite his involvement in Senator Joseph McCarthy's efforts to root out suspected communists in Hollywood, the politically conservative Cooper managed to placate both sides. Appearing as a friendly witness at McCarthy's hearings, but not naming names, he maintained both patriotism and integrity. As the author Ernest Hemingway, a close friend of Cooper's, once observed,“If you made up a character like Coop, nobody would believe it. He's just too good to be true” (Meyers, 175).

Cooper made his greatest cultural impact as Will Kane in Fred Zinnemann's 1952 Western High Noon. Portraying a heroic marshall abandoned by the town he protects, Cooper became ingrained in the American imagination as the lone hero who refused to desert the community that betrayed him, embodying simultaneously the masculine virtues of self-sufficiency and dutiful protection. Although interpretations of the film's ultimate message differ widely, Cooper's image as the vulnerable but unyielding marshall has become his most enduring legacy.

Cooper's portrayals of humble, beleaguered, but legendary heroes made him an indelible part of the American cultural imagination. In many contemporary discussions of masculinity, the masculine ideal that Cooper exemplifies has come under scrutiny and attack by gender theorists: he epitomized the strong, silent type, suffering adversity with stoicism and perseverence, but rarely communicating emotion. His significance as a national icon has become similarly dated, though perhaps more nostalgically remembered, evoking a system of belief and a means of dealing with adversity that seem untenable in an increasingly complex world.

Throughout his career, Cooper's embodiment of both wise, paternalistic authority and frontier self-sufficiency represented a mid-twentieth-century masculine ideal. His screen persona embodied the American optimism—the faith in the ultimate triumph of simple and self-evident justice—that prevailed until the turmoil of the 1960s saw that confidence undermined. Since his death, he has come to signify the loss of American innocence.

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