Did anyone ever have a longer, more varied career in show business than Jackie Cooper? Oh, yeah? Name him. You can't. A few others worked or have worked all their lives but no one topped him. As a kid, he was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor in 1931. You hear a lot about child stars who stop being stars once they stop being childs…but Jackie Cooper only stopped appearing in front of the cameras when he started appearing behind them. He was an Emmy-winning TV director as a grown-up and still an occasional actor.
I knew him first from his situation comedies, The People's Choice and Hennessy, and was then amazed to find out he was also in those "Our Gang" comedies I was watching on another channel. Always liked the guy and wish I had any sort of good personal anecdote to relate about him.
In perhaps the least-important thing he ever did in his long industry tenure, he directed an episode of the Superboy live-action series which I wrote. But it was shot in Florida and I didn't meet him then. (Didn't see the episode either but that's another story. I'm sure he did his usual fine, professional job.)
Within the last year or so, he was a guest at the Hollywood Collectors Show in Burbank, selling and signing autographed photos and memorabilia. I occasionally sat with Stan Freberg, who was placed right next to Mr. Cooper so I got to chat with him briefly — but never for very long since Cooper had a long, long line of folks waiting to meet him and get something signed. It was amazing how many of them were younger people who wanted to meet the man who played Perry White…and who were unaware of what, if anything else, he'd ever done. I think he liked talking to the few of us who knew what ever he'd ever done. It was an awful lot…so much so that it feels like "the rule of three" (i.e., celebrities die in threes) is in play here. Because that's about how many careers Jackie Cooper had…and they were all deservedly successful.