Early Life
Cooper was born in Helena, Montana, one of two sons of an English immigrant couple, Alice (née Brazier; 1873–1967) and Charles Henry Cooper (1865–1946). His father was a farmer from Houghton Regis Bedfordshire, who later became an American lawyer and judge, and his mother was from Kent. His mother hoped for their two sons to receive a better education than was available in Montana and arranged for the boys to attend Dunstable Grammar School in Bedfordshire, England, between 1910 and 1913. Following the outbreak of World War I, Cooper's mother brought her sons home and enrolled them at Gallatin Valley High School in Bozeman, Montana.
When Cooper was 13, he injured his hip in a car accident. He returned to his parents' ranch near Helena to recuperate by horseback riding at the recommendation of his doctor. Cooper studied at Iowa's Grinnell College until the spring of 1924, but did not graduate. He had tried out, unsuccessfully, for the college's drama club. He returned to Helena, managing the ranch and contributing cartoons to the local newspaper. In 1924, Cooper's father left the Montana Supreme Court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles. Their son, unable to make a living as an editorial cartoonist in Helena, joined them, moving there that same year, reasoning that he "would rather starve where it was warm, than to starve and freeze too."
Read more about this topic: Gary Cooper
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“[In early adolescence] she becomes acutely aware of herself as a being perceived by others, judged by others, though she herself is the harshest judge, quick to list her physical flaws, quick to undervalue and under-rate herself not only in terms of physical appearance but across a wide range of talents, capacities and even social status, whereas boys of the same age will cite their abilities, their talents and their social status pretty accurately.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“Bourgeois society is infected by monomania: the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes. It never hesitates to sacrifice human life to figures which look well on paper, such as national budgets or industrial balance sheets.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)