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."
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