Gary Cooper (1901-1961) possessed a distinctive screen image that mirrored much that was worthy in the American character. By box office figures, Cooper was the most popular male film star of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Although he had great limitations, such accomplished performers as Charles Laughton, John Barrymore, and Charles Chaplin considered him America's most skilled film actor.

Gary Cooper was born on May 7, 1901 in Helena, Montana, to Charles Henry Cooper, a lawyer, and Alice Louise Brazier, both English immigrants. As a lawyer, assistant U.S. attorney, and State Supreme Court justice, Charles Cooper was grimly determined to bring order to Helena, which still honored the vigilante tradition. His wife was equally fixed upon providing her two sons with a proper education, removed from the crudeness of a small western community. For four years Cooper attended Dunstable Public School in England. Totally unprepared for the rigor and...