Hollywood, Calif, Sep. 4 (I.N.S.) - Three years ago a 5-year-old boy hung around Lloyd Hamilton, the chunky comedian, for two weeks while Hamilton was making a picture and because Hamilton used the boy in a scene or two, the boy was paid. Nobody recalled today whether the check was for $5 or $10.
Today, however, the same boy, Jackie Cooper, is getting $1,300 a week as a motion picture star, and his contract calls for an increasing scale of pay, so three years hence he will earn more in a week than the average American grown-up gets in two years.
Young Cooper was 8 when his mother asked a Los Angeles court for an order permitting her to spend $1,600 a month of the boy's earnings in his support. The mother is a widow, formerly known as Maude Deonard. She earned her living as a pianist in a vaudeville team.
After the grand adventure of being photographed with Lloyd Hamilton, Jackie was entered in competition with a number of other children for a job with Hal Roach, who was producing "Our Gang" comedies.
Jackie won and for two years played in the "Gang" and increased is earnings to three figures a week.
Then he made "Skippy," a picture play based on Percy L. Crosby's comic strip, and Jackie's pay jumped to four figures and became classed as income.
"Skippy" put young Cooper on the motion picture map as a child actor who won his way with ability. It was only after he had risen to success that it became known Norman Taurog, the well-known director, was his uncle.