Jackie Cooper just can't see why so many people are calling 1931 a bad year. It's been a pretty good one for Jackie who has a couple of women to support and who manages to put something in the bank for real hard times.
"I never think about money," Jackie confided a few weeks ago with all the philosophy of his eight years, "but I like the things money will buy. It gives you a lot of luxuries like shoe trees and a room for my uncle."
"Do you really think a room for your uncle is a luxury?" we asked with a touch of elderly patronage.
"Well, yes," said Jackie, "You see before I started making money he used to sleep with me."
Jackie takes a lively interest in Santa Claus.
"I don't know about this Santa Claus business," he said, "all the grownups seem to believe in him but some of the smartest kids I know say there's something phoney in it."
Not an Outspoken Doubter.
Jackie doesn't go so far as to say he is among the doubters.
"I could use a good football," he explained, his face lighting up with a pleasurable anticipation, "I've been needing one ever since we kicked the old one through a window."
He frowned and stuck out that lower lip that is becoming as famous as Chevalier's.
"I guess we could have got it back," he said, "but . . . we just let it go."
"That certainly was the tactful thing to do."
"We thought it was," nodded Master Cooper.
He's a great youngster to interview if you don't "talk down" to him. There's something old about him, just as there is with the Skippy in Percy Crosby's book. There is a mannishness in his little face. There is a mannishness in the way he likes to sit down and have a real serious talk.
"He Has Lived Before."
"That boy is an old, old soul," says Irene Rich, who played with him in "The Champ." "Somewhere he has lived before. He says the most amazing things. He has a deep knowledge. When he comes up and puts his arms around you, you feel as though a great personality had bestowed something on you. I've never felt that sense of greatness from a child before."
That is from Irene Rich, the fond mother of two daughters. She is not alone in her opinion. This 8-year-old is the 9-day wonder of Hollywood, and of the entire college of movie critics. James Quirk, publisher of Photoplay, nominated him for the best performance of last year. Robert Sherwood devoted a long article to his genius. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences placed his characterization of Skippy among the ten best performances of last year and there has been widespread protest because he was not given the academy's award for the best characterization by a male performer. Lionel Barrymore nosed Jackie out of the coveted distinction after sharp balloting in the academy. Imagine an 8-year-old boy competing with the oldest member of America's oldest and most distinguished theatrical family. Brother John didn't even place among the first ten.
Not Fond of Honors.
"I don't particularly care for these honors they give people," Jackie confided in an exclusive interview given on a vacant lot near the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, "but I do like my fans. Some of my best fans live in Detroit. They sent me a tin donkey that kicks a clown in the stummick. It's very in-trick-ate."
He rubbed a lump on his head.
"You haven't hurt yourself?" we asked anxiously.
"No," he said, "my uncle Jack did it for me."
"You mean your uncle hurt you?"
"Sure," said Jackie breaking into a wide grin, "he had to."
"Why?"
Jackie was beginning to lose patience at the deliberation of adult thought.
"Because he's my sparring partner. I wouldn't stand for a sissy sparring partner that couldn't hurt me."
"You're different from a lot of grownup fighters."
"Not much," said Jackie, "I'm getting about as good as some of the big ones. When we were making 'The Champ,' Wally Beery really said 'Ouch' once when I hit him in the stummick."
His face broke into the broad beam of real achievement.
"Did you like to act with Mr. Beery?"
"He was lovely," admitted Master Cooper with a glow of real admiration. "I like to act with him. You don't need to be so careful of him as you do of Bobbie Coogan."
"How do you like to act with Bobbie?"
He wrinkled his brow and tugged at the toe of his shoe in a very judicial manner.
"Of course he's young. . . . ." Jackie explained. "But trouble with him is . . . . he don't think for himself."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean - well, he's just putty in the hands of a director."
We were a bit astonished at that.
"Do you mean," we said, "that the directors don't tell you what to do?"
Master Cooper kicked a tin can with his left foot and caught it neatly with his right.
"Oh, sure," he admitted, "they tell me what to do. In a general way but I work it out myself."
Finds a Natural "Skippy."
This is true to some extent, we learned later. "Skippy" was directed by Jackie's uncle, Norman Taurog. He was so impressed by the boy's resemblance of the Percy Crosby character that he did not burden him with elaborate instructions, but encouraged him to be natural. King Vidoe in directing "The Champ" pursued the same method.
Though the phenomenal talents of this child astound everyone, there is nothing mysterious about his origin. He was born within the shadow of the studios. His mother was a child performer years ago, but she was one of those professionally sweet little actresses with black curls and regular features. By the time she grew up she had grown out of the theater. She was working in a music store when she met Jackie's father, Johnny Cooper, a former vaudeville player. It is from his father that Jackie gets his blond hair and his quaintly irregular features. The father died when Jackie was a baby.
The mother did what she could to provide her little boy with a wholesome backgrond. There was a modest little cottage in a Los Angeles suburb where vacant lots provided inelegant but wholesome playgrounds. Jackie went to school while his mother earned the living. His Uncle Jack lived with them and helped with the support of Jackie and his grandmother.
Mother Also a Musician.
Mrs. Cooper enjoyed a brief period of prosperity as the accompanist in a vaudeville act, but she had to give that job up when the act went to Europe. She didn't want to be that far away from Jackie. Her next job was as an organist playing "atmosphere music" for silent pictures on the sets at the Fox studio.
When the talkies came in and "atmosphere music" was no longer necessary to give the players the tempo of the scene, she was desperately afraid she would lose her job, but it was fate working for the family through a devious channel. They didn't fire her, but gave her a job in the newly organized music department. While she was there, the company was casting the Movietone Follies.
There was a short juvenile interlude in one of the song presentations. Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown, the composers, had tested about 200 children for this bit. All of them failed to sing it satisfactorily.
Mrs. Cooper had been waiting for opportunity and she was on her toes when it came. Rushing to the telephone, she called her mother.
"Send Jackie over here to take a screen test," she said, "tell him he'll have to sing a little song and tell him not to let on that he knows me."
In due time Jackie put in his appearance. His face was shining, not so much with the excitement of the screen test but in the joy of a great impersonation. He wasn't recognizing his own mother. In fact he was ignoring her very elaborately.
Trying to look indifferent, and with her heart in her throat, she picked up the music and played the little tune.
"There's the kid!" exclaimed Brown when Jackie had sung a few bars. "I don't want to hear any more."
He told Jackie to come back the next day and had a check made out for him.
"Say - ," said Jackie putting in a sly word for a relative. "You know you've got a pretty good piano player over here."
Brown later saw Jackie's picture on his mother's desk and learned who he was. It was Brown who told Hal Roach that Jackie should be a member of the famous "Our Gang" and got him a job. Roach paid him $100 a week when he worked and $50 a week retainer on weeks when he was idle. Paramount borrowed him for "Skippy."
Now Earns $1,300 a Week.
After that Metro-Goldwyn bought his contract from Roach. Jackie now earns $1,300 a week. Mrs. Cooper paid his agent $10,000 in cash to release his claim on Jackie. At present she is his business manager, for which she gets $75 a week out of his salary. His grandmother gets another $75 for taking him to and from the studio. Nine hundred dollars is placed in a trust fund for him and the remainder used in providing him with a house and the living conditions which are supposed to surround a screen idol.
That's the story of the most popular boy in America. Today he looms large on Kansas City's amusement horizon. He's the star of "Sooky," the sequel to "Skippy," at the Newman this week. The Midland is featuring him in a short subject in which he is supported by Norma Shearer, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Robert Montgomery, Ramon Navarro, Cliff Edwards and most of the M-G-M stars.
"Yeah, I've done pretty well this year," Jackie admitted in the back lot interview. "I guess there's something in this thing of eating your spinach. I've eaten a lot of it. Gee!"
J. C. M.