page_title: Jackie Cooper
section_title: Start of acting career
hierarchical_section_title: Jackie Cooper / Start of acting career
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Jackie Cooper from the trailer for the film Broadway to Hollywood
context_page_description: John Cooper Jr. was an American actor, television director, producer, and executive. He was a child actor who made the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Oscar nomination. At age 9 he was the youngest performer to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, an honor that he received for the film Skippy. For nearly 50 years, Cooper remained the youngest Oscar nominee in any category.
context_section_description: Cooper first appeared in films as an extra with his grandmother, who took him to her auditions hoping it would help her get extra work. At age 3 Jackie appeared in Lloyd Hamilton comedies under the name of "Leonard".
  Cooper graduated to bit parts in feature films such as Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 and Sunny Side Up. His director in those films, David Butler, recommended Cooper to director Leo McCarey, who arranged an audition for the Our Gang comedy series produced by Hal Roach. In 1929, Cooper signed a three-year contract after joining the series in the short Boxing Gloves. He initially was to be a supporting character in the series, but by early 1930 his success in transitioning to sound films enabled him to become one of Our Gang's major characters. He was the main character in the episodes The First Seven Years and When the Wind Blows. His most notable Our Gang shorts explore his crush on Miss Crabtree, the schoolteacher played by June Marlowe. His Our Gang shorts included Teacher's Pet, School's Out, and Love Business.
  While under contract to Hal Roach Studios, in 1931 Cooper was loaned to Paramount to star in Skippy, directed by his uncle, Norman Taurog. At age 9, Cooper was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, the youngest actor to be nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor. Although Paramount paid Roach $25,000 for Cooper's services, Roach paid Cooper a standard salary of $50 per week.
  Our Gang producer Hal Roach sold Jackie's contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1931. Cooper acted with Wallace Beery in The Champ (1931), The Bowery (1933), The Choices of Andy Purcell (1933), Treasure Island (1934), and O'Shaughnessy's Boy (1935). In his autobiography, Cooper wrote that Beery was a disappointment and accused Beery of upstaging him and attempting to undermine his performances out of jealousy.
  Cooper played the title role in the first two Henry Aldrich films, What a Life (1939) and Life with Henry (1941).
caption: Cooper as he appeared in the film Broadway to Hollywood, 1933
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