page_title: Gary Cooper
section_title: Later films, 1953–61
hierarchical_section_title: Gary Cooper / Career / Later films, 1953–61
caption_attribution_description: English: Gary Cooper in the film trailer for Man of the West, 1958
context_page_description: Gary Cooper was an American actor known for his natural, authentic, and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, as well as receiving an Academy Honorary Award for his career achievements in 1961. He was one of the top 10 film personalities for 23 consecutive years, and one of the top money-making stars for 18 years. The American Film Institute ranked Cooper at No. 11 on its list of the 25 greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
  Cooper's career spanned 36 years, from 1925 to 1961, and included leading roles in 84 feature films. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era through to the end of the golden age of Classical Hollywood. His screen persona appealed strongly to both men and women, and his range of performances included roles in most major film genres. His ability to project his own personality onto the characters he played contributed to his natural and authentic appearance on screen. Throughout his career, he sustained a screen persona that represented the ideal American hero.
  Cooper began his career as a film extra and stunt rider, but soon landed acting roles.
context_section_description: After appearing in André de Toth's Civil War drama Springfield Rifle (1952)—a standard Warner Bros. film that was overshadowed by the success of its predecessor—Cooper made four films outside the United States. In Mark Robson's drama Return to Paradise (1953), Cooper plays an American wanderer who liberates the inhabitants of a Polynesian island from the puritanical rule of a misguided pastor. Cooper endured spartan living conditions, long hours, and ill health during the three-month location shoot on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa. Despite its beautiful cinematography, the film received poor reviews. Cooper's next three films were shot in Mexico. In Hugo Fregonese's action adventure film Blowing Wild (1953) with Barbara Stanwyck, he plays a wildcatter in Mexico who gets involved with an oil company executive and his unscrupulous wife with whom he once had an affair.
  In 1954, Cooper appeared in Henry Hathaway's Western drama Garden of Evil, with Susan Hayward, about three soldiers of fortune in Mexico hired to rescue a woman's husband. That same year, he appeared in Robert Aldrich's Western adventure Vera Cruz with Burt Lancaster. In the film, Cooper plays an American adventurer hired by Emperor Maximilian I to escort a countess to Vera Cruz during the Mexican Rebellion of 1866. All of these films received poor reviews but did well at the box-office. For his work in Vera Cruz, Cooper earned $1.4 million in salary and percent of the gross.
  During this period, Cooper struggled with health problems. As well as his ongoing treatment for ulcers, he suffered a severe shoulder injury during the filming of Blowing Wild when he was hit by metal fragments from a dynamited oil well. During the filming of Vera Cruz, he reinjured his hip falling from a horse, and was burned when Lancaster fired his rifle too close and the wadding from the blank shell pierced his clothing.
  In 1955, he appeared in Otto Preminger's biographical war drama The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, about the World War I general who tried to convince government officials of the importance of air power, and was court-martialed after blaming the War Department for a series of air disasters. Some critics felt that Cooper was miscast, and that his dull, tight-lipped performance did not reflect Mitchell's dynamic and caustic personality. In 1956, Cooper was more effective playing a gentle Indiana Quaker in William Wyler's Civil War drama Friendly Persuasion with Dorothy McGuire. Like Sergeant York and High Noon, the film addresses the conflict between religious pacifism and civic duty. For his performance, Cooper received his second Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to earn $8 million worldwide.
  In 1956, Cooper traveled to France to make Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon with Audrey Hepburn and Maurice Chevalier. In the film, Cooper plays a middle-aged American playboy in Paris who pursues and eventually falls in love with a much younger woman. Despite receiving some positive reviews—including from Bosley Crowther who praised the film's "charming performances"—most reviewers concluded that Cooper was simply too old for the part. While audiences may not have welcomed seeing Cooper's heroic screen image tarnished by his playing an aging roué trying to seduce an innocent young girl, the film was still a box-office success. The following year, Cooper appeared in Philip Dunne's romantic drama Ten North Frederick.
  In the film, which was based on the novel by John O'Hara, Cooper plays an attorney whose life is ruined by a double-crossing politician and his own secret affair with his daughter's young roommate. While Cooper brought "conviction and controlled anguish" to his performance, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, it was not enough to save what Bosley Crowther called a "hapless film".
  Despite his ongoing health problems and several operations for ulcers and hernias, Cooper continued to work in action 
caption: Cooper in Man of the West, 1958
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