John Leslie Coogan (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984) was an American actor and comedian who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films.
Charlie Chaplins film classic The Kid (1921) made him one of the first child stars in the history of Hollywood. He later sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, the California Child Actors Bill, widely known as the Coogan Act. Coogan continued to act throughout his life, later earning renewed fame in middle age portraying bumbling Uncle Fester in the 1960s television series The Addams Family.
Jackie Coogan, who in 1919 became the first major child star in American movie history as the sad-eyed foundling in The Kid, died after a heart attack yesterday at the Santa Monica (Calif.) Hospital. He was 69 years old and lived in Palm Springs, Calif.
Mr. Coogan, who charmed a later generation as Uncle Fester on the television series The Addams Family, was taken to the hospitals emergency room shortly before noon, said a hospital spokesman, Mary Isaacs. He died two hours later.
For several years in the 1920s, he was the most famous boy in America. In one popularity poll, he topped Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks.
I had the flu in New York, and it pushed the President of the United States off the front pages, he said in an interview in 1972.
After making his stage debut at the age of 16 months, he earned between $2 million and $4 million before he was out of short pants. Spotted by Chaplin
At the age of 4, he was spotted on a Hollywood vaudeville stage by Charlie Chaplin, who gave him a $75-a-week role in The Kid. When the film was finished, he received a $5,000 bonus. Then came Pecks Bad Boy at $1,000 a week, followed by a $500,000 Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer contract with a clause guaranteeing him 60 percent of the profits from such pictures as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Unlock more free articles.
Create an account or log in
John Leslie Coogan Jr. was born in Los Angeles, and by the time he was 13 he had been to New York 18 times, most often traveling in his private railroad car.
Normal boy? he said in the 1972 interview. How would I know what a normal boy would do? When I was 7, we bought a big house at the corner of Wilshire and Western and put in one of the earliest swimming pools in Southern California.
Being who I was, I had the best swimming instructor - Duke Kahanamoku - the year after he won the Olympics. I surfed from Baja California to San Francisco when there were only 9 or 10 surfers on the entire Pacific Coast. I drank milk from my own ranch. Other boys went to see Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth came to see me. Death of Father
Editors' Picks
Mandy Moore Is Ready to Be Heard
A Royal Instagram Mystery
But his life unraveled months before his 21st birthday. After a day of dove hunting in Mexico, the car his father was driving was forced off the road. The young actor was badly bruised, and his father and three other passengers were killed.
Mr. Coogan said later that the rest of his life would have been different if his father had survived. The reason was money.
Of the millions he had made as a child star, all he had ever received was a weekly allowance of $6.25. When he turned 21, his mother, Lillian, and Arthur Bernstein, the family lawyer whom she had married, announced that they would not turn any of it over to him. The law is on our side, and Jackie Coogan will not get a cent from his past earnings, Mr. Bernstein declared at a news conference.
After a childhood of virtually unquestioning obedience, Mr. Coogan agonized for two years before deciding to file suit to recover the money. Blackballed by the Studios
It was the lowest point of my life, he said in 1972, because my stepfather was related to many people, and I was blackballed by the studios.
His anxiety was compounded by the disintegration of his first marriage, to a young starlet named Betty Grable. Eighteen months later, when the lawsuit was settled, he was left with only $35,000 - but with the knowledge that such a situation could not recur.
Forty-eight hours after I filed my suit, they rushed a new law through the Legislature, he said. The measure said that all juvenile actors earnings had to be deposited in court-administered trust funds.
Mr. Coogan became a stage actor in 1937 and estimated in 1966 that he had appeared in 35 silent films, 100 talkies and 850 television programs, including more than 65 episodes of The Addams Family. His Uncle Fester character in that series would stuff a light bulb in his mouth and make it glow. A Landing in Burma
In World War II, Mr. Coogan joined the Army as a flight officer and was the first glider pilot to land Allied troops behind the Japanese lines in Burma.
If you think the natives were surprised when our gliders landed, he said, you should have seen them when we opened up the mouth of one and drove out a jeep. He was later awarded the Air Medal for meritorious service.
After his divorce from Miss Grable, he married another actress, Flower Parry, in 1941. They were divorced two years later, and in 1946 he married Ann McCormick, from whom he was divorced in 1951. The following year, he married Dorothea Lamphere, a dancer, who was at his bedside when he died.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Anthony, of Los Angeles, and Chris, of Palm Springs; two daughters, Joan, of Los Angeles, and Leslie Franklin of Malibu, and two grandchildren.
Silent movie child star Jackie Coogan was born John Leslie Coogan Jr. on October 26th, 1914 in Los Angeles, California to a show business family. His father, John H. Coogan, had been born in Syracuse and worked in an apothecary and then in vaudeville as an actor and dancer, and his mother had been a child star on the stage. Shortly after Jackies birth the Coogans went east and it was in New York that Jackie made his first real appearance in the theater, at the age of four years. At age five he began touring with his family in vaudeville shows.
Charles Chaplin had long been planning a movie project called "The Kid", but had kept postponing his film because he could not find the right child actor to star opposite him. A friend of Chaplins knew of his ambition and thought of Jackie for the role. He brought Charlie down to the hotel where the Coogans were staying and introduced young Jackie to him. Chaplin was impressed and knew right away he had found the perfect youngster for his movie. To test Jackie, Chaplin gave him a small role in his film "A Days Pleasure" (1919), which proved that he had star quality. They then began filming Chaplins "The Kid" (1921), a memorable film in which the Little Tramp rescues and raises a street urchin named Jackie, eventually losing him. The movie effectively combined both pathos and humor and was a great success for Charlie and Jackie. Jackie went on to play a child in a number of popular films in the 1920s, such as "Pecks Bad Boy" (1921), "Oliver Twist" (1922) opposite Lon Chaney, and "The Rag Man" (1925 - recently restored and re-scored for Turner Classic Movies), and he continued to tour with his father on the stage. Although there were other child stars performing in films in the 1920s, Jackies career and stardom were the most heavily promoted during the decade. Magazines of the day depicted Jackie touring the world with his father, Jackie at birthday parties, Jackie posing in front of his expensive toys, his cars, his homes, etc. At the height of his career in the 1920s, he was one of the most highly paid performers in Hollywood, earning millions for the studios which hired him, including First National, Lesser, Universal, M-G-M, and for his own production company set up by his parents, called Jackie Coogan Productions.
Child star Jackie Coogan - goldensilents.com
By 1927, at the age of 13, Jackie Coogan had grown up on the screen and his career was starting to wind down as he aged and other child stars took hold of the publics fancy. He made sound versions of "Tom Sawyer" (1930) and Huckleberry Finn" (1931), but these movies were not as popular as his earlier films during the silent era. His personal family life was about to be thrust into turmoil as well. His parents divorced and his mother re-married Arthur Bernstein, who became Jackies business manager. In 1936, Jackies father died, along with his best friend, in a terrible automobile accident. Jackie had been in the car and was injured, but recovered. When he came of age he naturally wanted the money which he had earned making films as a child star, but his mother and his step-father refused his request. Jackie filed suit against them for the four million dollars that he had earned during those years. Under California Law at the time he had no rights to the money he made as a child, and he was eventually awarded only $126,000 in 1939! The public was outraged when they learned of the situation, and the California Legislature was pressured to pass the "Coogan Act", which would set up a trust fund for any child actor to protect his earnings.
Jackie Coogan as Fester in The Addams Family
Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester in "The Addams Family" in 1964
Jackie Coogan married four times and had four children. In 1937, he married actress Betty Grable, but the marriage lasted only three years. During World War Two Jackie served in the Army, then returned to Hollywood after the war. He worked in small budget movies, playing mostly bit parts. In the 1950s he began to find acting work on television. Almost broke by the 1960s, he suddenly hit his stride again, starring in two comedy television series, "McKeever and the Colonel", which ran from 1962-63, and the classic "The Addams Family", which ran from 1964-1966, in which he played funny, baldheaded Uncle Fester. In 1972 Jackie was reunited with his old friend Charlie Chaplin, who returned to the United States to accept an honorary Oscar. Jackie and a small crowd of well wishers met Charlie at the airport, and the frail Chaplin, upon recognizing Jackie, broke down, hugged him and whispered to him, "I think I would rather see you than anybody else." Jackie Coogan would continue making acting appearances in a number of television shows, commercials, and in a handful of movies, until his death from a heart attack on March 1st, 1984 in Santa Monica, California. ~ Copyright © 2004 goldensilents.com
Jackie Coogans Silent Films
Buttons (1927) .... Buttons
Bugle Call, The (1927) .... Billy Randolph
Johnny Get Your Hair Cut (1927) .... Johnny ODay
Old Clothes (1925) .... Timothy Kelly
Silent movie star Jackie Coogan - Golden Silents
Rag Man, The (1925) .... Tim Kelly
Hello Frisco (1924)
Little Robinson Crusoe (1924) .... Mickey Hogan
... aka Robinson Crusoe Jr. (1924)
Boy of Flanders, A (1924) .... Nello
Long Live the King (1923) .... Crown Prince Otto
Circus Days (1923) .... Toby Tyler
Daddy (1923) .... Jackie Savelli/Jackie Holden
Trouble (1922) .... Danny, the Kid
... aka Trouble, Keep Smiling (1922) (USA)
Oliver Twist (1922) .... Oliver Twist
My Boy (1921) .... Jackie Blair
Pecks Bad Boy (1921) .... Pecks Bad Boy (Henry Peck)
Kid, The (1921) .... The Kid
Days Pleasure, A (1919) .... Smallest Boy
... aka Ford Story, A (1919) (USA)
Skinners Baby (1917) (uncredited) .... The Baby
John Leslie Coogan (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984) was an American actor and comedian who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films.[2]
Charlie Chaplins film classic The Kid (1921) made him one of the first child stars in the history of Hollywood. He later sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, the California Child Actors Bill, widely known as the Coogan Act.[3] Coogan continued to act throughout his life, later earning renewed fame in middle age portraying bumbling Uncle Fester in the 1960s television series The Addams Family.
Contents
1Early life and early career
1.1Coogan Bill
1.2Charity work
2Later years
2.1Film
2.2Radio
2.3World War II
2.4Television
3Marriages and children
4Death
5Filmography
6References
7Further reading
8External links
Early life and early career
Coogan as a child actor with Charlie Chaplin in The Kid (1921)
Coogan was born as John Leslie Coogan in 1914 in Los Angeles, California, to John Henry Coogan Jr. and Lillian Rita (Dolliver) Coogan.[1][4] He began performing as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited role in the 1917 film Skinners Baby. Charlie Chaplin discovered him in the Orpheum Theatre, a vaudeville house in Los Angeles, on the stage doing the shimmy, a dance popular at the time. Coogans father was also an actor, as was Jackies younger brother, Robert Coogan.
Coogan was a natural mimic and delighted Chaplin with his abilities. Chaplin cast him in a small role in A Days Pleasure (1919). He was the abandoned child raised by Chaplin in The Kid (1921) and the following year played the title role in Oliver Twist, directed by Frank Lloyd. Coogan was one of the first stars to be heavily merchandised. Peanut butter, stationery, whistles, dolls, records, and figurines were among the Coogan-themed merchandise on sale. Coogan was tutored until the age of 10, when he entered Urban Military Academy and other prep schools. He attended several colleges, as well as the University of Southern California. In 1932, he dropped out of Santa Clara University because of poor grades.
In November 1933, 22-year-old Brooke Hart, a close friend of Coogan from Santa Clara University and heir to a successful department store in San Jose, was kidnapped as he drove his car out of a parking lot. After several demands for a $40,000 ransom were delivered to the family, police arrested Thomas Thurmond and Jack Holmes in San Jose. Thurmond admitted that he and Holmes had murdered Hart the same day he was kidnapped. Both killers were transferred to a jail in downtown San Jose. A mob broke into the jail, and Thurmond and Holmes were hanged from a tree in a nearby park, with the unapologetic approval of the states governor. Coogan was reported to be present and to have held the lynching rope.[5]
In 1935, 20-year-old Coogan was the sole survivor of a car crash in eastern San Diego County that killed his father; his best friend, 19-year-old actor Junior Durkin;[6] their ranch foreman, Charles Jones; and actor and writer Robert J. Horner. The party was returning from a day of dove hunting over the border in Mexico in early May. With his father at the wheel, the car was forced off the mountain highway near Pine Valley by an oncoming vehicle and rolled down an embankment.[7][8][9]
Coogan Bill
Main article: California Child Actors Bill
“Mr. and Mrs. Bernstein will never be serious contenders for the title of Mr. and Mrs. America.”
— New York Herald Tribune, 1938[10]
As a child star, Coogan earned an estimated $3 to $4 million. When he turned 21 in October 1935, his fortune was believed to be well intact. His assets had been conservatively managed by his father, who had died in the car accident five months earlier.[11]
However, Coogan found that the entire amount had been spent by his mother and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein, on fur coats, diamonds and other jewelry, and expensive cars. Bernstein had been a financial advisor for the family and married Coogans mother in late 1936.[12] Coogans mother and stepfather claimed 2024 Jackie enjoyed himself and simply thought he was playing before the camera. She insisted, "No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything",[10] and claimed he "was a bad boy".[13] Coogan sued them in 1938,[12] but after his legal expenses, he received just $126,000 of the $250,000 remaining of his earnings. When he fell on hard times and asked Charlie Chaplin for assistance, Chaplin handed him $1,000 without hesitating.[14]
The legal battle focused attention on child actors and resulted in the 1939 enactment of the California Child Actors Bill, often referred to as the "Coogan Law" or the "Coogan Act". It required that a child actors employer set aside 15% of the earnings in a trust (called a Coogan account), and specified the actors schooling, work hours, and time off.[15]
Charity work
Coogan worked with Near East relief, he toured across the United States and Europe in 1924 on a "Childrens Crusade" as part of his fundraising drive, which provided more than $1 million in clothing, food, and other contributions (worth more than $13 million in 2012 dollars). He was honored by officials in the United States and Greece where he had an audience with Pope Pius XI.[16]
A Roman Catholic, Coogan was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills.[17]
Later years
Film
Coogan appeared with then-wife Betty Grable in College Swing, a 1938 musical comedy starring George Burns, Gracie Allen, Martha Raye and Bob Hope.
Radio
In 1940, Coogan played the role of "a playboy Broadway producer" in the Society Girl program on CBS radio.[18] He also starred in his own program, Forever Ernest, on CBS from April 29, 1946, to July 22, 1946.[19]
World War II
Coogan enlisted in the U.S. Army in March 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, he requested a transfer to Army Air Forces as a glider pilot because of his civilian flying experience. Graduating the Advanced Glider School with the Glider Pilot aeronautical rating and the rank of Flight Officer,[20] he volunteered for hazardous duty with the 1st Air Commando Group.[21]
In December 1943, the unit was sent to India. He flew British troops, the Chindits, under General Orde Wingate on March 5, 1944, landing them at night in a small jungle clearing 100 miles (160 km) behind Japanese lines in the Burma Campaign.[22][23]
Coogan in a publicity shot as the character Uncle Fester for The Addams Family TV series
Television
After the war, Coogan returned to acting, taking mostly character roles and appearing on television. From 1952 to 1953, he played Stoney Crockett on the syndicated series Cowboy G-Men. He guest-starred on NBCs The Martha Raye Show. He appeared too, as Corbett, in two episodes of NBCs 1960 series The Outlaws. In the 1960–1961 season, he guest-starred in the episode "The Damaged Dolls" of the crime drama The Brothers Brannagan. In 1961, he guest-starred in an episode of The Americans, an NBC series about family divisions stemming from the Civil War. He also appeared in episode 37, titled "Barney on the Rebound", of The Andy Griffith Show, which aired October 31, 1961. He had a regular role in a 1962–63 NBC series, McKeever and the Colonel. He finally found his most famous television role as Uncle Fester in ABCs The Addams Family (1964–1966). He appeared as a police officer in the Elvis Presley comedy Girl Happy in 1965.[24]
He appeared four times on the Perry Mason series, including the role of political activist Gus Sawyer in the 1963 episode, "The Case of the Witless Witness", and TV prop man Pete Desmond in the final episode, "The Case of the Final Fadeout", in 1966. He was a guest several times on The Red Skelton Show, appeared twice on The Brady Bunch ("The Fender Benders" and "Double Parked"), I Dream of Jeannie (as Jeannies uncle, Suleiman – Maharaja of Basenji), Family Affair, Heres Lucy and The Brian Keith Show, and continued to guest-star on television (including multiple appearances on The Partridge Family, The Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-O, and McMillan and Wife) until his retirement in the middle 1970s. Coogan also appeared in the first season of Barnaby Jones; episode titled, "Sing a Song of Murder" (04/01/1973).
Marriages and children
Coogan was married four times, and had four children. His first three marriages to actresses were short-lived.[3] He and Betty Grable were engaged in 1935 and married on November 20, 1937,[25] [26][27] and they divorced less than two years later on October 11, 1939. Eighteen months later on August 10, 1941, he married Flower Parry (d.1981). They had one son, John Anthony Coogan (writer/producer of 3D digital and film), born March 4, 1942, in Los Angeles; they divorced on June 29, 1943.[28] Coogan married his third wife, Ann McCormack, on December 26, 1946;[29][30] a daughter, Joann Dolliver Coogan, was born April 2, 1948,[31] in Los Angeles. They divorced on September 20, 1951.[32][33][34]
Dorothea Odetta Hanson, also known as Dorothea Lamphere, best known as Dodie, was a dancer and became Coogans fourth wife in April 1952, and they were together over 30 years until his death. She died in 1999. They had two children together, a daughter, Leslie Diane Coogan, born November 24, 1953 in Los Angeles, and a son, Christopher Fenton Coogan, born July 9, 1967 in Riverside County, California, who died in a motorcycle accident in Palm Springs, California on June 29, 1990.[35][36]
Leslie Coogan has a son, actor Keith Coogan, who was born Keith Eric Mitchell on January 13, 1970. He began acting in 1975, and changed his name in 1986, two years after his grandfathers death. His roles include the oldest son in Adventures in Babysitting and Dont Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead.
Footage of Jackie with his grandson Keith can be seen in the 1982 documentary Hollywoods Children.
Death
Grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California
Coogans health in later years was seriously impaired by his chain smoking and alcoholism.[37] After suffering from heart and kidney ailments, Coogan died of heart failure on March 1, 1984, at age 69, in Santa Monica, California.[38] He had previously suffered several strokes and had been undergoing kidney dialysis when his blood pressure dropped. Coogan was taken to Santa Monica Hospital, where he died from cardiac arrest.[3]
At his request, Coogans funeral was open to the public and he was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.[39][40] His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 1654 Vine Street, just south of Hollywood Boulevard.[41]
This is the family of Jackie Coogan, the child actor. His
family settled in Onondaga County, NY (principally Syracuse) in
the early part of the 19th century. Initially, the family
worked for the railroad. Jackies grandfather, John Henry
Coogan, was one of the first to chose another profession -
druggist.
Jackies father was John Henry Coogan, JR, a vaudeville
performer. Together with his wife, Lillian Dolliver, he
attempted to enter the new Hollywood movie business (c.1910).
John Leslie Coogan (Jackie) was born in 1914. Even as a baby,
he accompanied his parents on several movie sets. Charlie
Chaplin was responsible for casting Jackie in his first major
movie - The Kid (1921).
After many movies as a child actor, Jackie entered adult life
with a startling realization - that his parents had squandered
his entire movie fortune! Following a highly publicized lawsuit
against his mother, Jackie was only able to regain a paltry
amount for all his years as a star. Lawmakers immediately set
to work to ensure that such a thing could never happen again,
creating the Child Actors Bill (the so-called Coogan Law) to
protect the careers of child stars and their money.
Jackie was a glider pilot in World War II and later appeared in
movies and on TV as an adult (most famously as Uncle Fester on
The Addams Family). He died in 1984.
This family has also been found as CAGAN and COOKEN.
