Jackie Coogan

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Jackie Coogan
Jackie Coogan in Berlin in 1928. His mother stands to his left and his father to the right

John Leslie "Jackie" Coogan (born October 26, 1914 in Los Angeles , California , † March 1, 1984 in Santa Monica , California) was an American actor . His appearance alongside Charlie Chaplin in The Kid made him one of the first child stars in film history.

Life

Career as a child star

Jackie Coogan was born the son of the actor couple John Henry Coogan Jr. (1886-1935) and Lilian Rita Coogan (née Dolliver, 1892-1977). As a toddler, he took on his first stage appearances in vaudeville shows. Coogan made his film debut when he was less than three years old with a small role in Skinner's Baby from 1917. A little later, the dancing Coogan was discovered in the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles by movie star Charlie Chaplin , who was impressed by the child's talent and immediately engaged him for his next film. He was assigned a small role in Chaplin's 1919 comedy Happily Hours .

Chaplin then shot the film with Coogan in late 1919 that would make him world famous after its premiere in 1921: The Kid . With this international film success, Coogan became one of the first great child stars in cinema history. Especially the silent films from his childhood are known to this day. This was followed by productions such as Oliver Twist (1922), Little Robinson Crusoe (1924) and Old Clothes (1925), in which he played the leading roles. Coogan made the leap into talkies and in 1930/31 he played Tom Sawyer in the first two sound film adaptations of Mark Twain's literary classics Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn . After Huckleberry Finn in 1931, the career as a child star came to an end for the now 17-year-old Coogan.

"Coogan Bill"

During his time as a child star earned Coogan total of about 4 million US dollars . The money had been put in a fund for him . His parents were separated and Jackie was with his father. His mother had a relationship with Jackie's former manager Arthur L. Bernstein. The money was administered by his father, and the son would receive his fortune when he came of age.

However, on May 4, 1935, five months before Jackie's legal age, his father was killed in a car accident in which Jackie was also slightly injured. Your car was forced to deviate from the road by an oncoming car, fell down a slope and overturned several times. In addition to Coogan's father, his friend, the young actor Junior Durkin , the ranch foreman Charles Jones and the film producer Robert J. Horner died. Jackie was the only one of the five vehicle passengers who survived with minor injuries because he was able to hold on and, unlike the other occupants, was not thrown out of the car.

The fund was now managed by Jackie's mother as his parents' marriage had not been legally divorced. When Jackie did not receive the money months later when he was of legal age, he sued his mother and stepfather. The process ended with a settlement after over a year. However, only a small part of Coogan's fortune was left at this point, as his mother and stepfather had largely wasted it by now. As a consequence of this process, the so-called Coogan Act (Coogan Bill) was created , which protects the income of underage entertainers in the USA to this day. The child's income always remains their property. 15 percent of the gross income, resulting from professional activity in sports or entertainment, is credited to an escrow account in favor of the minor and managed until he is of legal age.

Next life

In the late 1930s, Coogan starred in a few B-movies with moderate success . After serving in World War II , Coogan returned to acting again in the late 1940s, this time mainly on television, as in one of the leading roles in the western series Cowboy G-Men (1952-1953). In Hollywood cinema, Coogan was occasionally seen in character roles, for example alongside Montgomery Clift in Life is a Lie (1958) and John Wayne in Vultures Know No Mercy (1973). It was not until the 1960s that he was rediscovered by a wide audience through his role as the eccentric Uncle Fester in the hit television series The Addams Family . He has made other guest roles on television series such as Perry Mason , The Charming Jeannie , The Partridge Family and Smoking Colts .

Coogan died of a heart attack in 1984 at the age of 69 . He was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City , California. His first three marriages, to Betty Grable from 1937 to 1939, to Flower Parry from 1941 to 1943, and to Ann McCormack from 1946 to 1951, were all divorced. His last marriage to Dorothea Lamphere in 1952 lasted until his death. Coogan's grandson Keith Coogan also worked as a child actor.

A star on the Walk of Fame was donated in Coogan's honor .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Jackie Coogan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ Jackie Coogan at Allmovie
  2. ↑ Jackie Coogan at Allmovie
  3. ↑ Newspaper article about the accident from 1936
  4. ^ Archives of the Cornell Daily Sun , newspaper report from 1936
  5. ^ Coogan Act Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc. Retrieved September 19, 2019 .
  6. ↑ David Robinson: Chaplin. His life, his art . Diogenes, Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-257-22571-7 . P. 316
  7. ^ Obituary for Jackie Coogan in the New York Times
  8. ↑ Jackie Coogan at Find A Grave
personal data
SURNAME Coogan, Jackie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Coogan, John Leslie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California , United States
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1984
Place of death Santa Monica , California , United States