It’s amazing to think that Gary Cooper went to school in England for a few years.
Both of Gary’s parents were English immigrants; his father Charles was a member of a Bedfordshire farming family. When they moved to America – Helena, Montana, Charles, a lawyer bought a 600 acre ranch, the ‘Seven Bar Nine’ along the Missouri River.
Gary’s mother, Alice, decided that Gary (born Frank James Cooper) and his older brother Arthur needed some ‘British discipline’ and took them to England in 1910. They lived in Dunstable , with their cousin Emily Barton, and went to Dunstable Grammar school .
The brothers stayed in England for three years.
Gary kept in touch with his British relatives and visited them through to the 1950s.
Gary is circled in red.
In 2010, Dunstable had a Gary Cooper festival. Hope there was a good turnout.
You are a legend when Irving Berlin names you in a song!
From “Puttin’ on the Ritz”:
”Dressed up like a million dollar trouper;
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper – super-duper!”
HIGH NOON
Vienna's Classic Hollywood 
Very interesting – never knew of his origins
Neither did I!
I can’t see those lines from “Puttin’ on the Ritz” without thinking of Peter Boyle as the monster in “Young Frankenstein” screeching “Super-duper.”
Of course!
Cooper was the favorite U.S. actor of the renowned Russian director, Konstantin Stanislavsky; his favorite actress was Laurette Taylor, who had such a seemingly effortless immediacy and clarity on the stage that it could create a magic of its own, which made her the greatest actress of her day among her peers. Whenever I think of Cooper, I think also of his clarity of naturalism – contrasted with the unintelligible diction of supposedly “natural” film actors today!
Cooper was indeed so natural, like Spencer Tracy. They made acting look easy.