Gary Cooper's Mid-Life Crisis

Gary Cooper was in a rut. The films he had made since 1943's back-to-back pairing with Ingrid Bergman {see previous post, In Love With Ingrid } had done little for his career, though some of them had been favorites with audiences  of the day, Cooper being one of the screen's most popular heroes having been on the film exhibitor's  Top Ten Money Making Stars {where he would make a total of 18 appearances} every year since 1941. The films Coop made in this period {1944-1948}, though made by some top-flight filmmakers like Cecil B.DeMille, Leo McCarey and Fritz Lang, fell short of expectations. Possibly worse than the movies themselves were the people Coop was asked to inhabit. Since his successful turns as Sergeant York, for which he won 1941's Oscar as Best Actor and 1942's Pride of the Yankees as Lou Gehrig, Coop's screen characters became dull and simple and as the 1940's progressed his screen persona became considerably whitewashed, with no hint of the danger that he carried within the good guy of earlier films like Lives of the Bengal Lancer {1935}, The General Died at Dawn {1936} or Ernst Lubitsch's Design For Living {1933}. By 1948 Gary Cooper needed something bold and dynamic, a movie and a character that would shake up, not only Hollywood's perception of him but his perception of himself. With the making of The Fountainhead Cooper got what he wanted, and then some.

Cooper may have been miscast as Howard Roark, but he was brave to step out of his comfort zone and try something that stretched his talent.

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead published in 1943 was her first literary success and Warner Brothers studio bought the rights later that year. Though sales were slow at first, by 1945 the book was ranked #6 on the New York Times Best Seller List. Warners wanted Humphrey Bogart for the architect Howard Roark and Barbara Stanwyck for the female lead, Dominique Francon, with Mervyn LeRoy inked to direct. By 1946, with numerous delays plaguing the project, LeRoy took refuge back at Metro where he was under contract and Stanwyck had been replaced in favor of Bogie's new wife, new screen sensation Lauren Bacall. Bogie & Bacall had become an extremely successful team on screen, co-starring in Howard Hawks' To Have And Have Not {Bacall's screen debut} and The Big Sleep, within two year's time. In place of the departed LeRoy Warner's signed King Vidor, fresh from his frustrating experience of guiding Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton in the lusty western, Duel in the Sun {Vidor walked off the picture before it's completion, due to the constant interference of it's producer and Jennifer Jones' lover and future husband, David O. Selznick}.Vidor also thought Bogie a good choice for Roark but author Rand, who had a unique contract for a writer at the time and was also slated to write the screenplay, wanted Gary Cooper and said she couldn't see anyone else playing the part; exit Bogart, enter Cooper. With Bogart no longer on board, Warner's decided to drop Miss Bacall in favor of 22 year old newcomer Patricia Neal who had made just one previous picture, John Loves Mary a comedy with Ronald Reagan. Cooper had viewed Miss Neal's screen test and came away unimpressed. However he wasn't the type to make waves; if Warner's and Vidor thought Neal was good enough, it was fine by him. Filming was to commence on July 12, 1948, with budget of $2.1 million. 

Lobby card promo.

Filming of The Founntainhead  proceeded on the Warners back lot and some location work, mostly for the stone quarry scenes, around Fresno, California and concluded without a hitch on October 8, 1948. Well, there was one slight hitch: Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper fell in love. Coop, at that time 47 to Neal's 22, was old enough to be her father. It was not unlike Cooper to indulge in the occasional affair with his leading lady of the moment  {his affair with Bergman on For Whom The Bells Toll and Saratoga Trunk was essentially an open secret}. These affairs were basically accepted by his wife of 15 years, the former Veronica Balfe, a socialite from New York City, nicknamed Rocky. The Coopers had one child, a daughter Maria, born in 1937. Cooper doted on his only child and loved her more than life itself, but Cooper's home life wasn't entirely satisfying or stimulating, hence his periodical affairs. It is generally acknowledged that Rocky knew of these indiscretions, which ended when filming finished on whatever movie Cooper was working on, and looked the other way. Rocky, knowing her husband to be one of the most desirable men of the western world, realized he was tempted to stray far more than he actually did. As long as the indulgences where kept quiet and Gary returned to her, Rocky would play the game of many a Hollywood wife. Another thing is that she truly loved her husband and didn't want to lose him with questions or poking into something she knew was only transitory. Patricia Neal, on the other hand, was different.

Real love, right up on the screen. With Patricia Neal, The Fountainhead.

Unlike all of Cooper's other affairs with his leading ladies, the one with Neal didn't take place until after filming Fountainhead was completed, the night of the wrap party, although many thought {even director Vidor assumed} it had already taken place. According to Neal, it wasn't some divine goodness that prevented them from going to bed together before filming was complete, no, it was because they felt, had they made love, the sexual tension they generated on screen would dissipate. In other words, they were kept from screwing for their art. Subsequently, once consummated, both found themselves madly in love and that is what made their pairing such a threat to Cooper's marriage. Rocky found out about the affair fairly early on, sometime around July of 1949, just as the movie was playing around the nation's theater's. The Cooper's, for the longest time, went on playing house as if nothing was wrong, with Cooper seeing Neal on the sly as much as he could. Of course, times being what they were  {essentially hypocritical} and seeing what Ingrid Bergman's affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini did for her career {nearly ruined it}, the Cooper's and Neal attempted to keep it hush-hush from Hollywood press and the public at large. No one wanted a scandal that could effectively end Cooper and Neal's career's and also put Maria smack in the middle of a devastating situation. Maria also knew of the pairing of Neal with her father because Rocky felt the girl had sensed something unusual going on and decided rather than leave the child in the dark, she would tell Maria what had happened. When Maria met her mother's rival for her father's affection, the little girl spat on the ground, Maria's face streaked with tears, as Neal put it " ...such a little girl...... spat with so much hate."

 As for the movie, released on July 2 ,1949, The Fountainhead was considered both a critical disappointment and something of a box office flop, returning only $2.1 million on it's $2.5 million cost. A melodrama about individualism, The Fountainhead has an over-the-top, operatic quality, both in some of it's dialogue and some of the performances, namely Henry Hull's brief appearance early in the film as  Henry Cameron, Roark's architect guru, and Robert Douglas' bad-ass Ellsworth M. Toohey, a cultural critic who opposes Roark's unwavering personal vision and generally is the fly in the film's ointment. Director Vidor films in an expressionistic style with stark shadows and striking, angular sets. Ayn Rand's dialogue is at times a bit much to take, making the performances all the more impressive. Patricia Neal gives Dominique { i.e; dominate } a horny obsessiveness. When she first sees Roark at the rock quarry one can see the wanton lust in her eyes. Yet she is not an easy one to tame as Cooper's Roark finds out from the time she blasts his face with a riding crop for not showing up in her bedroom to fix the chip her marble fireplace, a chip she made herself so she can get a closer look at this Adonis. In a famous scene, Dominique ends up getting raped by Roark for her face-slashing episode in a mesmerizing moment that is almost embarrassing to watch, but just try looking away.  The ironic thing is, Fountainhead seems to have been a bit ahead of the times and has been reassessed by modern day critics who have come away from it generally impressed by it's excesses. It has a 83% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 7 from a possible 10 on Internet Movie Database. Unfortunately, this did nothing for the film in those pre-internet days of yesteryear. 

A good view of director King Vidor's mise-en-scene for The Fountainhead.

The film's failure to draw big crowds hurt Cooper. It couldn't have come at a worse time, for his next batch of films did no better with critics or public : Task Force, a naval action/drama released just two months after Fountainhead; Bright Leaf, about a tobacco plantation in the 1890's south, with the stellar cast of Lauren Bacall, Jack Carson, Donald Crisp and Patricia Neal; a couple of tired westerns, Dallas {1950} and Raoul Walsh's Distant Drums {1951}. In 1950, for the first time since 1940, Gary Cooper's name was missing from the Top Ten Box Office Stars poll, as his descent continued.

Cooper and Neal, in love and lovely to look at.

Then in October 1950 Neal found herself pregnant. Rather than leave Rocky, Cooper, without telling her, arranged for Neal to have an abortion. "I suppose we have to Pat", was his response to the situation. Accompanied by Cooper, Neal had the abortion the next day. Both wept on the way back to their individual homes. Neal later wrote that " If I had only one thing to do over in my life, I would have that baby." 
By May of 1951, Rocky and Coop could not play the game any longer, her patience worn out and Cooper wishing to be free so he could be with Neal, they were legally separated on May 16, just days after Coop's 50th birthday. Whenever possible Cooper saw Maria, for despite his faults as a husband, he was a good father to Maria and didn't want to lose her respect and affection. With the separation Rocky, though a devout Catholic, began dating other men, however the seriousness of these dates has always been open to conjecture. During the separation from Rocky, Cooper never inquired as to a divorce. All the while Hollywood, a town that thrives on gossip, took sides. Surprisingly, Neal found herself with more than a few allies and generally speaking had the respect of the community.  Rocky, on the other hand, did not. Given Neal's status as a newcomer, one would have thought the town would have had Rocky's back, but it appears such wasn't the case. In many circles, Rocky was seen as a remote and stony presence. As for Cooper he had the love and affection of nearly the whole town, for he was genuinely liked. But the strain, guilt and suffering, with only intermittent happiness, was taking it's toll. By Christmas 1951, both knew the hopelessness of their situation, with Rocky unlikely to approve of a divorce, and decided to part ways. Heartbroken,  Pat Neal had to stay on in Hollywood and fulfill her contract, after that she would return to Broadway, eventually returning to films with Breakfast at Tiffany's; Hud, for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress and 1965's In Harm's Way and would go on to have an extraordinary life. She always said Gary Cooper was the love of her life.                            

The comeback. Cooper as Will Kane in the very great High Noon. It's both his best role and greatest performance.

                                                                                                                          In September and October, just prior to that bitter Christmas of 1951, Cooper had made a western on a small budget of $750,000 with a shooting schedule of just over 30 days. No one expected much from it, this little black & white picture, this programmer - a B-picture practically - with Coop again the only real star along side Lloyd Bridges, Katy Juardo, Thomas Mitchell, Lon Chaney, Jr and a new girl named Grace Kelly playing his young bride. The movie was called High Noon.

There was no reason to think this little movie with it's standard plot would rise from the mundane to become one of the best westerns ever made, but it did. One of the main reasons for that success, both then and now, is Cooper's portrayal of Marshall Will Kane; it is a performance that stands the test of time. At last, after nearly a decade of mediocre movies in which he was either miscast or misused, Coop finally had something worthwhile and he poured all the guilt, anguish, bitterness and heartbreak of the past three years into his portrait of Will Kane. He may have lost Pat Neal and possibly his family, but he was reborn as an actor and star.  A huge moneymaker, High Noon knocked everyone on it's ear, becoming the sleeper hit of it's day, hauling in a worldwide gross of $18 million, according to the Internet Movie Database. Opening in July {New York City} and August {Los Angeles} 1952, High Noon would be one of the year's best reviewed movies and garner 7 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director {Fred Zinnemann}, Best Screenplay  {blacklisted writer Carl Foreman} with Gary Cooper winning his second Oscar for Best Actor and landing back in the Top Ten Box Office Stars for 1952, remaining there for the next six years, with a number one rating in 1953. High Noon's momentum would carry him on though the rest of 1950's, where some of his best movies awaited him. But he had paid the price.

Coop and Pat, happy at a Hollywood party.

Sources : Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies : Gary Cooper by Rene Jordan
               Gary Cooper, American Hero by Jeffrey Meyers
               Wikipedia's page on Gary Cooper and The Fountainhead
               Internet Movie Database
               Rotten Tomatoes
              ..... And watching the films of Gary Cooper