Jackie Cooper, actor, TV director, producer and studio executive, at age 88. He started working in silent films at the age of three, when his grandmother would bring him along to auditions as an extra. He wound up in the “Our Gang” series, first as a bit player, but gradually gaining more and more screen time, especially after the films became talkies. He was the kid who had an incurable crush on his teacher, Miss Crabtree.
Cooper was the youngest performer to have been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, at age 9 for his role in “Skippy”. In this film, Cooper cried on camera after the director (his uncle) told him they were going to shoot his dog if he couldn’t do the scene. He then went on to star with Wallace Beery in “The Champ” and several other popular films.
As he grew up, his movie career slowed down, but he was able to find work in television, on “The People’s Choice” and “Hennessy” which Cooper also produced and directed using his real-life experience as a World War II Navy veteran for some plot background. In the mid 1960’s he became an executive at Screen Gems (Columbia), developing shows such as “Bewitched” “Gidget”, “I Dream of Jeannie” and the soap opera “Days of Our Lives”.
In the ‘70’s he returned to roles in TV shows such as “Columbo” and , and eventually went on to direct episodes of “Mash” and “The White Shadow”, among others, winning Emmy awards in the process. He is known for his role as Perry White in the Christopher Reeve “Superman” movie series.
Arthur Laurents, Broadway musical and screen writer, at age 93.
Laurents wrote the book for what are arguably two of the greatest musicals of all time, “Gypsy” and “West Side Story”. “Gypsy” has been presented on Broadway four times, and “West Side Story” three, each regularly garnering award nominations.
In addition to directing the latest run of each of these two shows, he also directed numerous other productions, including "I Can Get It For You Wholesale," the musical which introduced a 19-year-old Barbra Streisand to Broadway in 1962, and "La Cage Aux Folles", the Jerry Herman musical that ran for four years in the mid 1980’s (and was revived twice since). He worked with Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Richard Rogers and Julie Styne.
For Hollywood, he wrote the screenplays for “Home of the Brave”, “Rope” (filmed by Hitchcock in “real time”), “The Snake Pit”, “The Way We Were” and “The Turning Point”. He was truly a giant in the entertainment world.
Speaking of “giants”, this brings me to the last of the three, Yvette Vickers, 83, whose body was found in her home last week, after apparently lying undiscovered for nearly a year.
Vickers played an ingenue in “Sunset Boulevard” and had small roles in numerous films ("Short Cut to Hell", "Reform School Girl", etc., etc.), but she may have been best known as the “other woman” who causes the rampage of the title character in the 1958 sci-fi cheapie “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”. After a more substantial role in “Attack of the Giant Leaches”, and a stint as a Playboy Playmate, she became a character actress, appearing in TV shows such as “The Bob Cummings Show”, “My Three Sons” "Bat Masterson", "The Rebel" and “Emergency”. She had a long term relationship with actor Jim Hutton, and managed a real estate business in Hollywood.
