Trigger Warning: The following references little one abuse.
It isn’t extraordinary for little one actors to get nominated for the Academy Awards. Heck, it isn’t even extraordinary for a kid actor to win an Oscar: Tatum O’Neal took dwelling the award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Paper Moon in 1973 when she was simply ten years outdated. Twenty years later, 11-year-old Anna Paquin gained in the identical class for her work on The Piano. Indeed, from O’Neal to Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, many youngsters through the years have wowed the Academy with their uncooked expertise and precocious appearing abilities. But in terms of the story of the youngest Oscar nominee ever, Jackie Cooper, there was simply to this point that expertise alone might take him…
Jackie Cooper’s boyish allure and harmless model of charisma in Norman Taurog’s Skippy certain captivates viewers to today, making the Little Rascals-like film one of the vital beloved within the historical past of youngsters’ cinema. Likewise, Cooper went on to take pleasure in a protracted profession as an actor, showing in movies that vary from the 1931 melodrama The Champ to 1978’s Superman. But although he by no means left film units behind, Cooper finally got here to resent his time as a toddler star, throughout which he turned so well-known and beloved that the media dubbed him “America’s boy”. Part of what prompted him to resent it actually has to do with what occurred on the set of Skippy, on which little Jackie was bullied till he cried for not only one, however two scenes.
What Happened on the Set of ‘Skippy’?
Based on the profitable comedian strips of the identical identify by Percy Crosby, Skippy was tailored to the display screen by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Norman Z. McLeod, and Sam Mintz. The film was directed by Norman Taurog, who, on the time, was married to Jackie Cooper’s aunt. Cooper, that had already been making the rounds in Hollywood since he was a three-year-old boy, within the Silent Age, was then chosen to play the position of a comparatively well-off little one that strikes up a friendship with a child from the close by shantytown. The central plot of the movie has the titular Skippy making an attempt to assist his pal Sooky (Robert Coogan) retrieve his canine from a merciless neighbor that’s threatening to kill the animal over a damaged window. Sadly, the children fail to get Sooky’s pet again, which, in fact, results in numerous celluloid tears. Skippy ends with Sooky getting a brand new, licensed canine from her wealthier pal, and Skippy’s father, Dr. Skinner (Willard Robertson), delivering an excellent beating to the imply Mr. Nubbins (Donald Haines).
Add to the lifeless canine the truth that Dr. Skinner doesn’t initially see his son’s friendship with poorer youngsters with good eyes and the general poverty of the United States within the aftermath of the Great Depression, and you’ve got a film that’s actually going to wring just a few tears out of you. Sure, Skippy is filled with marvel and childlike shenanigans, however it is usually fairly unhappy. Thus, it’s no marvel that its script required its actors to provide just a few tears sometimes. And that’s the place little Jackie Cooper’s issues began.
Child actors have been part of Hollywood ever because the early days of cinema. However, that does not imply that their rights have all the time been revered. Back in 1931, youngsters appearing within the motion pictures weren’t even entitled to the cash they made: the California Child Actor’s Bill, which safeguards a part of the cash earned by a toddler star till they’re of age, wouldn’t be handed till 1939. So when Cooper couldn’t convey himself to cry on command for his scenes, director Norman Taurog discovered a artistic and merciless approach of getting him to do as he was advised.
According to the 1987 guide Hollywood Anecdotes, Cooper had a complete of three crying scenes on Skippy. When he couldn’t cry for the primary one, his grandmother, who was accompanying him on set, pleaded with him to only be an excellent boy and cry already. This, in fact, didn’t work. And so Taurog proceeded to yell at his star/nephew and dressed up one other actor in Skippy’s outfit, implying that he would get Cooper changed. As anticipated, this certain bought the little boy crying. However, the worst was but to come back.
In the second crying scene, Cooper shared the stage with a canine. When he failed to provide tears, Taurog had a safety guard take the animal from the set and advised Jackie that the police have been going to kill his canine. To make all of it further plausible, he even had a gunshot off-set. Again, as anticipated, this bought tears streaming from Cooper’s eyes. It was all very nasty and, fairly frankly, pointless: for his third crying scene, Cooper merely had a chat along with his mom by which she defined to him his characters’ motivations. Simply imagining how grief-stricken Skippy was feeling in that scene was sufficient to get the younger actor to cry.
Jackie Cooper’s ‘Skippy’ Experience Took a Toll on Him
Proving as soon as once more that mistreating little one actors wasn’t precisely that huge a deal within the Nineteen Thirties, Norman Taurog took dwelling the Oscar for Best Director in 1931, beating opponents Clarence Brown (A Free Soul), Josef von Sternberg (Morocco), Lewis Milestone (The Front Page), and Wesley Ruggles (Cimarron). Mankiewicz and Mintz, nevertheless, ended up shedding Best Adapted Screenplay to Howard Estabrook‘s tackle Edna Ferber’s Cimarron. Ruggles’ Western additionally beat Skippy within the Best Picture class. The different nominees have been East Lynne, Trader Horn, and The Front Page.
But Skippy’s biggest mark on the historical past of the Academy is Jackie Cooper’s nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role on the tender age of 9 years outdated. Up to today, Cooper stays the youngest Oscar nominee ever. But the ordeal he went by on the set of Skippy wasn’t sufficient to earn him the prize: in a race towards Adolphe Menjou (The Front Page), Fredric March (The Royal Family of Broadway), Lionel Barrymore (A Free Soul), and Richard Dix (Cimarron), Cooper didn’t emerge victorious. Barrymore was the one to depart the ceremony with a statuette on his palms. Still, whenever you’re simply 9 years outdated and up towards the likes of Lionel Barrymore, it’s an honor simply to be nominated.
However, honor did nothing to erase the traumatizing expertise of engaged on Skippy from Jackie Cooper’s mind. The day that Taurog threatened to get his canine killed, specifically, had such an impression on the kid actor that it even impressed the title of his autobiography, almost half-century later: printed in 1981, Please Don’t Shoot My Dog was written by Cooper alongside Dick Kleiner. In an excerpt from the guide printed by the LA Times as a part of Cooper’s 2011 obituary, the actor recollects crying so onerous that it turned an excessive amount of for the scene, forcing Taurog to calm him down. He additionally laments having misplaced a lot of his childhood engaged on movie units. “Later, people tried to rationalize to me that I had gained more than I lost by being a child star”, wrote Cooper. “But no amount of rationalization, no excuses, can make up for what a kid loses — what I lost — when a normal childhood is abandoned for an early movie career.”