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{{Short description|British actress}}{{for|the British naïve painter|Gladys Cooper (artist)}}{{Use British English|date=September 2013}}{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2013}}

factoids

| image = Gladys-Cooper Ggbain.jpg| imagesize = frameless| caption = Cooper in 1913| birth_name = Gladys Constance Cooper188818|df=y}}| birth_place = Hither Green, London, England19711712df=y}}| death_place = Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England | years_active = 1905–1971

• {{marriage|Capt. Herbert John Buckmaster|1908|1921|end=divorced}}
• {{marriage|Sir Neville Pearson, 2nd Baronet|1927|1936|end=divorced}}
• {{marriage|Philip Merivale|1937|1946|end=died}}

}}| children = 3| occupation = Actress}}Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|DBE}} (18 December 1888 – 17 November 1971) was an English actress, theatrical manager and producer, whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.Beginning as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she starred in dramatic roles and silent films before the First World War. She managed the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1934, where she starred in many roles. From the early 1920s Cooper won praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham and others.In the 1930s she starred steadily in productions both in London’s West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles. She received three Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress, for performances in The Song of Bernadette (1943), My Fair Lady (1964) and, most famously, Now, Voyager (1942). Throughout the 1950s and 60s she worked both on stage and on screen, continuing to star on stage until her last year.

Early life and career

File:Gladys Cooper00.jpg|thumb|left|{{center|Cooper (l.) and Marie StudholmeMarie StudholmeCooper was born at 23 Ennersdale Road, Hither Green, Lewisham, London, the eldest of the three daughters of Charles William Frederick Cooper (1844–1939) by his marriage to Mabel Barnett (1861–1944). Her two younger sisters were Doris Mabel (1891–1987) and Grace Muriel (1893–1982). Writer Henry St. John Cooper was a half-brother.BOOK, Twentieth-Century Romance and Gothic Writers, Mabel St. John, Cadogan, Mary, Mary Cadogan, 1982, Macmillan Publishers, 978-1-349-06129-7, Vinson, James, 607–612, Cooper spent most of her childhood in Chiswick, where her family moved when she was an infant.She made her stage debut in 1905 touring with Seymour Hicks in his musical Bluebell in Fairyland and was becoming a popular photographic model. In 1906, she appeared as Lady Swan in London in The Belle of Mayfair and then in the pantomime Babes in the Wood as Mavis. The following year she became a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre, creating the small role of Eva in The Girls of Gottenberg. That Christmas, she was again in Babes in the Wood, this time playing Molly. In 1908, she appeared in the musical Havana followed, the next year, by Our Miss Gibbs, in which she played Lady Connie; she was then on tour again with Hicks, in Papa’s Wife, before playing Sadie von Tromp in the operetta The Dollar Princess at Daly’s Theatre in 1909. In 1911, she appeared in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest and in Man and Superman. Among several other plays, the next year she was Muriel Pym in Milestones at the Royalty Theatre. A highlight of 1913 was Dora in Diplomacy at Wyndham’s Theatre. That year she also played the title role in The Pursuit of Pamela at the Royalty.“Appearances” {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171222032653gladyscooper.com/Appearances/Appearances.html |date=22 December 2017 }}. GladysCooper.com, accessed 12 February 2011(File:Gladys Cooper.jpg|left|thumb|{{center|Cooper circa 1910s}})In 1913 Cooper appeared in her first film, The Eleventh Commandment, going on to make several more silent films during the First World War and shortly afterwards. She continued full-time stage work, however, including appearances as Lady Agatha Lazenby in The Admirable Crichton in 1916 and Clara de Foenix in Trelawny of the Wells. In addition, in 1917, Cooper became co-manager, with Frank Curzon, of the Playhouse Theatre, taking over sole control from 1927 until she left in 1933. During these years, she starred several times in My Lady’s Dress. She appeared in W. Somerset Maugham’s Home and Beauty in 1919, repeated Dora at His Majesty’s Theatre in 1920 and elsewhere thereafter, and both produced and played numerous roles at the Playhouse Theatre.WEB, Gladys Cooper,www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/cooper-gladys-1888-1971, Encyclopedia.com, 15 June 2021, It was not until 1922, however, now in her mid-thirties, that she found major critical success, in Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Early in her stage career, she was criticised for being too stiff. Aldous Huxley dismissed her performance in Home and Beauty, writing “she is too impassive, too statuesque, playing all the time as if she were Galatea, newly unpetrified and still unused to the ways of the living world.“Aldous Huxley, “A Good Farce” in Athenaeum 26 September 1919: 956 Evidently, her acting improved during this period, as Maugham praised her for “turning herself from an indifferent actress to an extremely competent one” through her common sense and industriousness.W. Somerset Maugham. “Gladys Cooper” in Plays and Players 1, 3 (December 1953): 4 For both the 1923 and 1924 Christmas shows at the Adelphi Theatre, Cooper played the title character in Peter Pan, while also playing several other roles at that theatre during those two years. She appeared in Maugham’s The Letter in London and on tour in 1927 and 1928, in Excelsior (adapted from “L’Ecole des Cocottes” by H.M. Harwood) in 1928, and in Maugham’s The Sacred Flame in 1929, also in London and on tour.“The Sacred Flame”. Gladyscooper.com, accessed 12 February 2011Among other roles, Cooper was Clemency Warlock in Cynara (1930), Wanda Heriot in The Pelican (1931), Lucy Haydon in Dr Pygmalion (1932), Carola in The Firebird (1932), Jane Claydon in The Rats of Norway (1933), Mariella Linden in The Shining Hour in 1934 and 1935, in London and New York City and on tour (at the same time making her first “talkie” film, The Iron Duke), also playing Desdemona and Lady Macbeth on Broadway in 1935. She was Dorothy Hilton in Call it a Day, again in both London and New York, from 1935 to 1936. A highlight of 1937 was Laura Lorimer in Goodbye to Yesterday in London and on tour. In 1938, she played Tiny Fox-Collier in Spring Meeting in New York, Montreal and Britain, as well as several Shakespeare roles and Fran Dodsworth in Dodsworth. She repeated Spring Meeting in 1939.

Later career

File:Gladys Cooper in Now Voyager trailer.jpg|thumb|Cooper in Now, VoyagerNow, VoyagerCooper turned to film full-time in 1940, finding success in Hollywood in a variety of character roles and was frequently cast as a disapproving, aristocratic society woman, although she sometimes played lively, approachable types, as she did in Rebecca (1940). She was nominated three times for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances as Bette Davis’s domineering mother in Now, Voyager (1942), a sceptical nun in The Song of Bernadette (1943), and Rex Harrison’s mother, Mrs. Higgins, in My Fair Lady (1964). In 1945, after playing the role of Clarissa Scott in the film The Valley of Decision, for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer she was given a contract with the studio.NEWS, Gladys Cooper Signed to MGM Contract,news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19450317&id=v9gzAAAAIBAJ&pg=2441,1964616, 17 March 1945, Deseret News, 27 February 2013, Her credits there included both dramatic and comedy films, including The Green Years (1946), The Cockeyed Miracle (1946) and The Secret Garden (1949). Other notable film roles were The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955), Separate Tables (1958) and The Happiest Millionaire (1967) as Aunt Mary Drexel, singing “There Are Those”.Hischak, Thomas S. and Mark A. Robinson. The Disney Song Encyclopedia, Scarecrow Press (2009) {{ISBN|0810869381}}Her only stage roles in the 1940s were Mrs. Parrilow in The Morning Star in Philadelphia and New York (1942) and Melanie Aspen in The Indifferent Shepherd in Britain (1948). She returned to theatre (between films) more often in the 1950s and 1960s, playing in London and on tour in such roles as Edith Fenton in The Hat Trick (1950); Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, in Relative Values (1951 and 1953); Grace Smith in A Question of Fact (1953); Lady Yarmouth in The Night of the Ball (1954); Mrs. St. Maugham in The Chalk Garden (1955–56), Dame Mildred in The Bright One (1958); Mrs. Vincent in Look on Tempests (1960); Mrs. Gantry (Bobby) in The Bird of Time (1961); Mrs. Moore in a stage adaptation of A Passage to India (1962); Mrs Tabret in The Sacred Flame (1966 and 1967); Prue Salter in Let’s All Go Down the Strand (1967); Emma Littlewood in Out of the Question (1968); Lydia in His, Hers and Theirs (1969); and others. She received two nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for her roles in The Chalk Garden and A Passage to India.“Gladys Cooper: Awards” Internet Broadway Database, accessed 26 November 2016File:The Rogues cast 1964.JPG|right|thumb|The cast of The Rogues (1964): Charles Boyer, Gig Young, David Niven, Robert CooteRobert CooteShe also had various television roles in the 1950s and ‘60s. These included, among others, three episodes of The Twilight Zone: “Nothing in the Dark” (1962), “Passage on the Lady Anne” (1963) and “Night Call” (1964).Erickson, Hal. ”The Twilight Zone: Night Call (1964)”, AllMovie.com, accessed 23 October 2017 Cooper starred in the 1964–65 series The Rogues with David Niven, Charles Boyer, Gig Young, Robert Coote, John Williams and Larry Hagman. The series lasted a single season of thirty episodes, most of which featured Cooper as the matriarch of an ethical family of con artists who only prey on criminals.Fowler, Karin J. David Niven: A Bio-bibliography, Issue 63 of Bio-bibliographies in the performing arts, Greenwood Publishing Group (1995) {{ISBN|0313280444}}In 1967, at the age of 79, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).{{London Gazette|issue=44326 |supp=y|page=6277|date=2 June 1967}} Her last major success on the stage was at age 82, in 1970–71 in the role of Mrs. St. Maugham in Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden, a role she had created on Broadway and in the West End in 1955–56.Her final public appearance was on the 5 May 1971 episode of The Dick Cavett Show, on which she guested with son-in-law Robert Morley in London.{{citation needed| date=August 2021}} On the day following Cooper’s death, her Now, Voyager co-star Bette Davis appeared on The Dick Cavett Show and called Cooper “Without a doubt, the most beautiful person as well as actress, and a professional ... never was she late one minute, never didn’t she know every line.“EPISODE, Bette Davis, The Dick Cavett Show, ABC, 18 November 1971, 16:15,

Private life and final years

(File:Gladys Cooper and children.jpg|right|thumb|Cooper with her children, John and Joan)Cooper was married three times.

• Captain Herbert Buckmaster (1908–1921).England and Wales Marriage records; retrieved 31 January 2014. The couple had two children: Joan (1910–2005), who married the actor Robert Morley,England and Wales Birth and Marriage records; retrieved 31 January 2014. and John Rodney (1915–1983).England and Wales Birth and Death records; retrieved 31 January 2014.
• Sir Neville Pearson (1927–1936).BOOK, Cooper, Gladys, Gladys Cooper, by Herself, Hutchinson, 1931, Sir Neville and Lady Pearson had one daughter, Sally Pearson, aka Sally Cooper, who was married to the actor Robert Hardy from 1961 to 1986.Blackburn, Virginia. “Remembering Robert Hardy: Bluff, Big-hearted and a brilliant talent ”, Daily Express, 5 August 2017
• Philip Merivale (1937–1946), a fellow actor. The couple lived for many years in Santa Monica, California as permanent resident aliens. He died at age 59 from a heart ailment. Her stepson from this marriage was John Merivale.NEWS, Gladys Cooper, British Actress, Dies,www.nytimes.com/1971/11/18/archives/gladys-cooper-british-actress-diesi.html, 18 November 1971, The New York Times, 25 September 2017,

Cooper published a self-titled autobiography in 1931.Cooper, Gladys. Gladys Cooper, Hutchinson (1931) She lived mostly in England in her final years and died from pneumonia in 1971 at the age of 82 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

Filmography{| class“wikitable”

!style="background:#B0C4DE;” | Year!style="background:#B0C4DE;” | Title!style="background:#B0C4DE;” | Role!style="background:#B0C4DE;” | NoteThe Eleventh Commandment >| ShortDanny Donovan, the Gentleman Cracksman>| ShortThe Real Thing at Last >| Short1917 ’’The Sorrows of Satan (1917 film)’’>|Masks and Faces >|My Lady’s Dress >|Unmarried (1920 film)>Unmarried Headin’ North (1921 film)>Headin’ North Madge Mullin The Bohemian Girl (1922 film)>The Bohemian Girl Arlene Arnheim Bonnie Prince Charlie (1923 film)>Bonnie Prince Charlie Flora MacDonald Lost filmThe Iron Duke (film)>The Iron DukeDuchess d’Angoulême1940 ’’Rebecca (1940 film)’’>| Maxim’s sisterKitty Foyle (film)>Kitty Foyle Mrs. Strafford 1941 That Hamilton Woman Frances, Lady Nelson The Black Cat (1941 film)>The Black Cat Myrna Hartley A Yank in the R.A.F. >|(scenes deleted)The Gay Falcon >|1942 ’’This Above All (film)’’ >|Eagle Squadron (film)>Eagle Squadron Aunt Emmeline Now, Voyager >|Nominated: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress1943 ’’Forever and a Day (1943 film)’’ >|Mr. Lucky (film)>Mr. Lucky Captain Veronica Steadman Princess O’Rourke >|The Song of Bernadette (film)>The Song of Bernadette Sister Marie Therese Vauzou Nominated: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress1944 ’’The White Cliffs of Dover (1944 film)’’ >|Mrs. Parkington >|1945 The Valley of Decision Clarissa Scott Love Letters (1945 film)>Love Letters Beatrice Remington 1946 ’’The Green Years (film)’’ >|Beware of Pity >|The Cockeyed Miracle >|1947’’Green Dolphin Street (film)’’ >|The Bishop’s Wife >|1948 ’’Homecoming (1948 film)’’>|The Pirate (1948 film)>The Pirate Aunt Inez 1949 ’’The Secret Garden (1949 film)’’ >|Madame Bovary (1949 film)>Madame Bovary Madame Dupuis Thunder on the Hill>|At Sword’s Point >|The Man Who Loved Redheads >|Alfred Hitchcock Presents >| Season 2 Episode 22: The End of Indian SummerSeparate Tables (film)>Separate Tables Mrs. Railton-Bell The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)>The Twilight Zone, Episode 81 Wanda Dunn 1 episode: Nothing in the Dark1963 The List of Adrian Messenger Mrs. Karoudjian Going My Way (TV series)>Going My Way Mrs. Arnold Sedgewick 1 episodeThe Twilight Zone >| 1 episode: Passage on the Lady AnnePygmalion >| TV movieBurke’s Law (1963 TV series)>Burke’s Law Harriet Richards 1 episodeThe Outer Limits (1963 TV series)>The Outer Limits Mrs. Palmer 1 episode: The BorderlandThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour >| Season 1 Episode 16: “What Really Happened”1964 ’’My Fair Lady (film)’’ >|Nominated: Academy Award for Best Supporting ActressThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour >| Season 3 Episode 11: “Consider Her Ways”The Twilight Zone Elva Keene 1 episode: Night CallThe Rogues (TV series)>The Rogues Margaret St. Clair 25 episodes Nominated: Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievements in Entertainment - Actors and Performers1965 Emergency – Ward 10 Sister McInnes 4 episodesBen Casey >| 1 episodeThe Girl from U.N.C.L.E >| 1 episode: The Romany Lie Affair1967 The Happiest Millionaire Aunt Mary Adam Adamant Lives!>| 1 episode: Black EchoCallan (TV series)>Callan Dr. Schultz 1 episode: Goodness Burns Too BrightA Nice Girl Like Me >|The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens >| TV movieThe Doctors (1969 TV series)>The Doctors Harriet Vey 8 episodesThe Persuaders! >| 1 episode: The Ozerov Inheritance, (final appearance)

Notes

{{reflist}}

References

• Stokes, Sewell. Without Veils, introduction by Somerset Maugham, Peter Davis, London (1953).
• Morley, Sheridan. Gladys Cooper: A Biography, McGraw-Hill (1979) {{ISBN|978-0070431485}}

External links

{{Commons}}

• Gladys Cooper with children John and Joan at the National Portrait Gallery
• Vintage Postcards of Gladys Cooper can be seen at www.gladyscooper.com
• {{IBDB name}}
• {{IMDb name|id=0178066}}
• Performances by Gladys Cooper listed in the Theatre Collection archive, University of Bristol
• {{Find a Grave|6502786}}

{{Authority control}}