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Vale: Jackie Cooper

Actor Jackie Cooper, best known as Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, has died, aged 88.

Actor Jackie Cooper, best known as Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, has died, aged 88.

Cooper died on Tuesday at a convalescent home in Santa Monica, California.

He began as a child actor in Hal Roach’s Our Gang short comedy films, and became the youngest actor to receive an Oscar nomination for his title role in the 1931 film Skippy. Later that year, he co-starred in The Champ as the innocent son of a washed-up boxer played by Wallace Beery.

Cooper made numerous films in the ’30s and ’40s before early television roles beginning in the 1950s. His TV appearances included The Ford Television Theatre, Danger, Suspense, Your Show of Shows, Studio One, The Twilight Zone, Ironside, McCloud, Colombo, Kojak, Police Story, Operation Pettitcoat, The Rockford Files, St. Elsewhere and Murder She Wrote. His final role was in 1990’s Capital News.

He even had a stint working as a television executive during the 1960s and as a TV director during the 1970s.

But Cooper is best remembered for winning over a new generation of fans playing grizzled newspaperman Perry White in the 1978 film Superman and its three sequels.

Source: LA Times, IMDb

2 Responses

  1. Though many others have played him before and since, Jackie Cooper will always be the definitive Perry White. The fact that this role was just a small part of a tremendous career says a lot about his life’s work. RIP, and thanks.

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