Gary Cooper Off Camera: A Daughter Remembers

Gary Cooper off Camera is a tribute to a Hollywood star that manages to be sentimental, glossy, and passionate all at the same time. A fond introduction by Tom Hanks opens the book, but its multifaceted pleasures spring from the love of author Maria Cooper Janis, who clearly felt it was a unique and great privilege to be the daughter of Gary Cooper. Janis's writing--from the loving letter to her father's ghost to the text that accompanies the many photographs--is charged with filial warmth.

Though the book offers many glimpses of Cooper on the set, it also sheds light on sides of the actor that never appeared on screen: the family man, the sportsman, the host and guest who opened his affections to many Hollywood luminaries. It is these photographs that really make the book a delight. The camera has loved very few men as much as it did Cooper, and this collection captures the ease and joy of an American icon who in films often played awkward and alienated figures. Page after page of extraordinary black-and-white shots reveal the warm relationships Cooper had with his family, and with friends like Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Jimmy Stewart. This volume offers a tender view into a rare and fading kind of celebrity life, one that appears to have been somehow both glamorous and private. --Raphael Shargel