Merian Caldwell Cooper (October 24, 1893 – April 21, 1973) was an American filmmaker, actor, producer and military aviator. In film, his most famous work was the 1933 movie King Kong, and he is credited as co-inventor of the Cinerama film projection process. He was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1952 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. He was a passionate anti-communist.
After graduation, Cooper received a prestigious appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, In 1916, Cooper worked for the Minneapolis Daily News as a reporter, where he met Delos Lovelace. In the next few years, he also worked at the Des Moines Register-Leader and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He was called home in March 1917. He worked for the El Paso Herald on a 30-day leave of absence. After returning to his service, Cooper was appointed lieutenant; however, he refused the appointment hoping to participate in combat. Instead, he went to the Military Aeronautics School in Atlanta to learn to fly. Cooper graduated at the top of his class. On September 26, 1918, his plane was shot down. The plane caught fire, and Cooper spun the plane to suck the flames out. Cooper survived, although he suffered burns, injured his hands, and was presumed dead. German soldiers saw his plane landing and took him to a prisoner reserve hospital.
Captain Cooper remained in the Air Service after the war; he helped with Herbert Hoover's U.S. Food Administration that provided aid to Poland. He later became the chief of the Poland division. In the early spring of 1919, while supplying the besieged Poles in Lviv during the Polish–Ukrainian War, he claimed to have first discussed US air support for the Polish eastern flank with General Tadeusz Rozwadowski who commanded the city's defence.
Kościuszko Squadron
The contract for the formation of a volunteer American flight squadron was signed by Rozwadowski, Cooper and Major Cedric Fauntleroy at the Wagram Hotel in Paris on August 26, 1919. He escaped just before the war was over and made it to Latvia. For his valor he was decorated by Polish commander-in-chief Józef Piłsudski with the highest Polish military decoration, the Virtuti Militari.
An interbellum Polish film directed by Leonard Buczkowski, Gwiaździsta eskadra (The Starry Squadron), was inspired by Cooper's experiences as a Polish Air Force officer. The film was made with the cooperation of the Polish army and was the most expensive Polish film prior to World War II. After World War II, all copies of the film found in Poland were destroyed by the Soviets.
Career
Cooper and Schoedsack
thumb|240 px|left|Cooper (right) alongside [[Ernest Schoedsack in a scene from Grass (1925).]]
After returning from overseas in 1921, Cooper got a job working the night shift at The New York Times. He was commissioned to write articles for Asia magazine. Cooper was able to travel with Ernest Schoedsack on a sea voyage on the Wisdom II. As part of the journey, he traveled to Abyssinia, or the Ethiopian Empire, where he met their prince regent, Ras Tefari, later known as Emperor Haile Selassie I. The ship left Abyssinia in February 1923. On their way home, the crew narrowly missed being attacked by pirates, and the ship was burned down. During his tenure at Pan Am, the company established the first regularly scheduled transatlantic service. He was going to have a giant gorilla fight a Komodo dragon or other animal, but found that the technique of interlacing that he wanted to use would not provide realistic results. Cooper began working as an executive assistant at age thirty-eight. He officially pitched the idea for King Kong in December 1931. Shortly after, he began to seek actors and build full-scale sets, although the screenplay was not yet complete. Cooper personally cut a scene in King Kong in which four sailors are shaken off a tree trunk bridge by Kong, fall into a ravine, and are eaten alive by giant spiders. According to Hollywood folklore, the decision was made after previews in January 1933, during which audience members either fled the theater in terror or talked about the ghastly scene throughout the remainder of the movie. However, more objective sources maintain that the scene merely slowed the film's pace. Despite the rumor that Cooper kept a print of the cut footage as a memento, it has never been found. In 2021, film historian Ray Morton stated in an interview that, after looking through the films shooting schedule, he found no evidence the sequence was ever filmed.
In 1963, Cooper argued unsuccessfully that he should own the rights to King Kong; later in 1976, judges ruled that Cooper's estate owned the rights to King Kong outside the movie and its sequel.
Pioneer Pictures, Selznick International Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Cooper helped the Whitney cousins form Pioneer Pictures in 1933, while he was still working for RKO. He would use Pioneer Pictures to test his technicolor innovations. The company contracted with RKO in order to fulfill Cooper's obligations to the company, including She and The Last Days of Pompeii. Cooper later referred to She as the "worst picture I ever made."
Selznick formed Selznick International Pictures in 1935, and Pioneer Pictures merged with it in June 1936. He served with Col. Robert L. Scott in India. He worked as logistics liaison for the Doolittle Raid. Thereafter, Cooper and Scott worked with Col. Caleb V. Haynes at Dinjan Airfield. They all were involved in establishing the Assam-Burma-China Ferrying Command. This marked the beginnings of The Hump Airlift.
Colonel Cooper later served in China as chief of staff for General Claire Chennault of the China Air Task Force, which was the precursor of the Fourteenth Air Force.
He served from 1943 to 1945 in the Southwest Pacific as chief of staff for the Fifth Air Force's Bomber Command. At the end of the war, he was promoted to brigadier general. For his contributions, he was also aboard the USS Missouri to witness Japan's surrender. and produced such notable films as Wagon Master (1950),
Politics and business ventures
In the 1950s, Cooper supported Joseph McCarthy in his crusade to root out Communists in Hollywood and Washington, D.C.
Cooper founded Advanced Projects Corporation (1966–1972), a technology venture focused on developing 3D color television, whose mission he described as "revolutionizing both theatrical productions and exhibition as well as television". He served as the chairman of its board and enlisted Charles B. Fitzsimons as president, inventor Wadsworth E. Pohl as vice president, Kathy Ryan as executive secretary, and his own son Richard, General John R. Alison (an old comrade from China), William Douglas Burden, Thomas Corcoran and lawyer Earl S. Wright as directors.
Awards
thumb|right|Star on [[Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6525 Hollywood Blvd., with first name misspelled ]]
For his military service in Poland, Cooper was awarded the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari (presented by Piłsudski), and Poland's Cross of Valour.
In 1949, Mighty Joe Young won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, which was presented to Willis O'Brien, the man responsible for the film's special effects.
Cooper was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1952. His film The Quiet Man was nominated for Best Picture that year, but lost to Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth. Cooper has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, though his first name is misspelled "Meriam".
Personal life
Cooper was the father of Polish translator and writer Maciej Słomczyński. in San Diego.