Enduring Style's Enduring Lines

Jammed, crammed and loads of fun.

The Cooper Union

Gary Cooper, photographed by Cecil Beaton, Hollywood, 1931


Gary, Malibu, 1937


Rocky Cooper, Los Angeles, 1933


Gary, Los Angeles, 1940


Rocky & Gary, Southampton, NY, 1934


Gary, Van Nuys, 1933


Gary, Santa Barbara, 1937


Rocky, Colorado Springs, 1942


Gary, Colorado Springs, 1942


Rocky & Gary, Van Nuys, 1934


Gary photographed by Robert Capa, Sun Valley, 1942


Robert Capa, Sun Valley 1942


Ingrid Bergman, Gary & Clark Gable, 1940


Gary, on set, year unknown


Gary & Ernest Hemingway, Sun Valley, 1942

Rocky & Gary, Beverly Hills, 1959


David Douglas Duncan photograph of Pablo & Jacqueline Picasso, Gary & Maria Cooper, Cannes, 1956


Gary, Athens, 1956


Rocky & one of many championship Sealyham Terriers bred by the Coopers.

I first saw proofs of 'Enduring Style' last Febuary during a visit to the publisher. The small B&W images didn't look like much -- until you got close. Close enough to see an intimacy family snaps share. Imperfect exposure. Worn edges. Tape residue. The simplicity of a pose for a spouse or a friend. A happy terrier chases a ball with the shadow of Gary Cooper in the corner. If you love to look at pictures...I mean really look at pictures -- for the stories in the details --you will love looking at this book.

Enduring Style is a return of G. Bruce Boyer during a time when 20 somethings are hoisted sockless up fashion media's flagpole. Finally... there's something to salute. The book is slip cased, monograph-ed and written by three experts. Ralph Lauren contributes the introduction and sums up with a feeling about 'Coop' that proves even Mr Lauren can't always get what he wants.

Maria Cooper Janis, Gary & Rocky's daughter, writes of the charmed, but in no way entitled life of America's premiere movie star who told her, "There ain't never a horse that couldn't be rode, there ain't never a rider that couldn't be throwed." Rather than 'celebrity' and 'star', her description of her father is 'average,' 'good mannered' with 'natural elegance.'

What the photo's leave out, G. Bruce Boyer fills in. The history, the career, the marriage. Like Cooper, Bruce keeps it simple with an eye for detail. Cooper's tailors, shoemakers, colors and jeans. Boyer underlines the contrast between Cooper's celebrity and, 'your average Joe' from Montana.

No doubt Cooper took great care in his appearance and had a passion for the cloth. A vanity that must come with the occupation. But his understanding of what he was doing is breathtaking. Even if he stayed a cowboy extra, his presence in a photograph would tell anyone a hundred years later that this man had something.

The lesson? Style is everywhere, but your inner compass must be followed. Stay true to yourself and with time as your judge, like Gary Cooper, your tie will never be too short, your trouser break never too long and your shoes will never have too many buckles. Simplicity was Cooper's mantra. In the roles he selected and in the way he lived his life. He wasn't a god. He just looked and lived like one.

Enduring Style is available for pre order on Amazon here. Limited advance copies are also available tonight at a book signing. Join G. Bruce Boyer and Maria Cooper Janis at Leffot, 10 Christopher Street, at 6:30 PM.

Coop's Closet - 1950

(Photos by Karl Bissinger - Click on image to enlarge)

Excerpts from Flair Magazine, July, 1950

"In the minute dressing room of his own town house in Brentwood outside Hollywood, Gary Cooper's wardrobe presents something of the impression of its owner.

"...some star chambers hold as many as two hundred suits, but not so Cooper's. There are some twenty five outfits in his closet, where often-used , friendly jeans jostle the casually draped double-breasted suits that Eddie Schmidt of Los Angeles cuts for him."

"By preference Gary Cooper wears one of his assortment of loose fitting, simple sport coats with gray flannel trousers, a plain white silk shirt ordered from Jerry Rothchild and Co., and moccasin-type shoes specially designed for him by Farkas and Kovacs."

"He favors silk striped ties, many of which are chosen by his wife. He reorders, whenever he needs something new (which is not often), sportswear from Kerr's, shoes from Peal of London, generalities from Brooks Bros. and F.R. Tripler."

"During the summer, Montana-born Gary Cooper of Hollywood migrates to the great beaches and attractive estates of Southampton on Long Island. (After all, Mrs. Cooper is a New Yorker.) Here he is a familiar figure--tall, lanky, hesitant and consistently disarming -- in Bermuda shorts, on his way to the tennis courts or in brightly colored cotton slacks at the Beach Club."

Gary Cooper As Gary Cooper

Cover photo by Bert Stern

Excerpts from, 'The American Hero Grows Older' by Thomas B Morgan, Esquire, May 1961.

"Seemingly ageless, Cooper has continued through the postwar boom that started in '29... Television may close movie theatres. Disc jockeys and crooners may replace Hollywood stars as teen-age heroes. Private eyes may vie with cowboys for popular attention. Yet Cooper persists."

""I feel real good," Cooper said. "Keep my weight to 190 by backing away from the groceries every now and then.""

"He had the laconic air of a man who never stands when he can sit and never sits when he can get flat. "Here I am, all the time talking about how hard actors work," he said, "and here you find me lying on my ass.""

""They may call that stuff on TV Westerns," he said, "but they're really Easterns. They're gangster stories with big hats and they're all crap. And the hats they wear! There's only one real cowboy hat and it's not the one those kids wear on television.""

"He went to the room in which he had left his city clothes, peeled to the waist and washed off his make-up. He wore a St. Christopher's medal on a chain around his neck. (He had converted to Catholicism in 1959.) ...he dressed himself in alligator shoes, grey flannel trousers, blue shirt, dark tie, yellow sweater, tweed sports coat with sky-blue hanky flaring from the chest pocket, and a Tyrolean hat."

""Every Fall, I meet Hemingway out in Sun Valley. We both have places there. Well, Papa and I go hunting. You know, it does you good to get out and get your butt wet every once in a while.""

"The face was seamed and worn in the Western way, but it wasn't stern the way some Western faces are. The sophisticated, sunny life of southern California was there, rather than the country life up where the winters last so long. "

"...a young man with two comrades looked up, recognized Cooper, and said nastily, "Look chaps, a movie star!" Cooper had already gone a step beyond the table. He stopped, turned, and towered over the three young men. A muscle twitched in his jaw and his lips became a hard, thin line.

And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the trio: "Stand up when you say that!" he said.

For a moment, the young men were motionless. Then one smiled -- faintly. Gary Cooper turned away, walking out of the restaurant to the Duke of Gloucester's Rolls-Royce, at fifty nine going on sixty, still playing Gary Cooper."

"He was the best looking son of a bitch who ever lived..."

I hope Bill Blass was smiling when he said that about Gary Cooper. Fast forward to 4:38 and see a patient Cooper in the wings as Billy Wilder (looking very Peter Lorre) is interviewed by the ugliest coat in all of France. Don't miss Cooper's "Bang" at the end.