Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1961)

YESTERDAYS Continued, from page 57 The curly hair was gone, and those big innocent eyes were clouded over from years of suffering. On January 8th the newspapers ran a picture of a bald man on their pages. The caption underneath it read: Onetime child actor Jackie Coogan. two other men and an exotic dancer were arrested today on suspicion of using narcotics when marijuana was found in Coogan’s apartment, sheriff’s deputies said . . . But no one could have known this fortythree years ago when Jackie toddled onstage and did his Charlie Chaplin little tramp, his David Warfield larger-thanlifesize heroes and his acrobatic Doug Fairbanks Sr. The crowd loved him. and in that crowd sat Chaplin himself, who needed a little hoy for his production of “The Kid,” about to begin shooting. He signed Jackie that night, and Jackie’s doting parents approved the contract. The starting salary for the curly-haired lad of four was seventy-five dollars a week. By the time he was eight, “The Kid,” entrenched in America’s heart, was making twenty thousand a week plus sixty percent of the profits of his films, ft was fun, and Jackie smiled through the days he considered play. His mother looked after his money, and what little allowance he got seemed more than enough for Jackie. “I was working. 1 was happy. Money didn’t mean anything to me.” He was a legend By the time he turned 23, money made a bit more of a difference to Jackie. His mother had remarried after his father’s death, a blow little Jackie found hard to take, and was still taking care of his money. She told him not to worry, that it was all safe as could be. But Jackie, now a Hollywood legend, was unable to find work. He would say : “Sure, I’m a legend, but I’m not work • 99 mg. The town he had put on the map, along with Chaplin and Fairbanks and Pickford, had a very short memory. And Jackie wasn’t a kid anymore. His hair was beginning to run thin. “Sorry, Jackie, but there’s nothing for you, try us again,” the studios said. Money was tight, and Jackie finally had to sue his mother to get an accounting. The front pages had a field day with the trial. “Kid Sues Mom,” ran the headlines. “Where’s my money? Where’s my money? Where’s my money?” he asked a thousand times over. But the question was never answered in full, because four million dollars is much loo much explaining to do. And at the end of the three-ring circus that was known as Coogan versus Coogan, Jackie was handed somewhat less than the four million he had reason to expect was his: $125,000. Not bad, by the working man’s standards, but not four million and not enough to compensate for the fact that his acting days seemed over. His lawyers demanded their share, and when the counting and subtraction took place, Jackie found that he was left thirty thousand dollars, which was not one hundred twenty-five thousand by a long shot, just as one-twenty-five had not been four million. Marriage to Betty Grable “And then I lost my hair,” he said. For an actor, losing one’s hair at thirty can be a tragedy worse than losing one’s money. But then a girl came into his life, and Jackie forgot his problems for a while. Her name was Betty Grable, and she was going places. Jackie thought they could go places together, but the Land of Mecca was not to be found. There was no work and no money coming in. and the CooganGrable marriage ended in a Nevada divorce. Miss Grable went on to scale the heights, anti though they no longer called each other man and wife, Jackie wished Betty the best. And she hoped that Jackie would .somehow find himself again. “If I can't get a job acting, I can at least show I’m not a sponger,” he told his friends. He got a job selling used aircraft. The second World War had ended, and Jackie, who’d been a glider pilot, thought he could sell the leftover relics of a war which turned out to be as quickly forgotten in its time as the “Kid” had been forgotten in his. “Not too many people needed used airplanes,” he sighed. But he didn’t give up. The notion came to him that kitchen ventilation might be easier to sell than used aircraft. This project failed, too. Then he married a girl named Flower Parry and he was happy, but one day, just like that, the marriage was over. He tried to rekindle the name Coogan in the studios, but now the younger faces behind the casting desks asked : “Jackie who?” He looked around him at the young faces being led by hopeful parents who thought they had another “Coogan” by the hand. He was glad the government had passed the Coogan Law to protect the new kids who would make it big as child stars. Their money would be protected in trust funds, but it was too late for him. Things began to brighten Then there came a girl named Ann McCormack into his empty life, and things began to brighten. He married her, and shortly afterward they had a daughter, Joan. Life began to look good again. In 1953, Jackie hired a script-writer to write his life story. Little Joan was slated to play Jackie as a little boy. The switch looked good on paper, but five years later Joan had outgrown the part. Jackie chose his next little girl, Leslie, to play the part, but the project seemed to sink into the ground. Then producer A1 Zugsmith cast Jackie in a film and it worked out. He was back in action again. Then came “High School Confidential.” and Jackie looked convincing as a dope pusher. His reviews were good and oldsters got a kick out of seeing the balding “Kid” as a heavy. 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