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List Price: $35.00 | | Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Salesrank: 744319
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| Our Price: $100.00 |
| Used Price: $44.30 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
Maria Cooper Janis' heartfelt book offers an unprecedented look at her father's private side, from his Montana boyhood and his Hollywood home life, to his friendships with Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Jimmy Stewart.
Description of 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
Gary Cooper Off Camera: A Daughter Remembers Reviews:
Wonderful! 
2009-09-29 - Sometime ago, I found myself searching for spiritual fulfilment. It was critical moment in my life and I felt as though, I was in a desert all alone, exhausted and thirsty, longing to discover an oasis. Art, music, literature and film are some of my interests and I begun exploring them with renewed passion. One day, while flipping through the DVDs at my local store, "High Noon" caught my attention. I didn't buy it then but it stuck on my mind and few days later I went back and bought it. I watched it in the evening. I watched Gary Cooper's performance in awe and I knew, I have found my oasis. Since then, I collected all of his available films, searching for the rare ones all over the world. Seeing these movies is one of the best things that ever happened to me. Gary Cooper gave me a wonderful world of emotional depth, a world of eternal love, friendship, gallantry, selflessness and patriotism. A world-refuge, where I'm able to lose myself for a while and then come back to reality inspired.
Naturally, after seeing 70 Gary Cooper films, I had pretty good idea what kind of a person he was but I wanted to know more about my favorite actor's life. I begun looking for some literature on him and decided not buy any of the biographies based on gossip and written to make their authors some easy buck. Instead, I bought few of his co-stars' autobiographies. Some are very interesting. Hermione Gingold for example, sums up Gary Cooper as a stoic and courageous man in just a few sentences. Nice, but I already knew it. Ingrid Bergman marvels on his naturalism. I agree with her 100%. And she tells interesting stories on filming "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Lilli Palmer shares insides on making of "Cloak and Dagger" but not much about Cooper. Patricia Neal, well, if only I could believed her, but I found her autobiography phoney. Her "remembering" of events and dialogs which supposedly have been happening about 40 y. before she wrote her book, simply lacks credibility. So, I almost gave up and then discovered Maria Cooper's loving tribute to her father.
The book is absolutely wonderful! It is written with love, respect and honesty. Maria is a gifted writer and I couldn't put her book down until I finished it. She shares insides of Cooper's early life, his career, their family life, his battle with cancer, which cut his life short and his last days; there are lovely family photos, photos of Gary &Rocky with their friends Jimmy and Gloria Stewart, the Hemmingways, Picasso, Audrey Hepburn, Gary with his parents, with his monkey pet and much more. My favorite one is Coop with Maria when she was a baby- so sweet! There are also few of his sketches and facts about his taste in food, past times, hobbies and believes.
To me, reading Maria's memoir was an incredible experience. It was like putting the finishing touches on a portrait of Gary, which I painted in my mind earlier, and it is now completed.
I highly recommend "Gary Cooper off Camera" to every Cooper fan. It is simply a must have.
Lastly, I thank Maria for sharing her love for her father with us. Thanks for the great book.
Fabulous for serious Cooper fans!!!
2008-01-17 - If you ever found Cooper handsome, this book certain has many photos to entertain and foster this thought.
The hardcover is a must! The narrative inside is perhaps average but if you supplement the book with a bio novel on Cooper you'll certainly feel its well worth the expense. Buy, buy, buy
GARY COOPER FANS...ATTENTION!! 
2005-09-23 - This is a great book for initial insight into Gary Cooper by his daughter. It is very obvious she adored her father. The book is very informative about the personal life of "Coope" with many wonderful pictures, however, the book is more images than writing. The details are only touched on. If you are a Gary Cooper & you want many unseen pictures, this is the book for you...
Daddy's Girl
2004-09-14 - The cover photograph, of Gary Cooper spoon-feeding ice-cream to his daughter on the streets of "Hadleyville," is a poignant clue to what follows. Maria Cooper was a girl who lived a very rarified life, and she lets us take a delicious peek at it.
Beautiful Pictures Captures Public Image 
2004-04-02 - Well, let me start with what beautiful tribute this book is to her father. Maria Cooper's book is beautiful, but too many of the pictures look posed (Hollywood style). And the pictures that are actually not posed say more in body language about a family that clearly protects the Cooper family image. These people are beautiful, but they are too perfect: clothes, hair, makeup, you know it's all there. One picture I found fascinating, is of the three of them on a beach facing the ocean. Maria and her mom on the left, and further away is Gary Cooper and his body language is quite clear. Hmmm, that definitely was a candid shot. And if anyone is really looking, the beautiful Maria seems to be the glue that kept that family together. There is a gorgeous shot of the three of them in their ski clothes in an old house. Rocky with little makeup is quite beautiful, but Maria and her Dad are the ones in sync in this picture. I don't know, but these pictures show a definite strain in the family relationship far more than I ever realized. With friends, the pictures are happier. I am a fan of Gary Cooper's and always will be. And the fact, that he adored his beloved daughter and she adored him is clearly seen in this book. Maria Cooper shows us a Gary Cooper I have already seen in other pictures other people have taken of him. There really isn't a lot of hugging, and touching, and birthday parties, water fights, and family occasions, events, like most people and other stars have of their lives while children are growing up. I would love to have seen a picture of Mr. Cooper in his overalls in his garden (he was an avid gardener), teaching Maria to do things, showing her how to ride a horse, acting goofy.. Maria Cooper is quite lovely, and this book is wonderful to look at, but I don't really feel anything but a little sadness that she didn't show us more candid and "real" photographs about of her Dad and the family. There was a great deal more to this man than meets the eye. I didn't get too much of a glimpse into that.
