Cooper appeared on Broadway in Life with Father (1939).[2] He debuted in the role of Harlan at age 9; before the play performances ended in 1943, Cooper had grown enough to play Whitney.[3]
Cooper began appearing on dozens of television Westerns. He was cast as Clint Harding, a young man intent on murdering his father, in the 1956 episode, "Vengeance Canyon" on Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. Walter Brennan and Sheb Wooley played outlaws, Joe and Brock, respectively, whom Clint encountered on the trail. Joe tries to convince Clint that vengeance is unproductive.[4]
He appeared in Tales of Wells Fargo, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke (in 1962 as “Pitt”, a semi-outlaw trying to go straight and become a Doctor with “Doc Adam’s” help in S7E11’s “Apprentice Doc” and in 1965 as “Breck”, a more progressive thinking townsman in S10E36’s “Two Tall Men”), Bonanza, an episode of The Rifleman and Rawhide. He unsuccessfully tested in 1962 for the role of Steve Hill on NBC's 90-minute Western television series, The Virginian.[5] He played murderer Frank Wells in the 1961 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Impatient Partner," Davis Crane in the (1962) episode "The Case of the Promoter's Pillbox" and James Grover in "The Case of the Polka Dot Pony". He also played murderer Clyde Jasper in the (1965) episode "The Case of the Mischievous Doll" and Lowell Rupert in "The Case of the Baffling Bug".
After he was diagnosed with dementia, he moved to a memory care facility in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2017 to be near his family; he died there on February 24, 2020, at the age of 86.[7] He had two daughters by his late wife Pamela R. Cooper.
They let me play cowboy, and they paid me [for it]. I’d ridden horses, I got my own horse when I was 12. I used to jump him bareback. I didn’t know they had stuntmen; I’d watch a movie and then practice on my horse until I could do [the stunt.][9]
Filmography
Film appearances
Side Street (1950) - Young Man at Cleaners (uncredited)
Cooper was a notable performer in many television Westerns. Cooper also appeared in television pilots for Command (1958), The Reno Brothers (1960), and The Freebooters (1967).[10] These performances include appearances in the following television Westerns:
