If you never heard of Gary Cooper, then I feel sorry for you because he was one of the greatest actors of all time.
At the same time, I’m happy for you because you are in for a wonderful treat.
When I was a little boy, I use to love western television shows and movies. One of the very first films that I remember watching was the classic movie High Noon.
Cooper would go on to win an academy award for his depiction of the town marshal that has to confront a gang of gunslingers all by himself. As a kid living in the Bronx and Brooklyn surrounded by gangs, believe it or not, High Noon and the courage that Gary Cooper displayed even though it was a movie actually helped me in dealing with my insecurities with these gangs.
A couple of years later I would see a movie called the Pride of the Yankees. To my surprise, the star of the movie again was Gary Cooper. How he portrayed Yanks great Lou Gehrig was incredible. Cooper made me feel like I was right there with Lou Gehrig. He made me feel like I knew Gehrig. He made me love Lou Gehrig and I must add, he made me love him (Gary Cooper).
I cried like a baby when the doctor tells Gehrig that he had an incurable disease, that it was three strikes.
After that film, my dream was to be a baseball player. To be a Yankee.
I use to go to Yankee Stadium because I thought that the spirit of Lou Gehrig was there. Even though I couldn’t afford to go in the park I was just happy to stand by the player’s parking lot and watch the players come in or leave after games. To me, that was enough because I was just happy to get a wave from Roy White, Bobby Murcer, or Thurman Munson.
I am forever grateful to Gary Cooper because if it wasn’t for his incredible work in those films I would never have fallen in love with the Yankees. I would never have started hanging out outside the park and I would never have gotten to run into the incredible George Steinbrenner that magical day in June of 1973 when he would grab me outside the park and make me a Yankee Batboy. I guess faith is the hunter.
Decades later I would get to become friends with Gary Cooper’s daughter Maria.
I’m proud of my friendship with her and her husband, the great classical pianist Byron Janis. Maria is everything that I think her father probably was. Her sweetness is incredible, and I am so proud to call her my friend.
She once told me that her father would have really liked hanging out with me. That meant the world to me.
If you have never seen High Noon or the Pride of the Yankees, please do. You’re in for a treat.
