We loved him as Uncle Fester, but off screen, his life had plenty
of truly dark moments. From a near-death experience to a string of failed marriages,
this is the tragic true story of Jackie Coogan.
As recounted by The New York Times in 1972, Jackie Coogan was discovered by silent film legend
Charlie Chaplin when he saw the young Coogan perform in a vaudeville routine with his father.
Chaplin built the 1921 movie The Kid around the 5-year-old Coogan, and he became an instant star.
"This little boy is being torn from his friend."
By the time he was 21, Coogan had earned $2 million from his films and likely another
$5 million from merchandise. But since he was a child, his mother and stepfather, lawyer Arthur
Bernstein, had looked after the money, doling out only $6.25 a week to him. When he was an adult,
Coogan asked for his trust. But not only was his request denied, he also discovered
that only about $600,000 was left, as his mother and stepfather had spent the rest.
Coogan had little recourse but to sue his parents. He won the suit, but legal fees
further ate up what little was left of his bank account, leaving him with about $126,000 at the
age of 23. The high profile of the suit led to California passing what's known as the "Coogan
Law." It contained many loopholes and would be subsequently amended over the years. But
it still gave financial protection to child actors, requiring their parents to place at
least 15 percent of the minor's earnings in a trust accessible upon reaching adulthood.
In 1923, the top-grossing movie star was nine-year-old Jackie Coogan. After The Kid, he
went on to other silent era hits like Peck's Bad Boy, Oliver Twist, and The Rag Man. He was famous
in every country that had movie theaters and it was hard for him to go out without attracting a
crowd, so he traveled in a private train car. But as quickly as success had come, it faded just as
quickly. As he aged out of the kid roles that made him famous, he was no longer offered big parts.
And there was of course also the matter of Coogan's parents squandering his fortune. In
retaliation for publicly criticizing his mother, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer,
a staunch champion of the virtues of motherhood, blacklisted Coogan. The actor then had difficulty
finding work at any of the major Hollywood studios. He appeared in just three films
between 1927 and 1935 and settled into a career as a bit player in B movies.
"Well, I got news for you! You are blacklisted!" "Blacklisted?"
"Blacklisted!" "No!"
Coogan's acting career barely survived into his adulthood, and during that transitory period,
he was nearly killed at the age of 20, due to his involvement in a harrowing accident
in May 1935. His father, John L. Coogan Sr., was driving a car with four passengers back
to the family's ranch along the curvy La Posta Highway outside of San Diego.
According to what the younger Coogan told authorities, at one point someone came speeding
around a bend from the other direction and veered into their lane, forcing the older Coogan off the
road. He lost control of the vehicle and then drove over an embankment. The car plunged down
a 40-foot cliff face while going about 70 miles an hour, resulting in a violent crash.
Four people were killed upon impact: Coogan Sr., screenwriter Robert Horner,
Coogan Ranch foreman Charles Jones, and Coogan's friend and fellow former child
star Junior Durkin. Jackie Coogan was the only survivor, and he was only briefly hospitalized,
after suffering from shock and severe but non-life-threatening injuries to his chest.
As recounted by the biography Jackie Coogan: The World's Boy King, while living in San Jose,
California and briefly attending Santa Clara University in the early 1930s,
Coogan befriended 22-year-old Brooke Hart, son of a local wealthy department store owner. One night,
Hart left the store and then never came back. Hours later, his family received an anonymous
call announcing that he'd been kidnapped and demanding a ransom for his safe return.
The Hart kidnapping occurred concurrently with the case of the missing baby of aviator Charles
Lindbergh, and tensions were high in the wake of that high-profile crime. That fear,
along with the public's demand for swift and brutal justice,
led to violence. Brooke Hart sadly didn't survive the ordeal, as he was later found murdered.
San Jose police subsequently arrested two men, Thomas Thurmond and John M. Holmes. Once the
community learned of their capture, a group of about 10,000 people descended on the jailhouse
where they'd been detained. The crowd then pulled the men out and lynched them in a public
park. Coogan participated in the mob, as he was spotted by eyewitnesses manning and doling out
the ropes that would be used to hang Thurmond and Holmes. He was never tried for any crime, though.
"The two culprits could see the mob howling for their lives.
Other prisoners saw and trembled, too."
Coogan was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1920s, and in 1937,
he married Betty Grable, who was one of the biggest box office draws of the '30s
and '40s. She was also notably famous as the subject of a popular World War II pinup poster
for American troops. Coogan was 23 at the time of the wedding, while Grable was 21.
As recounted in the book Artie Shaw: King of the Clarinet, the marriage coincided with Coogan's
realization that his money was gone and his subsequent lawsuit to retrieve it. He sold
off his wedding presents, which understandably irked his wife. Grable also took offense to
the time that he drunkenly urinated on her while she was sleeping. Meanwhile,
she'd been attempting to start an affair with bandleader Artie Shaw, a close friend of the
couple, and all three were photographed attending church together. Grable filed
for divorce after two years of marriage and was granted one on the grounds of "extreme cruelty."
"Hey, what's going on between you two, anyway?"
Just two years after his divorce from Betty Grable in 1939, Coogan romantically regrouped
and married for the second time, this time to dancer and actor Flower Parry,
who was seven years his junior. They met in 1941, when Coogan was a patron
of the nightclub where Parry was working as a scantily clad, circulating "flower girl."
The couple quickly married later that year in Nevada, just a few months before the birth of
their son, John Anthony. But a little over a year after welcoming their first and only child,
Parry filed for divorce, in June 1943. The divorce decree was granted by a judge while
Coogan was in Europe, flying combat missions for the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II.
In 1961, Coogan was still reportedly legally obligated to pay $100 monthly
child support to Parry for the benefit of their son, who was over the age of 18 by
that point. Coogan successfully petitioned a judge to lower the monthly sum to $70,
on account of how he was too destitute to pay the full amount.
As recounted by the book World War II Veterans in Hollywood, upon Coogan's discharge from the
Army Air Force in 1946, he met and courted a nightclub singer named Ann McCormack. By
the end of the year, she agreed to become Coogan's third wife in less than a decade.
While his first two marriages lasted just a couple of years each, Coogan's partnership
with McCormack endured significantly longer. They stayed together for five years and had
a daughter named Joann together, who was born in 1948. But they ultimately divorced in 1951.
According to Coogan's friend, actor Dick Winslow, this third failed marriage so soured Coogan on
the notion of matrimony that it festered into full-on misogyny. Winslow predicted that Coogan
would never marry again, but that prediction proved to be very wrong. Just a year later,
Coogan married a showgirl, and close friend of McCormack, named Dorothy Lamphere,
with whom he would stay married for the rest of his life. However, according to Jackie Coogan:
The World's Boy King, at one point Lamphere quietly filed for divorce
and lived separately for a period before the couple reconciled and renewed their vows.
Marijuana possession is perfectly legal in many states in the 21st century,
but in the early 1960s, it was treated by law enforcement agencies across the United
States as an extremely serious crime. And if a celebrity was linked to the use of the drug,
it could seriously tarnish both his image and career. As recounted by Jackie Coogan:
The World's Boy King, Coogan was among those investigated by police for suspicion of drug
possession. This was before he managed to stage a comeback with The Addams Family.
"I do look better now, don't I?"
"Much."
A friend visited Coogan at his Malibu, California home and left his car parked outside. Inside
the glove compartment, investigators found a negligible amount of marijuana. This prompted
police to raid the home proper, where they found a trove of drugs said to be enough to be made
into 200 joints. Coogan and two friends in the house at the time were arrested and detained,
while Coogan was released after making his $2,625 bail. He avoided jail time
in a highly publicized trial that was delayed after he contracted a severe case of the mumps.
Two months after this incident, Coogan's son John Anthony was arrested in southern California
on a charge of suspicion of immoral conduct involving two underage women. Like his father,
the younger Coogan escaped jail time and instead paid a small fine.
Jackie Coogan wasn't the only actor in his family. His younger brother
Robert also forged a career in the early motion picture industry. He debuted in 1931's Skippy,
and then appeared intermittently on the big and small screens in the '40s and '50s.
In 1962, a year after his brother was arrested when marijuana was found in his home,
Robert Coogan was detained for a similar reason. As recounted by Jackie Coogan:
The World's Boy King, Robert operated a hobby shop in North Hollywood, where his friend,
comedian Lenny Bruce, was arrested for having a small bit of heroin on
his person. The attending officers also found a smaller amount in Robert's possession. He
was charged and sentenced to pay a fine, which was likely paid for by Jackie and their mother,
who largely financed Robert's life, including several failed business ventures. Robert didn't
act anymore after 1962, and then in 1978 he died at the age of 53.
As covered by Jackie Coogan: The World's Boy King, Jackie Coogan may have inherited
his father's tendency toward alcoholism. His drinking ramped up considerably after
the kidnapping and murder of his friend Brooke Hart. His life was marked by periods of heavy
alcohol consumption, some of which resulted in major consequences.
In 1959, for example, Coogan crashed his roadster into two parked cars and
wound up in the hospital to be treated for multiple abrasions to his head and face.
After submitting to a breath test, police ruled his blood-alcohol level to be 0.24,
well above the legal limit in California at the time.
And alcoholism wasn't Coogan's only health problem. In the early 1980s,
he reportedly endured a series of strokes and then experienced kidney failure,
which meant he had to undergo routine dialysis for the remainder of his life. He ultimately died of
cardiac arrest at Santa Monica Hospital in California in 1984 at the age of 69.
"You see, Jackie Coogan, this is your life!" [clapping]
Over the span of his four marriages, Coogan fathered four children: John Anthony, Joann,
Leslie, and Christopher. Through the final years of his life, and after his death, Jackie's family
would continue to experience the turmoil and tragedy that characterized his lifetime. As
recounted by Jackie Coogan: The World's Boy King, during their teenage years, one of his children
coped with substance abuse and addiction and spent several years on and off in rehab facilities. This
was an expensive process and road to sobriety that Jackie advocated for and financed.
In July 1990, six years after Jackie's death, Christopher Coogan, who was often
reportedly at odds with his parents when he was a teenager, died at the age of 22. His passing
happened immediately after sustaining injuries in a motorcycle accident in Palm Springs, California.