Chris Cooper Biography

Christopher W. Cooper (born July 9, 1951) is an American film actor.
Cooper was born in Kansas City, Missouri to Charles Cooper, a doctor and cattleman, and Mary Ann Cooper. Cooper attended the University of Missouri - Columbia where he dual majored in the school of agriculture and the school of drama. His early notable performances include Matewan, the 1987 picture by John Sayles, and the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove. Cooper won an Oscar and Golden Glob Award in 2003 for his role of John Laroche in Adaptation..
Cooper is a notable graduate of Stephens College and the University of Missouri - Columbia, both located in Columbia, Missouri.
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Cooper currently resides in Kingston, Massachusetts, with his wife, Marianne Leone Cooper.

A hang-dog character actor of stage, films and television, Cooper specializes in Westerns and has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with director John Sayles. He grew up on his father's cattle ranch, becoming a set designer and builder for local theaters in his late teens. After college, Cooper arrived in NYC and worked odd jobs until eventually landing stage roles in "Of the Fields Lately" (1980), "The Ballad of Soapy Smith" (1983-84) and the title role in "Cobb" (1989). Cooper also played opposite Lauren Bacall in the 1985 London production of Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth.”

After a minor film appearance in the British melodrama "Bad Timing" (1980), Cooper won his first major film role as the pacifist union organizer in John Sayles' period drama "Matewan" (1987). He made a favorable impression on critics in this story of a coal miners' strike in the 1920s, and went on to work with Sayles again as a construction foreman in "City of Hope" (1991), a drama about Italian-Americans in New Jersey, and as a Texas sheriff involved in an investigating of a decades-old murder in "Lone Star" (1996).

CHRIS COOPER PICTURES

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CHRIS COOPER BIOGRAPHY