Blythe Quake
Toy-in-the-Frame Thursday & Blythe-a-Day September # 20 Ragamuffin: Scout Goes to the Movies...
Happy Toy-in-the-frame Thursday!
Scout was customized by UmamiBaby
During the Jazz Age:
Scout La Rue, entertainer LaVern La Rue's little sister, loved movies and was especially excited to see the first child film superstar Jackie Coogan make a personal appearance for his fans before the opening of his latest film. She made sure to wear a Coogan-style hat for the event.
"I love him," declared Scout. "He usually plays the scrappy little ragamuffin who deals with a lot of challenges. He's so cute. If I were a grown-up news reporter, I'd interview him. I'd rather meet him than Rudolph Valentino!"
Years later, Scout would interview Jackie Coogan about how his tragedy would have an outcome beneficial to all child actors...
New York Times Obituary for Jackie Coogan:
JACKIE COOGAN, CHILD STAR OF FILMS, DIES AT 69
Jackie Coogan, who in 1919 became the first major child star in American movie history as the sad-eyed foundling in ''The Kid,'' died after a heart attack yesterday at the Santa Monica (Calif.) Hospital. He was 69 years old and lived in Palm Springs, Calif.
Mr. Coogan...charmed a later generation as Uncle Fester on the television series ''The Addams Family."
For several years in the 1920s, he was the most famous boy in America. In one popularity poll, he topped Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks.
After making his stage debut at the age of 16 months, he earned between $2 million and $4 million before he was out of short pants.
At the age of 4, he was spotted on a Hollywood vaudeville stage by Charlie Chaplin, who gave him a $75-a-week role in ''The Kid.'' When the film was finished, he received a $5,000 bonus. Then came ''Peck's Bad Boy'' at $1,000 a week, followed by a $500,000 Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer contract with a clause guaranteeing him 60 percent of the profits from such pictures as ''Tom Sawyer'' and ''Huckleberry Finn.''
John Leslie Coogan Jr. was born in Los Angeles, and by the time he was 13 he had been to New York 18 times, most often traveling in his private railroad car.
''Normal boy?'' he said in the 1972 interview. ''How would I know what a normal boy would do? When I was 7, we bought a big house at the corner of Wilshire and Western and put in one of the earliest swimming pools in Southern California.
''Being who I was, I had the best swimming instructor - Duke Kahanamoku - the year after he won the Olympics. I surfed from Baja California to San Francisco when there were only 9 or 10 surfers on the entire Pacific Coast. I drank milk from my own ranch. Other boys went to see Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth came to see me.''
But his life unraveled months before his 21st birthday. After a day of dove hunting in Mexico, the car his father was driving was forced off the road. The young actor was badly bruised, and his father and three other passengers were killed.
Mr. Coogan said later that the rest of his life would have been different if his father had survived. The reason was money.
Of the millions he had made as a child star, all he had ever received was a weekly allowance of $6.25. When he turned 21, his mother, Lillian, and Arthur Bernstein, the family lawyer whom she had married, announced that they would not turn any of it over to him. ''The law is on our side, and Jackie Coogan will not get a cent from his past earnings,'' Mr. Bernstein declared at a news conference.
After a childhood of virtually unquestioning obedience, Mr. Coogan agonized for two years before deciding to file suit to recover the money.
Eighteen months later, when the lawsuit was settled, he was left with only $35,000 - but with the knowledge that such a situation could not recur.
''Forty-eight hours after I filed my suit, they rushed a new law through the Legislature,'' he said. The measure said that all juvenile actors' earnings had to be deposited in court-administered trust funds....
Toy-in-the-Frame Thursday & Blythe-a-Day September # 20 Ragamuffin: Scout Goes to the Movies...
Happy Toy-in-the-frame Thursday!
Scout was customized by UmamiBaby
During the Jazz Age:
Scout La Rue, entertainer LaVern La Rue's little sister, loved movies and was especially excited to see the first child film superstar Jackie Coogan make a personal appearance for his fans before the opening of his latest film. She made sure to wear a Coogan-style hat for the event.
"I love him," declared Scout. "He usually plays the scrappy little ragamuffin who deals with a lot of challenges. He's so cute. If I were a grown-up news reporter, I'd interview him. I'd rather meet him than Rudolph Valentino!"
Years later, Scout would interview Jackie Coogan about how his tragedy would have an outcome beneficial to all child actors...
New York Times Obituary for Jackie Coogan:
JACKIE COOGAN, CHILD STAR OF FILMS, DIES AT 69
Jackie Coogan, who in 1919 became the first major child star in American movie history as the sad-eyed foundling in ''The Kid,'' died after a heart attack yesterday at the Santa Monica (Calif.) Hospital. He was 69 years old and lived in Palm Springs, Calif.
Mr. Coogan...charmed a later generation as Uncle Fester on the television series ''The Addams Family."
For several years in the 1920s, he was the most famous boy in America. In one popularity poll, he topped Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks.
After making his stage debut at the age of 16 months, he earned between $2 million and $4 million before he was out of short pants.
At the age of 4, he was spotted on a Hollywood vaudeville stage by Charlie Chaplin, who gave him a $75-a-week role in ''The Kid.'' When the film was finished, he received a $5,000 bonus. Then came ''Peck's Bad Boy'' at $1,000 a week, followed by a $500,000 Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer contract with a clause guaranteeing him 60 percent of the profits from such pictures as ''Tom Sawyer'' and ''Huckleberry Finn.''
John Leslie Coogan Jr. was born in Los Angeles, and by the time he was 13 he had been to New York 18 times, most often traveling in his private railroad car.
''Normal boy?'' he said in the 1972 interview. ''How would I know what a normal boy would do? When I was 7, we bought a big house at the corner of Wilshire and Western and put in one of the earliest swimming pools in Southern California.
''Being who I was, I had the best swimming instructor - Duke Kahanamoku - the year after he won the Olympics. I surfed from Baja California to San Francisco when there were only 9 or 10 surfers on the entire Pacific Coast. I drank milk from my own ranch. Other boys went to see Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth came to see me.''
But his life unraveled months before his 21st birthday. After a day of dove hunting in Mexico, the car his father was driving was forced off the road. The young actor was badly bruised, and his father and three other passengers were killed.
Mr. Coogan said later that the rest of his life would have been different if his father had survived. The reason was money.
Of the millions he had made as a child star, all he had ever received was a weekly allowance of $6.25. When he turned 21, his mother, Lillian, and Arthur Bernstein, the family lawyer whom she had married, announced that they would not turn any of it over to him. ''The law is on our side, and Jackie Coogan will not get a cent from his past earnings,'' Mr. Bernstein declared at a news conference.
After a childhood of virtually unquestioning obedience, Mr. Coogan agonized for two years before deciding to file suit to recover the money.
Eighteen months later, when the lawsuit was settled, he was left with only $35,000 - but with the knowledge that such a situation could not recur.
''Forty-eight hours after I filed my suit, they rushed a new law through the Legislature,'' he said. The measure said that all juvenile actors' earnings had to be deposited in court-administered trust funds....