MOVIES - Nov. 17, 1989

Gary Cooper’s Gals: The daughter of Gary Cooper says that the one life experience that eluded her screen-idol father totally “was being turned down by a woman.” In an article to be published Sunday in Parade magazine, Maria Cooper Janis talks about her father’s appeal to women, and says “he often had to do the turning down, and we would sometimes even joke about it. One social Cleopatra circled around him for weeks in the South of France, barely tolerating my mother’s presence. Finally she found her moment. She swept over to him on the steps of the Hotel du Paris in Monte Carlo and sank down at his feet. Looking up at him, she pleaded, ‘Oh, Gareee! I must have turned my ankle! Would you please carry me upstairs?’ Without missing a beat, my father looked down and said, ‘Gee, I’m so sorry, but I’ve got a bad back! I’ll tell you what: You stay here and I’ll get the concierge to carry you.’ And, with that, he proceeded up the steps.” Cooper, who made 98 films, died in 1961 at age 60.