Golden Childhoods

Everyone of my generation will know him as Perry White from the ("original") Superman movies (above). But Jackie Cooper was clearly one of those small stars of the silver screen who'd been around for a very long time. Since he was, er, small, in fact.

Back in the days when the world was still in black and white, Jackie was Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island. It's a fairly standard role for up-and-coming screen moppet-boys - a sort of Hamlet for boys - but one that virtually every grown-up former child-actor one can think of has had to get under his belt, from Kevin Zegers to Elijah Wood (or was he just Huckleberry Finn?) to Christian Bale (obviously!). His co-star, sharing the top billing (Ah, those were the days, before paedophobia!) was Wallace Beery, which gives you some idea of how the importance of a star's name has changed since then.

Jackie and Wallace were also togeher in the black and white version of The Champ, which was later remade by Franco Zeffirelli with Ricky Schroder as the little blond cutie. And of course Schroder too has gone on to "grown-up" stardom. Unlike Ricky, who is now "Rick Schroder", Jackie just carried on Jackie. Clearly it was quite a different generation where it didn't hurt one's career to be associated with the glories a golden childhood.

Pics here and here.