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"A Tremendous Event": The Making of "Treasure Island"
From: Columbia University
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Columbia University Oral History Research Office |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Hollywood star Jackie Cooper appeared in more than 70 films and directed dozens of TV shows. One of the more successful child actors from the Our Gang series, Cooper is remembered for performances in features like Skippy, Treasure Island and The Champ. In this excerpt from an interview with Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, he talks about his experience as young Jim Hawkins on the set of Treasure Island. |
Jackie Cooper reminisces about the making of Treasure Island.
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Jackie Cooper: Treasure Island was a tremendous event for me. For one thing, Vic Fleming was the director, and this was a great man. He was a flier, which fascinated me as a boy--in those days fascinated anybody. We were at Catalina Island, living there for 10 weeks making most of the picture, then went back for another two weeks to make retakes, as they did in those days. There were all kinds of money and time to spend on pictures then. |
We were out aboard this ship, sailing a few miles away from the island, out at sea--and for a 12-year-old boy, this is a great experience. I was up and down the rigging and all over the ship, all day every day. We had a lot of bad weather, so there was a lot of free time. I'd get my schooling done quickly in the morning, in the back of the ship someplace, and then I'd have the rest of the day to play all over the ship when there was bad weather, because we weren't shooting. |
Actually, it was somebody's yacht that the studio built--a modern yacht, for its time--and then they built this old frigate hull right on top of this yacht, which made it very top-heavy and not very seaworthy. If you dove in the water and swam down a few feet, you could see the other hull right underneath it. But it stayed afloat, this thing, and it sailed. Actually, underneath there were the motors moving it. The whole thing was around 105 feet long, and quite a sight to look at. Gee, it was a shame they never made that picture in color. The whole picture was a tremendous experience for me. |
I remember [Wallace] Beery was in terrible pain most of the time, with that leg strapped up in back of him. He just hated it. He'd pick scenes as often as possible sitting down, or sitting on the ground where they could dig a hole and stick his leg into it. Terribly uncomfortable, with that leg strapped up most of the time. The parrot fascinated me, too. They threw knives in the picture, and I got stabbed in the shoulder, and shot in the behind with some powder. They didn't actually put the bullets in these old guns, but they did put powder in them, so there'd be a flash when this thing went off in back of me. |
One of the things that endeared me to Mr. Fleming--when we first went over to Catalina, we flew over in a private seaplane, and when we landed, for some strange reason, somebody had made some ridiculous arrangements for us and a sort of a large rowboat came out to the seaplane to pick us up. We didn't arrive at the regular seaport; we arrived at the other side of the island, where they had made a camp for all of us to live in. First of all, we wouldn't be distracted by going into town, and it was cheaper for the company and so forth. |
In stepping into this rowboat, Vic and I were still in the plane and the man stood up in the boat to help my schoolteacher, a rather portly middle-aged woman, and she stepped on the edge of the boat, and of course the boat went out from under her and she went in the water. With the water filling up her clothes and herself filling up her clothes, she looked like a balloon in the water, spouting great streams of salt water, and pilots and people were jumping in trying to save her--she couldn't swim, the poor thing. My mother was screaming. They got her out, but she was large and heavy to get out. |
All Vic Fleming kept yelling was "Jackie, throw your schoolbooks in the water, throw your schoolbooks in the water!" He and I were hysterical while this poor woman half drowned. Oh, he was a great man--very handsome, good-looking, dapper man. I remember Vic had all of his hair, but it was pure white, and he was hard as a rock, and probably had a 30-inch waist and a 44-inch chest, and always a little carnation in his lapel, and sports coats all the time. He could rough it, but he was always very dapper. Charming man. |
The whole picture took two and a half months. A couple of actors were replaced, and a lot of stuff had to be reshot. There was a problem of chasing the sun around, because somebody had made ingenious arrangements to have us go over there in February, when the weather is not as good. It's better in May, June, July, but we went in February, and went sailing around and around looking for the sun all the time. We'd get a little, and then somebody's speedboat would get in the background, which didn't make it look too good, for a period that was supposed to be 100 years previous. |
Question: How did they do the actual shooting? |
Cooper: We photographed things right on the ship, most of the time, with the moving sea in the background. Then we beached the boat on the sand, as it was done in the book, and the thing leaned over and everything. We got the stockade ashore--the outside of the stockade was built over there, with the battle scenes and so forth. The inside, of course, was done at the studio, where they could light it much better. The picture took about six months altogether. It was a production of some size. I don't remember if it made much money--I know it didn't do as well as The Champ. The picture was a disappointment to some people. For one thing, color was starting to come out, and I think the public was disappointed that it wasn't in color--and I don't know why the studio didn't do it in color. |
That was the fourth picture Beery and I had made over a period of about three and a half years, and I think they were getting a little afraid that we were running out of gas. The Bowery didn't break any box-office records. I was loaned to Mr. Zanuck for that; so was Beery. I think they were afraid, suddenly. They had made preparations for us to make this one for a long time--actually, before making The Bowery--and with The Bowery not doing too well at the box office, they were probably a little afraid of sinking too much money into it. But as things happened, for what the picture cost, being in production so long, it might just as well have been in color. |
It would be nice to tell some lovely stories about Beery giving me little presents and things, but he didn't, and he wasn't this way. It's a terrible shame. I never mention it in interviews in magazines and things, because the people don't want to hear it. Cabdrivers every day in New York City will say, "Oh, I remember you with Wallace Beery," and I don't disappoint them. I say he was a wonderful guy and a good actor. Because I don't think Beery was ever intentionally mean to anybody. I think he had a kind of sickness. I don't know what it was. I was much too young to try to analyze it at the time. Wally, for some reason, was not going to let anybody hurt his feelings, and kept to himself, and therefore died a very lonely old man. You only get as much love as you give. |
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