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Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong

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Cover blurbs reflect this reader's approach as well: picked up for the information on King Kong but relished for the other information on Cooper. This is a pretty good read (four stars) of a truly amazing life (five+ stars). If you are a history buff, you will be astounded how many events Cooper saw/participated in; Pancho Villa, First World War, Russian Civil War, Interwar Pacific, Second World War China (with Flying Tigers), etc. The photographs being scattered through the text rather than plates in the center of the book helps with grasping it all. Overall, this book a very nice read for a fan of the old King Kong films or someone who likes early 20th century history. (I bought myself a copy and my father a copy as we used to watched King Kong, Son of Kong, and Mighty Joe Young when it was broadcast every Thanksgiving on Secaucus, New Jersey's Channel 9.)

Mark Cotta Vaz's latest film book is his most important to date as it is the first biography of a true cinema pioneer, Merian C. Cooper. The life of the creator of KING KONG is richly detailed in a work that is hard to put down. The concluding chapters tie everything together nicely in a poignant way while at the same time explaining the lasting impact of Cooper's greatest film. There may be future bios that probe even deeper into this truly larger than life figure and his many achievements, but Mr. Vaz has laid the foundation and has done an admirable job-- one Cooper would be proud of.

The capture of Kong and his arduous voyage to a New York theater were child's play compared to the task facing biographer Mark Cotta Vaz. To him fell the challenge of binding the life of one of the twentieth century's great adventurers, Merian C. Cooper, within the covers of a reasonably sized volume. No one need blush to admit that Cooper [1893-1973] truly seemed "bigger than life." From the time at age six when Cooper devoured the writings of adventurer Paul Du Chaillu--with descriptions of a carnivorous gorilla and a giant snake [hmmm...]--Cooper sensed at the very least that the world was an adventurous place for the person willing to take chances.

Vaz plays particular attention to the two war experiences that in a strange way serve as bookends to Cooper's life. Cooper was no conventional soldier. He was kicked out of Annapolis but fought courageously through World War I in that particular theater that attracts cutting edge soldiers--the air corps. He nearly lost both his hands in a fiery crash, but rather remarkably remained after Versailles to fight at the side of the Poles in their struggle for independence from the Russians. He was captured by the Cossacks, tortured, and imprisoned before a daring escape from a camp near Moscow.

Cooper returned to New York both traumatized and energized, so to speak. His air experience led him to a longtime professional administrative involvement with fledgling Pan American Airlines. But his true professional love was film. Having made the acquaintance of a skilled young cameraman, Ernest Shoedsack, the two men traveled extensively through Africa and Asia with an eye toward a somewhat unconventional type of film-making. One might call it "National Geographic on Steroids." Through the 1920's Cooper with Shoedsack produced and directed on-site several remarkable films of natural drama involving migratory treks of tribes and animals alike. Two in particular, "Grass" and "Chang," were critically acclaimed and evidently successful at the box office.

Even from afar, Cooper kept a finger on the American audience and the changing technology and expectations after the "talkies" arrived in 1927. The idea of a Kong-like film had long been a staple of Cooper's future planning. With the Depression in full force, an epic of this nature faced innumerable hurdles, but Cooper enjoyed remarkable luck in his execution. First, the major set of Kong's island was in storage from another film, ready for extended use. Second, Cooper found a studio [RKO] and a young executive [David Selznick] both on the make to crack the inner sanctum of Hollywood's elite. And third, he was able to draw upon a stunning technological breakthrough by artist Willis O'Brien, who discovered that hand coordinated stop-action manipulation of miniature dinosaurs and gorillas translated into stunning full screen visual effect. Ironically the globe trotting Cooper shot the most exotic picture of his time without leaving California.

Vaz treats the "King Kong" story with just the correct proportion: enough detail to meet the reader's questions without the film dominating the entire book. The author's stance throughout this phase can be summed up as follows: "If you've seen Carl Denham, you've seen Merian C. Cooper." Actress Faye Wray recalled that the coffee shop scene in which Denham persuades Ann Darrow to join his improbable voyage was almost a verbatim rendering of her own first production meeting with Cooper. Released in 1933, "King Kong" would frighten and captivate audiences into the next century.

What clearly frightened Cooper, however, was the cost of creating such an epic. Succeeding Selznick as production chief, he determined that volume was the key to RKO's viability. RKO released 49 films the year of KK's release, including such opposites as "Little Women" with newcomer Katherine Hepburn. Cooper did not believe that his strategy would sacrifice quality, and generally it did not. When other studios had given up on silent film director John Ford, Cooper coaxed him back to work, where Ford turned out "The Lost Patrol" [1934] and "The Informant" [1935] before rescuing the western film genre with an extraordinary run from "Stagecoach" [1939] to "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." [1962] For Cooper, however, his greatest movie may have been one he never made, "War Eagles." From Vaz's description the project envisioned an apocalyptic air war that for all the world resembles a 1940-ish "Star Wars."

But Cooper was distracted by real war, World War II, and soon enough found himself first chief of staff to none other than General Claire Chennault of the famous Flying Tigers of the Asian war theater. Cooper was ubiquitous, with a hand in everything from the Doolittle Raid to the surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri. His flying skills remained peerless, but his political outspokenness on behalf of the Chennaults was not welcomed in all corners. He was more in his element after the war with John Wayne and John Ford in the making of "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," [1949] and "The Searchers" [1956] among other post war releases.

Cooper did not lose his taste for cutting edge technology and in 1952 as he turned 60 he unveiled "This Is Cinerama." Despite the interest in the film he was losing artistic ground to younger competitors like Mike Todd. Until his death in 1973, however, Cooper was a fountain of ideas as befit a man of his broad experience and imagination. Vaz uses his final segment of the book, "The Legend," to trace the postmortems of Cooper's many friends and collaborators, such as Shoedsack and Wray, and his creations, notably KK. The character Kong, for example, was the subject of the famous suit brought by Universal Studios against Nintendo over "Donkey Kong." The history of remakes and stunts surrounding the film in recent decades only confirms the superiority of the original product and the man who brought it to life. Those who enjoy this book, incidentally, will be pleased to know that Vaz has produced an extensive body of literary work on cinema that is well worth perusing.

A scrupulously researched and heart-felt bio, if not always the best written. The author gets cuaght up up in his topic and overreaches his writing abilities.

Cooper was one of those amazing men whose life encompassed war, travel, explornography, mythopoeia, cinema, big business, and, at least to his own eye, international relations. The book does a wonderful job of seeking out all the details of these endeavors and tying them into a fine package. Deservedly best known for King Kong (1933 and only), Cooper was certainly a man of his century.

Mark Vaz has not only captured the life of Merian C. Cooper, but in doing so has also captured pieces of World War I, the Hollywood motion picture industry from the late 1920's through the 1950's, the origins and growth of the commerical aviation industry, and World War II.

Along the way, we find Billy Mitchell, David O. Selznick, Juan Trippe, Claire Chennault, Jimmy Doolittle, Jock Whitney and a cast of thousands; we also find King Kong, Technicolor and Cinerama.

It's a book that is easy to read, and hard to put down.

At this point in time Merian Cooper is known as the creator of the original movie King Kong. But that is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg of his AMAZING life. We owe a debt to Mark Vaz for unearthing all these facets to Merian Cooper. There is no one quite like Cooper in the breadth of his undertakings, maybe Teddy Roosevelt, maybe Sir Richard Burton, maybe Benjamin Franklin but none came close to not only undertaking such dissimilar projects but being so successful at everything he touched. He was a decorated WWI aviation hero,a Polish freedom fighter, POW in a Russian prison camp,WWII aviation hero, instrumental in the planning of the Dolittle attack on Japan,instrumental as planner and fighter with the Flying Tigers, instrumental staff member for Chennault,Whitehead,and Kenny, friend to Douglas MacArthur,finally earning himself a place as US dignitary on the Missouri as the Japanese signed the Instrument of Surrender. That's just his war record. He help form Pan Am Airways. His movie credits are just as astonishing, perfecting and developing many filming techniques that are taken for granted today, one of the first proponents of color movies, one of first proponents of Cinerama. He was also an explorer and big game hunter. He's not just successful in these endeavors he in eminently successful. So why does our collective memory know so little about Cooper in this day and age? My own theory is that after WWII he was a staunch Cold Warrior and big supporter of Joe McCarthy. History has gone on to prove that the entertainment and journalist business was peppered with communists and their sympathizers. Cooper died but the information industry hasn't changed much and they collectively turned a blind eye to a truly extraordinary life. It's a great story, way more than 5 stars.

In the latter years of his long successful life, Merian C. Cooper - the creator of the epic film "King Kong" - developed an inconsolable longing to return to the Zagros Mountains of Iran and live out his remaining days among the Bakhtiari nomads of the region. The idea haunted him periodically. All he needed, he used to tell his old friend Ernest Schoedsack, was to "buy horses, a few flocks of sheep", and (because of his growing frailness) "get a couple of good Persian doctors". But the dream with all its endless possibilities was never realized.

Cooper had first visited Iran in 1924 to film the movie "Grass", a documentary about the Baba Ahmadi branch of the Bakhtiari tribe. Their epic journey over the mountains between Ahvaz and Isfahan every year in search of grazing has been described as "the greatest migration in modern history". Images of tribesmen throwing themselves into the rushing Karun River (along with their livestock), and footage of them climbing the glacial face of the massive Zardeh Kuh in their bare feet, thrilled audiences all over the world. Grass became Cooper's first commercial box office success, and on the strength of it, he was given money to complete other film projects (of which King Kong became the most famous).

In real life, Cooper was bigger than any of his movie creations. He was distinguished as a Hollywood film producer, movie innovator, explorer, war hero, adventurer, pioneer of commercial air flight and much more besides. The new biography of him by Mark Cotta Vaz is entitled "Living Dangerously" and this is a very fitting title. Because for most of his life, Merian C. Cooper lived "on the edge", at the extremes of life: he needed to take life-threatening risks in order to feel truly alive. Life in Santa Monica and San Diego bored the pants off him and he was forever planning to escape.

In 1924, from his tent high up on the Zagros Mountains, he had written in his diary: "You risk your skin, and in the moment when life balances with death, no matter how afraid you may be, you get a touch of the animal value of existence ... wind and rain beats on your face as you brace yourself ... some man trusts you above all other men and you realize what friendship means. These are the seconds which give zest and fire to existence ... These are the moments when conscience and memory alike are drowned in the fine, physical or spiritual beauty of life..." (Vaz p6)

Cooper had experienced those heightened moments of existence before (in 1920) when as a volunteer in the Polish Air Force, he had flown dangerous missions against the invading Soviet armies. He had also experienced such moments on his journey with the Bakhtiari. He even envied one of the Bakhtiari leaders, Haidar Khan, who seemed to embody everything Cooper was looking for in life. (Some of Haidar's qualities later found their way into the character of King Kong). But he could never find the heightened awareness he so craved anywhere else (except, perhaps in his cinematic imagination) although he longed for it until the day he died.

Cooper's two companions during the filming of "Grass" -- both Americans -- were the boyish, excitable Ernest Schoedsack (who did most of the camera work), and the enigmatic Marguerite Harrison, who put up half of the money for the enterprise.

The three characters had met four years earlier in Poland, during the Polish-Soviet war of 1920. Cooper had been instrumental in creating the Kosciuszko Squadron: a group of young American airmen who had volunteered to help Poland in her hour of need. From their flimsy wood and canvas airplanes, they had bombed and strafed the advancing Soviet armies of Semyon Budienny, which were attempting to turn Poland into another Soviet Socialist Republic.

Shot down over the Ukraine, Cooper was captured by the Russians and dispatched to the Gulag. There, he was saved from starvation through the intervention of Marguerite Harrison (a mysterious American spy who may also have been working for the Soviets). He eventually escaped, and after crossing the northern Russian wastes with two Polish friends, found safety in neighboring Latvia. He returned to Poland a war-hero, and was decorated (along with his squadron) with the highest military honor the country is able to bestow: the Virtuti Militari.

Marguerite Harrison had put up half of the money needed to produce "Grass", but only on the condition that she was allowed to take part in the expedition, something to which Schoedsack objected. (During the journey, he was constantly irritated by her habit of applying make-up before every filming and generally treating the expedition like a family holiday). But his objection was over-ruled, and on December 14th 1923, the three Americans arrived in Shustar by boat to start filming.

Every year, at Norooz, the Bakhtiari nomads, 50,000 men, women and children (together with half a million animals), began an epic journey over the Zagros Mountains in a search of grazing. In their path lay two great obstacles: the treacherous fast-running Karun River (half a mile wide) and the snow-clad Zardeh Kuh mountains, fifteen thousand feet high. They divided themselves into 5 separate groups, each taking a different route across the mountains. Cooper and his companions accompanied the Baba Ahmadi branch of the tribe from the start of their migration north of Ahvaz all the way to the plains of Isfahan, filming the whole journey with hand-cranked cameras supported on shaky tripods.

In the course of their journey, Cooper came to admire Haidar Khan, the tribal leader of the group. He was particularly impressed by the older man's physical presence: very hairy, "like a gorilla", Cooper remembered later. But in the presence of his nine-year-old son Lufta, the chief's whole demeanor changed and he would become soft and gentle in speech and actions. The relationship between this father and son became the central focus of the film Grass.

The first obstacle for the group, the crossing the dangerous Karun River, took almost a full week. It was achieved by constructing flimsy rafts from inflated goatskins, a method Alexander the Great had used two thousand years earlier. So strong were the currents, that several tribesmen were swept away and ended up smashed against rocks. At one point, Cooper and Haidar, both stripped to the waist, raced one another across the river to the opposite bank, the older man surging ahead to win and uphold the dignity of his tribe. Cooper was exhausted by the swim, but Haidar, to Cooper's amazement, returned time after time to help others on the other side. "Here, in danger," Cooper observed (clearly overawed by Haidar's natural physical powers), "[is] a man, by glory!"

Cinematically, the highpoint of the journey was the crossing of the snow-clad Zardeh Kuh, the last great barrier to the land of grass. The Bakhtiari left their tents and other belongings behind in order to travel more lightly and began their ascent of the almost sheer glacier face of the mountain. Most of them attempted the climb barefoot. They were assaulted by wind and snow. At night, they slept out under the stars. Cooper thought he was living a maddening dream. Finally, having reached the summit, they looked out before them and saw a sea of grass stretching across the horizon in a vast, tight arc of green. Cooper wrote in his diary: "Here was the prize of the gallant fight. Here was the land of plenty. Grass and life!" (Vaz 129)

The journey across the Zagros changed Cooper forever. He came to idealize the way of life of the Bakhtiari people. He was acutely conscious of the immensity of their possessions: the sky, the grass and the mountains disguised as clouds. He was also saddened (and angry) at the realization that their way of life was coming to an end; and the modern world was coming to throw this culture of a thousand years onto the dung heap of history. Something of his anger went into the final scenes of "King Kong", when the giant gorilla, threatened by the flashing weapons of modern technology (guns and planes) makes his final, defiant stand on the topmost pinnacle of the Empire State Building.

Cooper later admitted that despite the millions of words written about the symbolism inherent in "King Kong", the film was really just a whopping great yarn. Nevertheless, it was one that resonated with audiences all around the world who saw in it something more than mere surface gloss.

The film script for "King Kong" was written by Schoedsack's wife, Ruth, who based the dialogue on conversations she remembered between Schoedsack and Cooper on their voyages of exploration. Her husband, (Schoedsack), did most of the camera work. Marguerite Harrison, the "unwanted woman" on the Zagros expedition, was the inspiration for the Fay Wray character. The personality of Kong himself was partly based on Paul du Chaillu's description of the death of a gorilla in his book "Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa", which Cooper had read as a 6-year-old boy. The gentle, human side of the animal's character was modelled on Haidar, gleaned from glimpses of his relationship with Lufta (his beloved son).

Despite all his many accomplishments, however, Cooper always felt that he had left something of himself behind on the plains of Isfahan. In 1947, he began to make preparations for a re-make of "Grass", but hastily abandoned it after learning that metal bridges now spanned the Karun River and a railroad had been built through the Zagros Mountains. The Wilderness had been brutally destroyed! There was no where else on earth to explore. Cooper, always the adventurer, turned to the only uncharted area left - the human imagination (which for him meant the cinema). He explored that exotic realm with all the creative resources at his disposal, leaving behind him a bright catalogue of marvelous and unforgettable films.

Easy transaction great book but it has a library stamp which makes me wonder how it was obtained.

I loved this book. Merian Cooper is amazing as is his biographer Mark Vaz. DS

It has been said that when America was younger, there were more opportunities. It is also said that with big government one gets littler people and with small government one gets bigger people. Here is a hero that demonstrates the truth of both concepts. What a remarkable man and a remarkable story. The hollyweird that lionizes child rapists and obese communists won't recognize a hero for what he is so no more Merian C. Coopers and no more Audie Murphys. You'll remember and if you do, weep for the loss. Hurrah Mr. Cooper. Hail and farewell. Whatta story! Highly recommended.