Jackie Cooper, a former child star who was nominated for an Oscar for best actor in “Skippy” when he was just nine years old and later went on to play the editor of The Daily Planet in Christopher Reeves’ four “Superman” films, has passed away in 2011. He was 88.

Mr. Cooper passed away on May 3 at a nursing home in Santa Monica, California. As a child, he grew up to become a popular TV star in the 1950s, a top television studio executive in the 1960s, and an Emmy Award-winning director in the 1970s. There was no listed cause of death.

Cooper, a former “Our Gang” cast member who started working in Hollywood as an extra in silent films at the age of three, shot to fame at the age of eight in the 1931 movie “Skippy,” which was based on a well-known comic strip about a health inspector’s son and his ragamuffin friend, Sooky.

His uncle, Norman Taurog, served as the film’s director. Jackie had to cry for a crucial scene. When the tears wouldn’t flow, Taurog became irate. He called the boy’s beloved dog an inconvenience and threatened to take it to the pound. Jackie threw temper tantrum, which enraged the director even more.

Taurog pointed at the armed security guard and said, “If you don’t do what I say, I’ll have the policeman shoot the dog.”

The boy burst into tears, and the scene was filmed as intended. Taurog later won the Oscar for best director. Cooper’s autobiography, which was published 50 years later, is titled “Please Don’t Shoot My Dog.”

Cooper wrote, “I could visualize  my dog, bloody from that one awful shot. I began sobbing, so hysterically that it was almost too much for the scene. [Taurog] had to quiet me down by saying perhaps my dog had survived the shot, that if I hurried and calmed down a little and did the scene the way he wanted, we would go see if my dog was still alive.”

Cooper didn’t find out that his dog was unharmed until he had completed the scenario as best he could. Taurog, the guard, and Cooper’s grandma could all be seen beaming with pride at their successful treachery.

“Later, people tried to rationalize to me that I had gained more than I lost by being a child star,” Cooper stated. “They talked to me about the money I made. They cited the exciting things I had done, the people I had met, the career training I had had, all that and much more….”

“But no amount of rationalization, no excuses, can make up for what a kid loses — what I lost — when a normal childhood is abandoned for an early movie career.”

Cooper received an Academy Award nomination for best actor in a leading role for the movie, which included three iconic sobbing sequences. Lionel Barrymore won the Oscar that year, and Cooper only had a hazy memory of the event – having fallen asleep on on actress Marie Dressler’s lap.

Mr. Cooper, who appeared in four films with the grizzled Wallace Beery, is most remembered for his roles as the devoted son of a wounded boxer in “The Champ” (1931) and as the juvenile Jim Hawkins against Beery’s Long John Silver in “Treasure Island” (1934).

Cooper’s honesty helped him stay realistic regarding fame and the truth of the acting business, whether he was the star of movies or TV series or working behind the scenes as a director or studio head.

“He was a fascinating guy who really did everything, from all different aspects of the business,” said his son, Russell Cooper. “You can’t really say that about many people.”

“He was everybody’s little kid, and there was just something about him you wanted to go, ‘Ohh’ and help him,” according to Ann Rutherford, who worked at MGM in the 1930s and 1940s and spoke to The Times on Wednesday. “he was wonderful, and he became a very good television producer.”

Cooper was born on September 15, 1922, in Los Angeles as John Cooper Jr. His Jewish father, who ran a music store, had married an Italian musician, Mabel Leonard, but deserted her when their son was 2. Destitute, Mrs. Cooper found work at Fox studio as a secretary. Through her brother-in-law, Taurog, she was able to arrange extra work in movies for young Jackie.

Associated Press
In this Oct. 20, 1978 file photo, actor Jackie Cooper

He got to meet both Charles Lindbergh and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He dated Judy Garland when she was 13 years old. He admitted decades later that he had an illicit relationship with Joan Crawford, an older MGM employee, for six months, at age 17.

Mr. Cooper noted that early stardom had its drawbacks. He wasn’t allowed to roller skate, ride a bike, or cross the street by himself because he was a valuable studio asset and didn’t want to get hurt. His on-set instructors gave him a subpar education, and he was subjected to the same demands and obligations as his adult co-stars.

After “Skippy,” MGM offered Cooper a contract, and he enrolled in the studio school alongside Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, and Freddie Bartholomew. Cooper proved an ideal combination with Beery, the rough, tough character whose heart is melted by the winsome kid.

Cooper was able to maintain his stardom through adolescence, unlike some young actors. The following are some of Cooper’s other films from the ’30s: “Sooky” (a sequel to “Skippy”), “Broadway to Hollywood,” “Lone Cowboy,” “Dinky,” “The Devil Is a Sissy” (with Rooney and Bartholomew), “Peck’s Bad Boy,” “White Banners,” “Gangster’s Boy,” “That Certain Age” (opposite Deanna Durbin), “What a Life” (as Henry Aldrich), “Seventeen” and “The Return of Frank James.”

After World War II, Cooper’s career was in decline and he relocated to the New York theatre.

“I managed to find work, but it was in low-budget pictures,” he recalled in 1971. “I couldn’t see myself continuing like that.”

“About that time, I had become acquainted with some New York actors, like Keenan Wynn and John Garfield. Garfield kept telling me to ‘get back to New York where you can learn your craft.’ ”

He returned to Hollywood and starred in two successful situation comedies, “The People’s Choice” (1955-58) and “Hennessey” (1959-62). In “Hennessey,” which he also produced and directed, he played a Navy doctor.

He directed more than 250 half-hour and hour-long series episodes, 16 two-hour movies and numerous pilots and commercials. He made the vow to never act again at one point. He did, however, make sporadic appearances, most notably in Christopher Reeves’ four “Superman” films as the stern Daily Planet editor Perry White.

“He managed to change with the business,” said his son John. “Early in his life, he experienced the kind of success that many people do not have, if they have that kind of success at all, until much later.”

Cooper accepted a five-year contract as production head of Screen Gems, the TV division of Columbia Pictures, in 1964 after growing weary of the grind of weekly series.

“Like so many of those jobs, the honeymoon was over after the first two years,” he remarked. “Then you find yourself spending all your time trying to sell your bosses on what you want to do. My last selling job was ‘The Flying Nun.’ They kept telling me that people wouldn’t watch a show about Catholics.” He persisted, and the series starring Sally Field became a hit.

A few years later, he was promoted to vice president of Screen Gems, Columbia Pictures’ TV division, where he oversaw operations on the West Coast. In four “Superman” films, Mr. Cooper also portrayed Perry White, the newspaper editor for Clark Kent.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he dedicated his professional life to directing. His first Emmy was awarded to him in 1974 for directing an episode of “M*A*S*H,” and his second was given to him in 1979 for directing the Ken Howard-starring pilot episode of “The White Shadow.”

He directed Mickey Rooney, a fellow former child star, in the 1981 television film “Leave ’em Laughing,” which told the tale of a father who adopted 37 homeless children in Chicago.

According to Mr. Cooper, who spoke to the New York Times, he mostly hired “kids who have never acted before, because they’re more real.” But he acknowledged that he was “a lousy director of children.”

After almost 50 years in the business, Cooper thought of retiring in the early 1970s. Then “The Love Machine” producer Mike Frankovich gave him a part and a movie to direct “Stand Up and Be Counted.” He kept up sporadic playing appearances and a busy schedule of television directing.

Cooper had a full head of hair and maintained his young appearance. He married June Horne, with whom he had a son named John, and Hildy Parks before wedding Barbara Kraus (with whom he had a son, Russell, and two daughters, Julie and Christina).

He famously gushed, “There’s not a child actor in the lot.”