Dulcie Cooper

Dulcie Cooper (born Dulcie Mary Robinson, 3 November 1903, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; died 3 September 1981, New York City) was an Australian-born American stage actress whose career spanned silent film, Broadway, and television. She was also known briefly as Dulcy Cooper.

Cooper began performing at approximately two and a half years of age, initially taking on child roles while her family lived in Vancouver, British Columbia. She was recognized in part for her curly light blonde hair and played the role of Little Eva on multiple occasions, as well as the part of Oliver Twist. When she was eight, her parents removed her from the theater. Her return came after she attended a performance by Marjorie Rambeau in San Francisco and was subsequently given the opportunity to play the star's daughter in a drama called Valley of Content. Following that experience, her family permitted her to resume performing.

After spending roughly seven months playing leads opposite Edward Everett Horton at the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles, Cooper was encouraged by a newspaper reporter to travel to New York. She made her eastern debut in Little Spitfire in Newark, New Jersey, before crossing to Manhattan. Her Broadway career ran from 1928 to 1958 and included the play Courage, which ran a year on Broadway beginning in 1928, as well as Brighten the Corner, Open House, the comedy Happily Ever After, and the play Married-and How!, among other productions. In October 1936, she had a leading part in They Took the Town, which opened in Charleston, West Virginia. Her husband, Stafford Campbell, was also a stage actor, having performed at the Majestic Theater in 1924 in support of Rambeau.

Cooper's screen work began in the early 1920s after she was signed by Fox Film Corporation. She later received interest from both Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, though she regarded her early film performances as below her own standards. Her film credits include Charge It (1921), Live and Let Live (1921), What No Man Knows (1921), Desert Blossoms (1921), Do and Dare (1922) with Tom Mix, and The Hands of Nara (1922). Her final film appearance was in The Face on the Bar Room Floor (1932).

On television, Cooper appeared in a production of Sorry, Wrong Number in 1946 and in an episode of The Phil Silvers Show in 1957. In the 1960s, she worked frequently with John Kenley's Kenley Players, a summer stock theater company operating in Ohio and Michigan, where she took on character roles in musicals including Aunt Eller in Oklahoma! and Eulalie Shinn in The Music Man.

Cooper died in New York City on 3 September 1981 at the age of 77.