A biography for Jackie Cooganhasn’t been written yet.
“Other boys went to see Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth came to see me.”
“I surfed from Baja California to San Francisco when there were only nine or 10 surfers on the entire Pacific Coast. I spent three-month summer vacations in our High Sierra cabin 60 miles from the nearest road. I drank milk from my own ranch.”
“As long as I can remember, being in pictures has made it necessary for me to do my best at all times. I really don't believe anything in any school could be much better to learn than that.”
“Throughout my boyhood my father impressed upon me the value of money.”
“I sure would like to hear from those British and Gurkha knife artists I took into Burma.”
“Picture-making now is nothing like it was in the old days.”
“I've had highs and lows.”
“It's funny, but people still get us mixed up. They come up to me and say, 'Gee, we still remember how great you were with Wally Berry in 'The Champ' and I have to tell them that was Jackie Cooper.'”
“Television is a director's medium.”
“Around 1950, I quit and went into the appliance business. But even then I was still in show business.”
“We're separated, and I regret to say that we just don't seem to hit it off. I don't know what Betty's plans are. Perhaps she plans a divorce. As far as I am concerned, that doesn't fit in with my scheme of things.”
“I never owned a piano and I never had a house full of period furniture.”
“The trouble was that I tried to prolong my youth.”
“I do my acting job and then get out on the golf course as quickly as I can.”
“My hobbies hardly leave me time for work, or vice versa.”
“When I was 7, we bought a big house at the corner of Wilshire and Western and put in one of the earliest swimming pools in Southern California.”
“Acting is a great life and all that, but it's the director who is really in control.”
“I plan to keep working until I'm 65. Then I'm going to retire. I've got 50 acres on the gulf at La Paz and I'm going to hunt and fish.”
“An actor like me hardly ever sees a producer. My agent will say, how about Coogan for the part. The producer will say yes. So you never see the producer.”
“Everyone tells me that my pictures make little children happy.”