Marine, singer, ballroom dancer, actor, stuntman, sword fighter, ballet dancer, bodybuilder, pro wrestler, artist, house painter, truck driver, businessman, family guy, treasure hunter, amateur inventor.
The résumé of a Renaissance man. The life of Dave Cooper.
A fun-loving and creative man, Cooper made the most of his 84 years. He died earlier this month in hospice care.
Born and raised in Reading, Pa., Cooper joined the Marine Corps during World War II, serving with Carlson's Raiders 2nd Raider Battalion, a special-mission force in the South Pacific.
After the war, Cooper moved to New York, where he studied with a voice coach who trained singers for The Metropolitan Opera, said his wife, Lorraine. He paid the bills by working at Radio City Music Hall, first as a ticket-taker, then in security.
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When the wife of a Hollywood studio bigwig saw Cooper at the theater, she gave him her husband's card and told him to move west, said one of his three daughters, Marilyn Goodrich. But the move wasn't as easy as the woman had made it sound, and Cooper couldn't even get an appointment with the man.
He took fencing classes, and eventually became an instructor. He landed jobs as the director of fencing on swashbuckling movies in the late '40s and coached actors, including Errol Flynn, in the art of swordplay.
Moviegoers never knew they were catching glimpses of Cooper on the big screen when he was a stand-in and stunt double for stars, though he did have a small role in the 1948 version of "The Three Musketeers."
To enhance his fencing, Cooper took ballet lessons so he'd be more agile. And to pay the bills, he taught ballroom dancing.
Always trying to make ends meet in Hollywood, he shared space in a rooming house with Raymond Burr, then a struggling young actor whose career was just taking off in the late '40s. Because the two men looked strikingly similar, Cooper worked as Burr's stand-in on the set when the future Perry Mason's film career heated up.
Lorraine Cooper remembers a story her husband told about Burr and him struggling to make the rent. The landlady had to go out of town for a month and offered them free rent if they took care of her cats. But when the men went into the basement where she kept the cats, they found 50 in cages.
"He said he got down the stairs and looked around and looked at Raymond Burr and said, 'You take care of the cats for free rent. I'll get a job,' " Lorraine Cooper said.
At about the same time, Cooper discovered bodybuilding and began putting in a lot of hours at Muscle Beach in Venice. His workout buddies were George Reeves, future star of "The Adventures of Superman" on the small screen; and future fitness guru Jack La Lanne, who'd go on to host the long-running exercise program named for him.
After Cooper met his first wife, Roslyn, while they were both taking voice lessons, the couple moved to Tucson — where Roslyn's relatives lived — to raise their family.
Cooper didn't give up performing when he moved to the Old Pueblo; he reinvented himself. Using the name Cowboy Dave Cooper, he wrestled his way across the Southwest during the '50s with "The Turk" and "Pretty Boy Rocky."
A profile in a wrestling program recounts the 6-foot, 220-pound Cooper's first match:
"Local boy Dave Cooper, who looks more like a polished professional wrestler from outward appearances than some of the pros themselves, gets a chance to break into the business Wednesday night.
"Cooper, who has been religiously training for this chance for three years, is possessor of a tremendous physique."
His daughter, Sylvia Drew, remembers her father's wrestling days.
"He used to come home bleeding," she said. "I always wanted to know if the wrestling was fixed."
Cooper told her the winner was predetermined, "But however you got there was up to you. If you didn't like the other guy, then ... " Drew said.
Between trips to wrestling matches, Cooper started his own house-painting business. The affable guy who was always up for an arm-wrestling match soon began winning contracts with all the big developers.
Cooper and his crew painted thousands of houses in Tucson during his more than 40 years in business. In 1987, when Cooper was 64, he stopped taking the big jobs and semi-retired, to focus on custom homes that could take months to paint.
Paul Swanson, district sales manager for Dunn-Edwards Paints, remembers Cooper coming into the store for supplies and challenging the employees to arm-wrestling.
"He was a husky guy," Swanson said. "He had the big chest and the big arms. If you didn't know how nice he was, he'd kind of intimidate you."
Dunn-Edwards store manager Bob Pitts met Cooper in the late 1970s.
"We had the most fun arm- wrestling, because he was big and burly and barrel-chested and we didn't stand a chance. His arms were huge."
The enthusiasm for fitness that Cooper acquired at Muscle Beach lasted the rest of his life, his daughters said. He had a home gym and worked out into his 80s. They have a photo of a shirtless Cooper at age 77 flexing to show off bulging muscles.
"He was a good athlete, a very good arm wrestler. He would beat the best of them," said Johnny Gibson, 85, who met Cooper 50 years ago.
Cooper bought his gym equipment from Gibson's Downtown store. Gibson also ran a barbershop and cut Cooper's hair.
Gibson caught an occasional wrestling match.
"He was a professional. He had the build. He was a powerful man, but he could do tumbling acts, rolls."
By the early '60s, Cooper had stopped wrestling but took on a second business venture. For about 10 years he ran a trucking company, along with the paint- contracting business. He finally retired from all his enterprises in the mid-1990s, his wife said.
Whatever spare time Cooper had, he spent on hobbies: painting, prospecting and inventing.
After painting houses all day, Cooper would come home to a table of oils and acrylics and paint scenes from postcards.
"He said it calmed him," Lorraine Cooper said.
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