Jackie Coogan

Acting October 26, 1914 (69 years old) March 1, 1984 Los Angeles, California, USA

Biography

John Leslie Coogan (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984), known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family. In the interim, he sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers. Coogan enlisted in the U.S. Army in March 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, he requested a transfer to Army Air Forces as a glider pilot because of his civilian flying experience. Graduating the Advanced Glider School with the Glider Pilot aeronautical rating and the rank of Flight Officer, he volunteered for hazardous duty with the 1st Air Commando Group. In December 1943, the unit was sent to India. He flew British troops, the Chindits, under General Orde Wingate on March 5, 1944, landing them at night in a small jungle clearing 100 miles (160 km) behind Japanese lines in the Burma Campaign. After the war, Coogan returned to acting, taking mostly character roles and appearing on television. From 1952 to 1953, he played Stoney Crockett on the syndicated series Cowboy G-Men. He guest-starred on NBC's The Martha Raye Show. He appeared, too, as Corbett in two episodes of NBC's The Outlaws with Barton MacLane, which aired from 1960–1962. In the 1960–1961 season, he guest-starred in the episode "The Damaged Dolls" of the syndicated crime drama The Brothers Brannagan. In 1961, he guest-starred in an episode of The Americans, an NBC series about family divisions stemming from the Civil War. He also appeared in episode 37, titled "Barney on the Rebound", of The Andy Griffith Show, which aired October 31, 1961. He had a regular role in a 1962–63 NBC series, McKeever and the Colonel. He finally found his most famous television role as Uncle Fester in ABC's The Addams Family (1964–1966). He appeared as a police officer in the Elvis Presley comedy Girl Happy in 1965. He appeared four times on the Perry Mason series, including the role of political activist Gus Sawyer in the 1963 episode "The Case of the Witless Witness", and TV prop man Pete Desmond in the final episode, "The Case of the Final Fadeout", in 1966. He was a guest several times on The Red Skelton Show, appeared twice on The Brady Bunch ("The Fender Benders" and "Double Parked"), I Dream of Jeannie (as Jeannie's uncle, Suleiman – Maharaja of Basenji), Family Affair, Here's Lucy, and The Brian Keith Show, and continued to guest-star on television (including multiple appearances on The Partridge Family, The Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-O, and McMillan and Wife) until his retirement in the mid 1970s. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jackie Coogan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Jackie Coogan

Biography

Movies 89

The Kid

Cahill: United States Marshal

Marlowe

Halloween with the New Addams Family

Girl Happy

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!

The Proud Ones

The Joker is Wild

The Shakiest Gun in the West

Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood

The Real Charlie Chaplin

A Day's Pleasure

When the West Was Fun: A Western Reunion

The Escape Artist

Scooby-Doo Meets The Addams Family

The Actress

Sex Kittens Go to College

Mesa of Lost Women

Sherlock Holmes in New York

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype

A Fine Madness

Human Experiments

Lonelyhearts

The Space Children

High School Confidential!

The Phantom of Hollywood

The Buster Keaton Story

Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces

Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies

A Boy of Flanders

When the Girls Take Over

Night of the Quarter Moon

The Big Operator

Home on the Range

The Beat Generation

The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery

The Prey

Sunkist Stars at Palm Springs

Clown Alley

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)

Free and Easy

The Addams Family Album

Johnny Get Your Hair Cut

Long Live the King

Nice and Friendly

Buttons

Seeing Stars

Daddy

No Place to Land

The Kids Who Knew Too Much

Peck's Bad Boy

The Specialists

Forbidden Area

Hollywood’s Children

Sky Patrol

Where's Charley?

Skipalong Rosenbloom

Skinner's Baby

Rogue's Gallery

Chaplin Today: The Kid

College Swing

The Legend of Rudolph Valentino

My Boy

Huckleberry Finn

Million Dollar Legs

Escape from Terror

Little Robinson Crusoe

Hello, 'Frisco

Outlaw Women

Kilroy Was Here

Lucy Gets Lucky

Character Studies

Eighteen and Anxious

The Star Wagon

Old Clothes

Varieties on Parade

The Bugle Call