Born Christopher Cooper in Kansas City, MO on July 9, 1951, he grew up on a cattle ranch owned by his father, a military doctor, and gained his first exposure to acting through building sets for local theaters while in high school. He graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a dual major in agriculture and drama, choosing instead to follow his latter major by relocating to New York City to pursue theater roles. Turns in plays like “Of the Fields Lately” (1980) and the 1985 London production of “Sweet Bird of Youth” (opposite Lauren Bacall) preceded his first film appearance in John Sayles’ “Matewan” as Joe Kenehan, the self-sacrificing union organizer who attempts to unite miners in a West Virginia town circa 1920. Sayles would tap Cooper for major roles in two subsequent features – the New Jersey blue-collar drama “City of Hope” (1991); as Sam Deeds, a Texas sheriff investigating the decades-old murder of a predecessor that somehow involved his own father, in “Lone Star” (1996); and as inept gubernatorial candidate Dickie Pilager in the broad political comedy, “Silver City” (2004).
In 1983, Cooper met and married Boston-based actress and writer Marianne Leone – best known as Christopher Moltisanti’s mother on “The Sopranos” (HBO, 1999-2007). The couple had a son, Jesse, in 1987, whose cerebral palsy necessitated their move to Kingston, MA for its special needs schools.
Television provided consistent work for Cooper after “Matewan;” he landed guest shots on high-profile series like “The Equalizer” (CBS, 1985-89) and “Miami Vice” (NBC, 1984-89), and enjoyed substantial parts in TV-movies like the Eugene O’Neill bio “Journey into Genius” (PBS, 1988) and as labor organizer Eugene Debs opposite Kevin Spacey as legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow in “Darrow” (1991). Cooper also played reluctant avenger July Johnson in the sprawling, all-star Western “Lonesome Dove” miniseries (1989) and its lesser 1993 sequel. Cooper’s drawling tone and Dust Bowl features lent themselves well to the Western genre. He appeared in several horse operas on television and in film, including “A Thousand Pieces of Gold” (1991), as a man who tries to win over his Chinese mail order bride; “Ned Blessing: The True Story of My Life” (1992); the Civil War drama “Pharaoh’s Army” (1995); and “One More Mountain” (1994), starring as James Reed, who led the ill-fated Donner Party.
he mid-1990s, Cooper was appearing regularly in major feature films, beginning with “Money Train” (1996), in which he was cast him as a psychotic killer who burns subway workers alive (the film allegedly inspired two real-life copycat crimes), while “Boys” (1996) and “A Time To Kill” (1996) took advantage of his steely resolve as a small-town father and a deputy, respectively. In 1997, “Breast Men” gave him a chance to apply a dry wit to his role as one half of a team of surgeons who pioneered silicone breast implants, while “Great Expectations” (1998) cast him as Ethan Hawke’s humble caretaker. High-profile turns in “The Horse Whisperer” (1998) and “October Sky” (1999), the latter in which he starred as Jake Gyllenhaal’s coal-miner dad, preceded the role that established him as a breakout star – Colonel Frank Fitts, military miner, Nazi paraphernalia collector, and closet homosexual whose desperate and unwarranted kiss with neighbor Kevin Spacey was among the film’s many show-stopping moments in the Oscar-winning, “American Beauty.”
success of “American Beauty” and critical acclaim for Cooper’s tormented performance understandably led to more high-profile film projects. He played an American Revolutionary War general who joins forces with Mel Gibson in “The Patriot” (2000) and a tough cop after multiple-personality-disorder-afflicted Jim Carrey in the hit-and-miss Farrelly Bros. comedy, “Me, Myself & Irene” (2000). A string of hard-nosed government and law enforcement types soon followed, starting with special ops chief Alexander Conklin, who aims to bring down super spy Jason Bourne in “The Bourne Identity” (2002) – he would reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, “The Bourne Supremacy” – and followed by gung-ho Marine Colonel Kazinski in “Jarhead” (2005), which reunited him with “American Beauty” director Sam Mendes and his “October Sky” co-star, Jake Gyllenhaal. Cooper also starred as a tough Kansas detective opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in the latter’s Oscar-winning turn as Truman Capote in 2005’s “Capote,” and was featured in a small but pivotal role as a former oil executive in the George Clooney-produced “Syriana” (2005).
per stepped away from the flinty roles several times during this period, most notably as the eccentric con man John Laroche, whose career as an orchard thief inspired both the award-winning book by Susan Orlean and the meta-comedy “Adaptation.” (2003) by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman. Despite high-wattage stars like Meryl Streep, Nicolas Cage and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Cooper’s nuanced turn caught the attention of critics, and he landed both the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. Cooper also netted an Emmy nomination as the grieving brother of a terrorist attack victim who finds it difficult to bond with his niece in “My House in Umbria” (2003), and earned a SAG nomination for his turn as “Silent” Tom Smith, trainer of the famous racehorse “Seabiscuit” (2003).
2007, Cooper landed his first top-billed role as real-life counter-intelligence expert Robert Hanssen, whose spying for the Soviets puts him at the center of an internal investigation by the FBI in the “Breach.” He followed this with turns in “The Kingdom” (2007) as an FBI demolition expert hunting terrorists in Saudi Arabia, and as a husband who plots to murder his wife in the nourish drama, "Married Life” (2007). Cooper’s string of good fortune was blunted by the unexpected death of his son in 2007, for which a memorial fund was established in his name. At the time, Cooper was working on a feature penned by his wife about a real-life mother who struggles to get her special needs children a valid education.