John Leslie Coogan (1914-84) claimed his place in cinema history at a very young age when he played the eponymous character in Chaplin’s The Kid (1921). It is a performance for the ages, though the downside is that Coogan’s parents exploited his earnings, with subsequent legal action culminating in the California Child Actors Bill (the Coogan Act).
Unlike many other child actors who have immediate success, Coogan had other substantial parts while young, such as Oliver Twist (1922) and Tom Sawyer (1930), and also continued his career into adulthood. He found renewed fame in the sixties playing Uncle Fester in The Addams Family (1964-66). His final credit, as far removed as possible from The Kid, was in the 1983 slasher movie The Prey.
Jackie Coogan made two appearances in Metro musicals, and with the longest gap between of any performer. In 1930 he appeared as himself in the Hollywood-set Free and Easy. Thirty-five years later he played a cop in Girl Happy (1965), an Elvis Presley vehicle. Chaplin to Presley is a long journey.
