Miriam Cooper was born to Julian Cooper and Margaret Stewart in
Baltimore, Maryland, in 1891. The family was Roman Catholic, and the
Coopers were fairly well-to-do. After the birth of five children in
five years (one of whom died in infancy), Julian Cooper deserted his
family and fled to Europe. Margaret Cooper raised Miriam and her
siblings Nelson, Gordon and Lenore with financial assistance from her
mother-in-law. After grandmother Cooper died, the family lived in
abject poverty and was forced to move from Washington Heights to Little
Italy. At one point, Miriam spent time in an orphanage when her mother
was too sick to take care of her. Miriam was educated at St. Walburga's
Academy, a convent school, and at Coopers Union Art School. Before
stumbling into the nascent motion picture industry, she was a model for
artists Harrison Fisher and
Charles Dana Gibson. Her first film
role was as an extra in
D.W. Griffith's
A Blot on the 'Scutcheon (1912).
She next traveled to Florida where she played the ingénue in nearly 30
films for Kalem studios. Most of the films were Civil War dramas and
romances, and Miriam did all of her own stunts, including horseback
riding, running along the tops of trains and swimming a horse across a
river, only to be fired in 1913 for asking for a raise.
In 1914 Griffith rediscovered a screen test she made for him and
brought her into his circle. Miriam had leading roles in both
Die Geburt einer Nation (1915)
and
Intoleranz (1916).
She also fell in love with one of Griffith's assistant directors,
Raoul Walsh. Knowing that Griffith would not
like the idea of their getting married, Miriam and Walsh were secretly
married on the Hopi Indian Reservation in Arizona in 1916. Walsh
eventually left Griffith for Fox Films. When Miriam joined him, their
marriage became public. Miriam lost interest in her film career after
their marriage, but Walsh preferred to direct her, and she made quite a
few movies for him at Fox, the most popular of which was probably
Evangeline (1919).
Miriam wanted to be a wife and mother, but the couple was unable to
have children, so they adopted two boys. Eventually Miriam tired of
Walsh's philandering and divorced him in 1925. She never remarried, and
although she felt some bitterness and resentment, it was obvious that
she continued to love and admire him after the divorce. Miriam made her
last film in 1923. She was tired of Hollywood and the film industry,
and once she left it, she never looked back. The money she had saved
was adequate for her to live very well. She became a golfing enthusiast
and hit holes-in-one in three different states. In the 1960s she was
rather surprised to be rediscovered by film historians and college
students, but she enjoyed their attention. She completed her
autobiography "Dark Lady of the Silents" in 1973, before dying of a
stroke in 1976.
