With Peter Jackson's King Kong
remake due in December, this boisterous, chest-thumping biography of film pioneer Cooper (1893–1973), producer-director of the original 1933 film, is certain to attract attention. Vaz (The Art of the Incredibles
; etc.) captures the mythic magic of Cooper's cinematic creations, and Cooper himself emerges as an equally legendary character. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy, but left before graduating and joined the 1916 hunt for Pancho Villa. A 1921 newspaper article tallied his WWI experiences: "All Warsaw is at the feet of the American ace who was twice shot down from the clouds, twice endured the squalor of prison camps, twice was reported dead." Cooper and his partner Ernest Schoedsack traveled the world shooting documentaries, scoring a box-office hit with the Oscar-nominated Chang
(1927) before moving on to dramatic filmmaking. After "human dynamo" Cooper took over as RKO studio chief, he joined the WWII Flying Tigers and received a U.S.A.F. brigadier general promotion. Launching Cinerama in 1952, he was awarded an honorary 1953 Oscar. The charismatic Cooper, "a man living his own movie," is no longer an obscure, remote figure, thanks to Vaz's exhaustive research and skillful writing. 90 photos. Agent, the Joe Spieler Agency
. (Aug. 2)
