00:08Good evening, I'm Ben Mankowitz. Welcome to TCM, where Wednesday nights this month are reserved
00:13for one of the defining actors of Hollywood's golden age. If there were a Mount Rushmore for
00:19actors, this actor that we have as our star of the month probably wouldn't be on it. That likely
00:26caught you off guard, didn't it? That's because I'm thinking of this Mount Rushmore as having two
00:30men and two women on it. So it would be probably John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart, Betty Davis and
00:36Barbara Stanwyck, maybe Joan Crawford. But if there were two different Mount Rushmores, one for actors
00:43and another one for actresses, then I think our featured star this month makes the cut. Because
00:48just imagine Gary Cooper's face carved into a mountain. People would come from all over the
00:55world just to admire his jaw. Cooper's fans included some notable heavy hitters. One of them,
01:02Ernest Hemingway, insisted that Cooper and only Cooper star in our next film, a respectful adaptation
01:08of a seminal Hemingway novel from Paramount in 1943, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Cooper is Robert
01:15Jordan, a teacher who volunteers to fight against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. This is in
01:21the years immediately prior to the start of World War II in Europe. Jordan is handy with explosives,
01:27a skill he'll use after he joins a group of guerrilla fighters. They're tasked with blowing up a bridge,
01:33all of which leads Jordan to a rebel fighter named Maria, played by Ingrid Bergman. Maria's life has been
01:39shattered by the war, and Bergman brings all she has to Maria's fragile yet fierce emotional state.
01:46It's a brilliant performance that earned Bergman an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
01:52Ernest Hemingway knew his subject. He covered the Spanish Civil War as a reporter, found himself in
01:58harm's way more than a few times. The experience shaped his 1940 novel, the movie is based on.
02:06Paramount, eager to get Hemingway's epic story on screen, snapped up the rights for a record,
02:11$150,000. The writer, who'd reportedly written the story with Gary Cooper in mind, insisted Cooper be
02:18cast in the lead. Cooper had landed an important early starring role for him in Paramount's 1932
02:25adaptation of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, which we'll be showing later tonight. For this one,
02:31Paramount agreed on Cooper but ignored Hemingway's desire to see Ingrid Bergman cast as Maria.
02:37Instead, the studio went with a Norwegian ballerina-slash-actress under contract to them,
02:43Vera Serena. She lasted two weeks in the role before the studio made the costly decision to
02:49replace her with Bergman. Cooper and Bergman instantly clicked on screen, and rumors persisted
02:55the romance continued off-screen. She is one of the easiest actresses to do a scene with, Cooper said.
03:02Bergman returned the compliment, noting that Cooper was so natural,
03:05he didn't know if he was acting. Like Bergman, Cooper was also Oscar-nominated. The film earned
03:12nine nominations, though the only winner was Katina Paxano for Best Supporting Actress.
03:17From 1943, directed by Sam Wood, For Whom the Bell Tolls.
