Where is
Edna Mae Cooper? It was a headline grabbing mystery that caught the public's
attention and imagination decades before the famous disappearance of Agatha
Christie and infamous kidnappings of Patty Hearst and Frank Sinatra Jr
dominated newspaper headlines. It happened late February 1931 around Monterey,
California. Tram car operator, Melvin Wickman, reportedly saw a woman who
resembled Cooper and gave her directions to the Santa Monica canyon. This would
be the last anyone would see of the actress and aviatrix for five days.
By the time of her disappearance, Cooper was a
household name. At age 18 she began her film career at Famous Players-Lasky
Corporation and featured in several popular films such as Rimrock Jones (1918) with Wallace Reid, Old Wives for New (1918) and Sauce
for the Goose (1918) with Constance Talmadge. Her roles were mostly walk on
or supporting but she was soon being teamed alongside famous stars in even more
famous films for example, Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female (1919) with Gloria Swanson and Why Change Your Wife? (1920) with Gloria Swanson and Bebe Daniels.
Her career slowed in 1922 when she married writer and cinematographer, Karl
Brown, a man widely known for his connection with director, D. W. Griffith.
Cooper stayed out of the headlights for a
period, focusing on forwarding her husband's career until a handful of roles
came her way in the mid 1920's. She never snagged a leading role but was
credited in more A pictures including Grounds
for Divorce (1925) with Florence Vidor and Sally, Irene and Mary (1925) with Constance Bennett and Joan
Crawford. These roles would sadly bring the peak of Cooper's varied screen
career.
In her late 20's, Cooper turned to another
pursuit - flying. With Charles Lindbergh's successful solo Atlantic flight in
1927 and the growing celebrity of Amelia Earhart, aviation was an attractive
hobby for wealthy and ambitious women. Early 1931, Cooper and a friend, aviator
Bobbi Trout, made plans to break the two person endurance record. Trout was not
newcomer to headlines being named the first woman to fly all-night, breaking
the women's solo endurance record and breaking the light class aircraft
altitude record all in 1929. Their first attempt at the record on January 1
failed due to technical problems but their next attempt proved more successful
with the woman flying 122 hours and 50 minutes straight. The pair covered over 7,370
miles and only stopped due to the lack of fuel and were named the record
holders.
This success put Cooper on a high. It would be
short-lived, however, with a mystery incident or illness causing her to become
a national missing person only a month later. It would be Trout alongside
Cooper's mother, Mary Cooper, who were the first to speculate on the cause of
her disappearance. Newspaper reports from February 28 claimed,
"Mrs
Mary Cooper said her daughter, worried over the finances, may have gone to a
rest home or hospital. Miss Bobbi Trout said Miss Cooper had often spoken to
her of a banker admirer who had rented the upper floor of the Cooper home for a
time last year and intimated she might marry him. Miss Trout suggested they may
have eloped."
Cooper in her flying gear |
It seemed, despite the strange nature of her
disappearance, both her mother and her friend believed this it to be of her own
choosing. Police investigating the case released details the same day of
jewellery found at a Los Angeles pawn shop that they believed belonged to
Cooper. Newspapers reported police found $4,500 worth of jewellery Cooper was
wearing at the time of her disappearance. They reportedly believed Cooper had
either voluntarily parted with the items or was kidnapped and robbed.
On March 2, newspapers broke the news:
"Noted Actress, Aviatrix Found in Hospital". According to reports
Cooper had been registered at a Monterey hotel under the name of Caroline Hope
for several days. Hotel staff noticed she was suffering an illness and called a
doctor to attend to her. Dr Hugh Dormody who treated Cooper said she had an
abrasion on the back of her head which was possibly a week old as well as
bruises and contusions. She was removed to the local hospital where she was
identified by old acquaintances, Mrs Gouverneur Morris and former actor Roscoe
'Fatty' Arbuckle as Edna Mae Cooper. Newspapers continued that Cooper told
authorities that she believed she was in Santa Monica. A cab driver later came
forward claiming he had picked Cooper up while she was wandering aimlessly in
Carmel, a nearby art colony.
The following day more strange information came
to light. Apparently, Cooper - in desperate need of a rest - took off in her
plane for Santa Monica. She told newspapers that she remembered nothing else.
What happened after Cooper's plane left the ground is a mystery. The mostly
likely answer, and the dominant opinion at the time, was that under intense
mental and physical stress, Cooper experienced temporary amnesia. It seems
likely and reasonable yet what happened to her during her disappearance still
remains a mystery.
Regardless of the publicity the incident
afforded Cooper, she only appeared in one more film as a 'Woman of the Court'
in The Ten Commandments (1956). She
retired to a private life and remained married to Mr Brown until her death aged
85 on June
27, 1986.
Karl Brown in 1980 |