Merian C. Cooper
The filmmaker who dreamed of a giant gorilla terrorizing New York and turned that dream into the 1933 film King Kong.
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Merian C. Cooper was the filmmaker who brought King Kong to the screen as the 1933 film's producer and co-director. He thought of the idea after a dream about a giant gorilla terrorizing New York City. When he awoke, he recorded the idea and used it for the film. He helped David Selznick get a job at RKO Pictures, and Selznick later asked Cooper to join him in September 1931.
Cooper officially pitched the idea for King Kong in December 1931. He began seeking actors and building full-scale sets before the screenplay was complete. The screenplay was delivered to Cooper in January 1932. Schoedsack contributed by shooting boat sequences and native village scenes, while Cooper shot the jungle scenes.
In February 1933, the film's title was registered for copyright. Cooper believed a film should begin with a slow dramatic buildup to establish characters and mood, so he chose not to start with a shot of Kong. The iconic scene of Kong climbing the Empire State Building was almost cut by Cooper due to legal concerns over a similar sequence in The Lost World (1925).
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Merian Caldwell Cooper
- Born
- 24 October 1893
- Birthplace
- Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.
- Died
- 21 April 1973
- Place of death
- San Diego, California, U.S.
- Education
- United States Naval Academy, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Occupation
- Film director
- Movie producer
- Military officer
- Aviator
- Spouse
- Dorothy Jordan (1933)
Lore & Background
Cooper's background as an explorer and documentary filmmaker gave him experience traveling the world and documenting adventures. Before King Kong, he and Ernest B. Schoedsack made Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925), a documentary about the Bakhtiari people in Iran, and Chang (1927). These films combined real footage with staged sequences. Cooper was also a member of the board of directors of Pan American Airways from 1926 to 1927, though his love of film took priority. He resigned from the board in 1935 following health complications. During his film career, he worked for companies such as Pioneer Pictures, RKO Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1952 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Reader's Guide
The creation of King Kong was a direct reflection of the cultural anxieties and technological optimism of the early 1930s. Merian C. Cooper drew heavily from his own experiences as a war pilot and explorer in Asia and Africa, channeling the era's fascination with 'lost worlds' and uncharted territories into the film's narrative. The Great Depression influenced the story's themes of exploitation and the clash between nature and industrialization.
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Elsewhere in King Kong
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