Gary Cooper and Pablo Picasso got along quite well, visiting each other fairly often during the 50s. Here, Cooper shows Pablo a pistol.
Here’s Pablo in Cannes after receiving a hat and pistol from Cooper. Photo by André Villers, 1958. (Not sure who shot the top photo.)
It’s a shame Picasso wasn’t recruited to do the one-sheet to, say, Man Of The West (1958).
It’s too bad they couldn’t get Pablo to sing Bird Dog with Coop on the Jack Benny show. He could have said “yup.”
Picasso never visited the USA. a better duet would be Charles Laughton sing BIRD DOG with the Everly Brothers.
I’d had these photos for a couple months and could never track down exactly how (or where) the whole pistol-gifting went down. Eventually, I got tired of them sitting on my desktop and simply tossed them on the blog. Thanks for helping clear some of it up.
Well, Laughton did introduce Elvis in his first Sullivan appearance. Too bad they were on different coasts or Laughton could have dressed as Quasimodo while Elvis sang Don’t Be Cruel.