During the making of Skippy (1931), the child star Jackie Cooper—Taurog's on-screen nephew and an Academy Award nominee for the role—struggled to produce a convincing outburst on camera. According to Cooper’s own 1981 autobiography Please Don't Shoot My Dog, director Norman Taurog resorted to a brutal practical ploy: he had a studio security guard pretend to shoot Cooper’s dog behind a prop wall to provoke real tears. The incident became one of the more notorious examples of the harsh methods sometimes employed on child actors in early Hollywood. Cooper recounted the episode decades later, and when his editor sought Taurog’s version during the book’s preparation, Taurog declined to participate. There was no public disciplinary fallout at the time—the film industry of the era rarely sanctioned such conduct—but the story has endured as a cautionary anecdote about directorly abuse, the pressure placed on child performers, and the moral blind spots of studio-era filmmaking.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1930s
The Shocking Trick Norman Taurog Used to Make Jackie Cooper Cry on Skippy (1931)
Skippy / Jackie Cooper / Norman Taurog / 1930s
During the making of Skippy (1931), the child star Jackie Cooper—Taurog's on-screen nephew and an Academy Award nominee for the role—struggled to produce a convincing outburst on camera. According to Cooper’s own 1981 autobiography Please Don't Shoot My Dog, director Norman Taurog resorted to a brutal practical ploy: he had a studio security guard pretend to shoot Cooper’s dog behind a prop wall to provoke real tears. The incident became one of the more notorious examples of the harsh methods sometimes employed on child actors in early Hollywood. Cooper recounted the episode decades later, and when his editor sought Taurog’s version during the book’s preparation, Taurog declined to participate. There was no public disciplinary fallout at the time—the film industry of the era rarely sanctioned such conduct—but the story has endured as a cautionary anecdote about directorly abuse, the pressure placed on child performers, and the moral blind spots of studio-era filmmaking.
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