Cooper stamps still available from the USPS

The United States Postal Service honored Gary Cooper with a stamp this year, the latest in their Hollywood Legends series which began in 1995 with a Marilyn Monroe stamp.

Then came James Dean (1996), Humphrey Bogart (1997), Alfred Hitchcock (1998), James Cagney (1999), Edward G. Robinson (2000), Lucille Ball (2001), Cary Grant (2002), Audrey Hepburn (2003), John Wayne (2004), Henry Fonda (2005), Judy Garland (2006), James Stewart (2007), Bette Davis (2008), and now Cooper, who won Oscars for his performance as "Sergeant York" (1941) and Marshal Will Kane in "High Noon" (1952). He was the quintessential strong-and-silent type, and according to his daughter, Maria Cooper Janis, Cooper's reaction to the stamp would have been mixed. "My father would have been very flattered by this honor," she was quoted as saying in the original USPS press release, "but he was always very self deprecating. If he were here today, he'd probably say, "See what you get for falling off a horse." Cooper began his career as a stunt man in westerns.