One century ago this week, the November 18, 1922 edition of “Motion Picture News” carried the following notice:
Jackie Coogan was, at the time, eight years old. Since appearing with Charlie Chaplin in THE KID in 1921, his continued popularity with movie audiences had proven that he was a bona fide star who could charm the public even without Chaplin at his side. Back in November of 1921, a “Motion Picture News” article had detailed the manner in which serious business interests within the industry were sorting out how best to monetize Coogan’s popularity:
Note the mention of “the Coogan organization” in the article. This was not used as a generalized phrasing. There actually was a company established in his name, as noted in the September, 1921 issue of “Motion Picture Magazine:”
Within a month of the November 1922 “Motion Picture News” article cited above, the “Santa Cruz Evening News” business pages would report the formal incorporation and capitalization of the Coogan organization in its December 12, 1922 edition:
Although still a child, Jackie Coogan was, like all other movie stars, a business asset. And like any other business asset, multiple avenues were pursued to monetize his image:
For a short time, Jackie even had his own (undoubtedly ghost-written) syndicated newspaper column:
Naturally, like any other major movie star, he was handsomely paid for his services, and for the commercial use of his name and image.
But in Coogan’s case there was an important difference. As a minor, he was not in a position to manage his own finances. Initially, his parents announced their intention to set up a trust fund in his name, as described in the October, 1922 issue of “Photoplay” magazine:
Mr. and Mrs. Coogan seemed to be in accord as to how to manage Jackie’s growing fortune for him. But in May of 1935, young Jackie and his father were involved in a serious automobile accident. Jackie survived, but his father did not, as noted in this article from the May 7, 1935 edition of “The Film Daily”:
A year and a half later, Jackie’s mother married Arthur Bernstein, the family’s business manager, as noted in the January 2, 1937 edition of “The Film Daily”:
From that point on, Mrs. Coogan and her new husband adopted a different attitude toward Jackie’s finances, asserting that Jackie was entitled to no actual ownership of the money he had earned. Having claimed Jackie’s money as their own property absolutely, Arthur and Lillian spent it freely and extravagantly.
Eventually, however, Jackie attained the age of majority, and found himself cut off from the large fortune that he had earned. At the age of 23, he resorted to filing a lawsuit against his mother and stepfather, as reported in the April 25, 1938 issue of “Life” magazine:
The legal battle made headlines in the mainstream press as well as the industry trade press. This article from the April 19, 1938 edition of the “Decatur Herald and Review” is typical of the coverage:
In the “Photoplay” article from 1921 shown above, Mrs. Coogan is quoted as saying “…when [Jackie] grows up, he must have the fruits of his labors,” but by 1938 she had changed her tune, calling him “a bad boy” who was entitled to nothing. After nearly a year of bitter legal wrangling, Jackie would finally settle for a fraction of his earnings, as reported in the March 18, 1939 edition of “Motion Picture Herald”:
Coogan was hampered in his lawsuit by the fact that the law was, in large measure, on the side of his mother and stepfather. There was simply no law on the books that definitively obligated parents to share a child’s income with the child. In the first place, there was a tacit assumption that parents will have their children’s welfare at heart and will act in their best interests without having to be compelled to do so. And in the second place, it was assumed that a child is unlikely to earn a sufficient sum to warrant legal protection. But the phenomenon of child actors becoming movie stars called both assumptions into question. A child star could, in fact, earn vast wealth. And where there is vast wealth at stake, even parental devotion can be undermined, and even superseded, by the corrupting influence of greed.
In its April 27, 1938 edition, “Variety” noted that, in the wake of the Coogan case, Superior Court Judge Emmet Wilson had stepped in to modify the terms for approving subsequent contracts involving minors. Citing a Civil Code provision giving judges the authority to approve contracts for minors, he announced that henceforth no such contract would be approved absent the establishment of a trust fund into which 50% of the minor’s earnings would be directly deposited by the employer:
The same issue of “Variety” noted that a bill had been introduced in the legislature to prevent future exploitation of minors by parents or guardians:
In 1939, this legislation would come to fruition with the legislature’s enactment of sections 36.1 and 36.2 of the California Civil Code. Section 36.1 explicitly gave the superior court authority to preserve a defined portion of a minor’s income in a trust fund or other similar financial instrument, in effect ratifying Judge Wilson’s prior ruling with the force of law. Section 36.2 reinforced this by explicitly giving the superior court continuing jurisdiction over such a trust fund. Formally this is known as the California Child Actors Bill, but from the time of its passage until now it has informally been referred to as the “Coogan Law.”
The Coogan Law was, of course, enacted too late to benefit its namesake, but once enacted it was immediately employed to benefit minors in the industry. The first of these was 17-year-old Deanna Durbin, as reported in the July 15, 1939 edition of “Motion Picture Herald”:
The Coogan Law remains in effect, although it was necessary to amend it in 1999 to keep up with changing circumstances in the industry. Loopholes needed to be closed and the definition of what constitutes a “child celebrity” had to be revised. Moreover, the revised law recognizes that the industry has radically changed since 1939. The original Coogan law was enacted during the period of the Hollywood “studio system,” under which the vast majority of actors, adult and child alike, were bound by exclusive long-term contracts to a single studio, which was, therefore, their sole employer. Nowadays, by contrast, every performer is a free agent, making ad-hoc employment deals with a succession of short-term employers. This significantly complicated enforcement of the terms of the original Coogan Law.
Of course, the entertainment industry has continued to evolve since the 1999 revision of the law. Whether there will need to be still another iteration of the Coogan Law to accommodate the fortunes of, to take one example, youthful social media “influencers” who have successfully monetized their digital image, remains to be seen.
