Warner Brothers Pictures

Gary Cooper in a dark suit in 1941

Here's a publicity photo of actor Gary Cooper, taken during promotion of his 1941 movie Meet John Doe. Gary Cooper turned 40 that year; he was born in 1901 in Helena, Montana. Meet John Doe, directed by Frank Capra, was a romantic comedy-drama about a likable drifter who is picked by a newspaper to become a cooked-up angry everyman, John Doe. The film also starred the super-fabulous actress Barbara Stanwyck, who rarely gets the credit she truly deserves.

See our biography of Gary Cooper