“Remember This Sweet Baby Who Became Famous at 18 Months? You Won’t Believe How He Looks Nowđ!”
![](https://www.cinematicworld.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Untitled-image-62.jpeg)
Born into a showbiz family, with a vaudevillian father and an actress mother, Cooganâs destiny seemed set from the start. His screen debut came at a mere 18 months in Skinnerâs Baby (1916). Charlie Chaplin spotted him in a stage act and cast him in The Kid at age six, launching him into stardom. Cooganâs career skyrocketed with roles in hits like Peckâs Bad Boy , My Boy (1921), Oliver Twist , Daddy , and Tom Sawyer . By 1923, he was raking in $22,000 a week, a fortune for the time, and earning 60 percent of the profits from his films.
Tragedy struck in 1935 when Coogan survived a car crash that killed his father and three others. The aftermath revealed that his mother and stepfather had squandered his multi-million-dollar earnings. This led to the California Child Actors Bill, or âCoogan Law,â ensuring child actorsâ earnings were protected by law.
During Ww II, Coogan served bravely in the U.S. Army Air Force. In his later years, he found new fans as Uncle Fester in the classic TV series The Addams Family (1964â66). Cooganâs legacy endures, not just for his memorable roles, but for the legal protections his misfortunes helped establish for child actors.