Miriam Cooper

Miriam Cooper was born to Julian Cooper and Margaret Stewart in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1891. The family was Roman Catholic, and the Coopers were fairly well-to-do. After the birth of five children in five years (one of whom died in infancy), Julian Cooper deserted his family and fled to Europe. Margaret Cooper raised Miriam and her siblings Nelson, Gordon and Lenore with financial assistance from her mother-in-law. After grandmother Cooper died, the family lived in abject poverty and was forced to move from Washington Heights to Little Italy. At one point, Miriam spent time in an orphanage when her mother was too sick to take care of her. Miriam was educated at St. Walburga's Academy, a convent school, and at Coopers Union Art School. Before stumbling into the nascent motion picture industry, she was a model for artists Harrison Fisher and Charles Dana Gibson. Her first film role was as an extra in D.W. Griffith's A Blot on the 'Scutcheon (1912). She next traveled to Florida where she