Born in Jacksonville, Florida on 24 October 1893 Son of John C. Cooper and Mary Caldwell. Youngest of three children. Educated at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and graduated in 1911 Attended the U.S. Naval Academy, but was expelled senior year for disciplinary issues. Worked for the Minneapolis Daily News as a reporter in 1916 and a few more papers afterwards. Joined the Georgia National Guard in 1916 to help chase Pancho Villa in Mexico. Later was sent to the Military Aeronautics School in Atlanta to learn to fly and graduated at the top of his class. In October 1917 Cooper was sent to France with the 201st Squadron. Later became a pilot of the 20th Aero Squadron (1st Day Bombardment Group) Served as a DH-4 bomber pilot during WWI. On 26 September 1918 his plane was shot down. He was able to perform an emergency landing and was taken to a prisoner reserve hospital by witnessing German soldiers. He remained in the Air Service after the war helping the American Food Administration in providing aid to Poland. Founder of the Kosciuszko Squadron during the Polish-Soviet War from 1919-1921 and was a Soviet prisoner of war. On 13 July 1920 his plane was shot down and he spent nine months in a Soviet POW camp. He escaped to Latvia just before the war's end. Awarded the Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military decoration, by Polish commander-in-chief Józef Piłsudski. After the war was a major movie producer working with Pioneer Pictures, RKO Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Most famous movie was 1933 King Kong, awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1952 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. On the board of directors of Pan American Airways. Married film actress Dorothy Jordan on 27 May 1933 Cooper died of cancer on 21 April 1973 in San Diego, California. His ashes were scattered at sea with full military honors.

From the Hoover Institute:Memoirs of King Kong Director and War Hero at Hoover Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Dust jacket of Things Men Die For, by "C," with six illustrations by Van Werveke Dust jacket of Things Men Die For, by "C," with six illustrations by Van Werveke, 1927 (Merian C. Cooper Papers, Box 1, Hoover I Newly restored tomb of the US pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron who died defendi Newly restored tomb of the US pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron who died defending Poland (Courtesy of Nicholas Siekierski) Merian Caldwell Cooper would be a top candidate for the "Most Interesting Man in the World." Although Cooper is known for his 1933 production of King Kong, there were many more interesting episodes in his life in addition to that iconic movie. Indeed, in the words of the film historian Richard Schickel, “his career was larger than life.” Expelled from Annapolis in his senior year for advocating air power, a view the navy frowned on, in 1916 he joined the Georgia National Guard and served with General Pershing’s expedition against Pancho Villa. Transferred to the US Army Air Service, Cooper saw action in World War I over Germany, where he was shot down, seriously injured, and spent the last several months of the war in a German prisoner of war (POW) camp. From 1919 until 1921, Cooper worked with the American Relief Administration (ARA) and later volunteered for the US flight unit the Kosciuszko Squadron, part of the Polish effort to stop the Bolshevik advance into Europe. After the Great War Cooper got a job as a crime reporter with the New York Times, sailed on a schooner around the world, and filmed documentaries in Southeast Asia, Ethiopia, Persia, and Turkey. In addition to his Oscar-winning Hollywood directing career, he went on to help found Pan American Airways and, during World War II, served with General Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers, piloting supplies over the Himalayas into China. Cooper, by now a brigadier general, was part of General Douglas MacArthur's party aboard the USS Missouri for the Japanese surrender. Cooper's Polish adventure began with Herbert Hoover's ARA. After being released from the German POW camp and recuperating from his wounds, Cooper joined the ARA and was sent to Poland. In the spring of 1919, he was put in charge of food distribution in the city of Lwów (now Lviv) in southeastern Poland. Yearning to participate more actively in the restoration of the country and a chance to fight the Bolshevik menace from the east, he wrote to the Polish head of state, Józef Piłsudski, asking to be assigned to frontline service. That letter embodies Cooper's romantic spirit of adventure and sacrifice; in it he recalls his direct ancestor's service in General Casimir Pulaski's cavalry and Pulaski's death in the cause of American independence at the siege of Savannah in 1779. Cooper, wanting to repay Poland for Pulaski's sacrifice, was thus sent to Paris to recruit a group of US combat pilots for service in Poland. Cooper and the Kosciuszko Squadron, named after another Polish hero of the American War for Independence, General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, attacked and severely damaged Semen Budennyi’s Red Cavalry that was advancing against Warsaw, as noted by the Soviet chronicler of that campaign, Isaak Babel, in his famous collection of stories, Konarmiia. Cooper was shot down twice, captured, barely escaped being executed, and eventually spent nine months in Bolshevik captivity. He managed to escape, along with two Polish officers, hop freight trains and walk over four hundred miles in eleven days to safety in Latvia. For his exploits in Poland he received two of Poland’s highest decorations, the Polonia Restituta and the Virtuti Militari. Cooper’s final contribution to Poland was a son, Maciej, fathered with an English woman living in Warsaw, Marjorie "Daisy" Crosby-Słomczyńska, whom he had met after escaping from Russia. Maciej Słomczyński (1922-98) became a resistance fighter during World War II and later a translator of Shakespeare, Milton, and James Joyce into Polish, as well as an author of popular action novels.