Bio
Jeanne Cooper (25 October, 1928 - 8 May, 2013) was an American actress best known for her role as Katherine Chancellor on the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless, from 1973-2013.
Cooper garnered 11 Daytime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and one Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.
She received the Daytime Emmy Award in 2008 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama and was nominated again in 2009. In 1989, she received a Soap Opera Digest Award and the Soap Opera Digest Editor's Award for her portrayal of Genoa City grande dame Katherine Chancellor.
In May, 2004, Cooper was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmy Awards.
She earned her first Emmy nomination in 1961 for an episode of Ben Casey and received a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993.
Her recurring role on L.A. Law, playing the mother to her real-life son, Corbin Bernsen, earned her another Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series in 1987.
Bernsen subsequently joined his mother on The Young and the Restless, making several guest appearances as the priest Father Todd. Cooper won the First American in the Arts Award twice as a Lead Actress.
In 1984, footage of Cooper's real-life facelift was televised on The Young and the Restless as her character underwent the surgery at the same time. It was the first time an extreme makeover had been broadcast in daytime television.
An accomplished film and television actress, Cooper was born in Taft, California. She attended the College of the Pacific and performed in the Civic Light Opera Company and Revue Theatre in Stockton before graduation from the famed Pasadena Playhouse School. Cooper was installed in the Hall of Fame in Taft in June, 2009.
Her professional career began with the film The Redhead from Wyoming with Maureen O'Hara in 1953, followed by The Man From Alamo with Glenn Ford, There Was a Crooked Man, The Boston Strangler with Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda and George Kennedy, Tony Rome with Frank Sinatra, The All-American Boy with Jon Voight, The Glory Guys, Kansas City Bomber and Let No Man Write My Epitaph with Shelley Winters.
She became a recognisable name starring in early television shows such as Playhouse 90, The Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, The Untouchables, Maverick and Bracken's World, as well as many others.
Her most notable stage credits include starring roles in On the Town, The Miracle Worker, Plain and Fancy, and the touring production of Plaza Suite. She also starred in Love Letters at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills.
Cooper starred in the film Tomorrow Man and the telefilms Gentle Ben and Gentle Ben 2: Danger on the Mountain. She had a starring role in the independent feature Carpool Guy, directed by and starring Bernsen, and just worked on two films, Three Day Test and Over the Hedge, also produced by Bernsen's film company, Public Filmworks.
Cooper was the mother of three children; Caren, Collin and Corbin; and grandmother to eight.
In 2013, shortly after a round of promotion for the Y&R 40th anniversary, Cooper became ill due to an infection and passed away on 8 May, 2013. She was 84.