Educated at the University of Missouri school of drama, Cooper has appeared on Broadway in "Of the Fields Lately (1980)", off-Broadway in "The Ballad of Soapy Smith (1983)" and "A Different Moon (1983)". He debuted in films in the John Sayles movie Matewan. Although his performance was well received, the picture was not successful. Other films he has appeared in include Guilty by Suspicion, Money Train and A Time to Kill. On television, Cooper has been featured in the mini-series Lonesome Dove and Return to Lonesome Dove, as July Johnson. He has also appeared in a number of Television Movies. In 1996, he appears in his third John Sayles movie Lone Star, where he plays Sam Deeds, the sheriff whose lawman father becomes a posthumous suspect in a murder investigation.


Lives in Kingston, Massachusetts, USA. Son, Jesse Cooper (with Leone), born 1987, died January 2005 from causes related to cerebral palsy. He majored in agriculture and acting at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. As a young man, he did some construction work, including helping with the construction of Royals Stadium in Kansas City, now known as Kaufman Stadium. Said he was afraid of taking the role in American Beauty (1999); his wife convinced him to take the role of the repressed soldier. His Texas-born father, Charles Cooper, was an internist who served as a doctor in the US Air Force and a cattleman; mother, Mary Ann Cooper, was a homemaker. His first foray into acting came when he was drafted from the set-builder ranks of his local community theater to serve as a last-minute substitute for Tom Berenger in a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" as the paper boy.