Gary Cooper won Best Actor for Sergeant York and High Noon, and built a career on doing conspicuously less than anyone around him, decades before that became a recognised screen technique.
High Noon is the definitive performance, a marshal abandoned by a town, played almost entirely in silence and worry across a running time matching the story’s real duration.
He was a major star for three decades, in Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Ball of Fire and The Pride of the Yankees, and worked constantly.
He named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee in general terms while declining to identify individuals, which is a more equivocal record than either side has claimed.
