Bradley Cooper Laughed His Way to the Stage

The story goes that, when Bradley Cooper walked off stage at the end of a performance of Bernard Pomerance's 1977 play The Elephant Man, his father was shaking.  "You picked the right profession," his father, Charles, is supposed to have said.  But this performance was not at Broadway's Booth Theatre, nor was it at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2012.  It was in 1999, when Bradley was in the Actor's Studio masters program and had performed the play as his thesis.  Cooper's connection to the play began in 1987 when his dad bought a VCR and showed him the movie.  Bradley's obsession with John Merrick never waned over the years and now he is finally playing the role on Broadway eight shows a week.