“
- The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, Peter N. Carroll.
Perhaps unbeknownst to Cooper, State Department restrictions made it extremely difficult for Americans to travel to (let alone volunteer in) Spain during the war. Thousands eventually entered the fray by crossing the Pyrenees from France.
“Paramount’s 1943 version of For Whom the Bell Tolls, which started Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, atomized [Hemingway]’s ire. [Alvah] Bessie’s confrontation with the actor Gary Cooper epitomized his alienation from the Hollywood scene:
‘I’m one of the guys you played in the picture,’ he told Cooper.
‘Terrible thing, civil war. Brothers fighting each other.’
‘It wasn’t really a civil war, Mr. Cooper.’
[Cooper:] ‘It wasn’t?’
‘It was a war of invasion on the part of Germany and Italy against the legal government of Spain.’
‘That so? (Swallows) That’s whats so great about this country… A guy like you can go and fight in a war that’s none of your business.’
”- The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, Peter N. Carroll.
Perhaps unbeknownst to Cooper, State Department restrictions made it extremely difficult for Americans to travel to (let alone volunteer in) Spain during the war. Thousands eventually entered the fray by crossing the Pyrenees from France.