Andrea McArdle has posted the follow-up she promised, and it is the story of working with Jackie Cooper, who directed her as a young Judy Garland in the 1978 NBC television movie Rainbow.
McArdle, who originated Annie on Broadway in 1977, said she expected Cooper, himself a former child actor, to have “the most respect for other child actors.” In her telling, she got the opposite, starting before filming even began.
Cooper came to London for her final performance as Annie at the Victoria Palace Theatre. She said she ran up and gave him a big hug, and he told her, “I know what you were going for,” then added, “you didn’t get there” and “but nice try.” She was 14, and she remembers thinking how strange the moment was before she went on to say goodbye to the Annie company.
The stories continued on the Rainbow set. McArdle said Cooper would tell her the crew was only setting a light, have her look at a spot on the wall for a long stretch, and then reveal he had been filming her all along, answering “I got it” when she asked when they would start. She took the game in stride, she said, but she also said he “shook my confidence” at every turn.
She said Cooper also assumed her childhood had looked like his years making movie after movie at MGM, and that he turned on her once he learned her life had been far more normal by comparison.
The follow-up completes the picture McArdle started in her first Rainbow video, where she revealed that the singing audiences hear in the film is a rehearsal track she never got to redo. Watch McArdle tell the Cooper stories in her own words in her TikTok video.
Rainbow aired on NBC on November 6, 1978, following Garland from vaudeville through her rise at MGM and the making of The Wizard of Oz. McArdle had originated Annie on Broadway, then played the role in London in 1978 before stepping straight into Garland’s story.