Gary Cooper(1901-1961)

According to James Garner's autobiography Cooper developed the habit of paying for everything by check, knowing that people would keep it for his signature and never cash it (it was a trick also used by Pablo Picasso, who once said he had seldom paid for anything--from lunches to cars to houses--because of it.

Until I came along all the leading men were handsome, but luckily they wrote a lot of stories about the fellow next door.