Born in Los Angeles on October 14, 1916 as John Leslie Coogan, Jr., Jackie was thrust in to the film world by his show business parents. He made his screen debut at the age of eighteen months in the silent picture Skinner's Baby, and was already Hollywood's first real child star by the time he played the title character in Charlie Chaplin's first feature film, The Kid (1921), a role that would make Jackie a household name. By 1923 he was the number one box-office star in the United States.

Although he continued to make films as he matured into a teenager, he gradually retired by the time he reached legal age. Unfortunately, during his tenure as a highly paid movie star, his parents squandered his savings. After his father was killed in a car crash prior to Jackie's twenty-first birthday, the young man had to sue his mother for what was left of his fortune--and wound up with a fraction of the $600,000 which remained. Yet it was because of this suit that the California State Legislature instituted a law which is known as "The Coogan Act"--protecting child actors from the abusive mishandling of their finances by their parents.

Jackie's financial ruin was responsible for ending his two-year marriage to actress Betty Grable, yet Jackie married three more times. He re-entered show business after being a glider pilot in World War II. Work included theater productions and appearances in programs from TV's Golden Age, including Damon Runyon Theater, Playhouse 90, Studio One, G.E. Theater, and The Loretta Young Show. Jackie also guest-starred on three episodes of Perry Mason, as well as such sitcoms as Ozzie and Harriet, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Lucy Show --before becoming Uncle Fester on The Addams Family, a role he was seriously intent on getting.

After having a spell of depression upon recognizing that he had perfectly incarnated a monstrously hideous character, Coogan came to enjoy his days on this series, even though he would forever be identified with this freak of nature.

Life after Fester meant guest spots on dramatic TV series like The Name of the Game, Hawaii Five-O, and McMillan and Wife and also classic sitcoms like I Dream of Jeannie, The Partridge Family, and The Brady Bunch. In 1972, he was reunited with Charlie Chaplin upon the filmmaker's return to the United States to receive an honorary Oscar. Jackie Coogan retired in the late 1970s to live in Palm Springs.

He died of cardiac arrest on March 1, 1984.