Cooper made knives used in film and television such as the Arkansas toothpick in The Sacketts and a Bowie knife for Jeremiah Johnson.
The next year he began a period when he concentrated on the Western genre, producing The Sacketts, a TV miniseries based on Louis L'Amour's Sackett family and serving as executive producer of the NBC TV movie Buffalo Soldiers.
The 1982 made for TV movie The Shadow Riders was based upon another Louis L'Amour novel and stars Sam Elliott (Dal Traven), Tom Selleck (Mac Traven), and Jeff Osterhage (Jesse Traven) in similar roles to those they play in The Sacketts.