In the Sopranos, what does "...once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feeli...

In The Sopranos episode Strong, Silent Type (Wikipedia, IMDB) the character Tony Soprano says:

Let me tell you something. Nowadays everybody’s got to go to shrinks, and counselors, and go on Sally Jessy Raphael and talk about their problems.

Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?

The strong, silent type; that was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelings, he just did what he had to do.

So what they didn’t know, once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings, that they wouldn’t be able to shut him up! And then it’s ‘dysfunction this, dusfunction that, dysfunction vaffanculo!’

Question: Does Soprano refer to an actual situation involving the real life actor Gary Cooper? Or to characters that the actor played later in life? Or does "...once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings..." refer to something more existential?

Quote transcribed from the first thirty seconds of

or if/when that link breaks:

• The Sopranos - Whatever happened to Gary Cooper
• The Sopranos: The Strong Silent Type.

It doesn't refer to a specific incident involving Gary Cooper; he's using "Gary Cooper" as an archetype, "the strong, silent type".

What he's saying is basically: "once they got people to get in touch with their feelings, it opened up the floodgates and it never stopped". In his mind, Americans stopped being Gary Cooper and instead became self-obsessed whiners.