Very early in the development of the commercial cinema, Hollywood discovered that audiences loved to see animals perform on film. MACK SENNETT, for instance, used a cat (Pepper), a horse (Butterfly), and a dog (Teddy) in his stable of animal actors during the early silent era in support of his comic stars. For the most part, animals have traditionally played supporting roles to human actors, but a number of assorted animals have managed to ascend to a star status of their own.
Animals, of course, don't really act but are merely taught tricks that can be photographed in short takes and made to appear as if the animal knows what he or she is doing. Yet an animal that becomes a star for any length of time is almost always an amazing creature capable of responding to an enormous number of commands. In addition, such animals, just like their human counterparts, have an undefinable star quality - that certain something that the camera can pick up and that the mass audience can fully appreciate.
The lion may be king of the jungle, but the dog has been king of the animal movies. The first animal that had star billing was the German shepherd Strongheart (his real name was Etzel von Oeringen), who took America by storm in The Silent Call (1921). Strongheart's appeal, however, was shortlived as he was overtaken by the adventures of yet another German shepherd, Rin Tin Tin (his real name), who made his first appearance in The Man From Hell's River (1922). Not only was “Rinty” a star, he was Warner Bros.' greatest asset during the silent era, keeping the studio financially afloat until it introduced talkies in 1927.
Rin Tin Tin (Rinty II, actually) was still making movies when MGM made the words collie and Lassie almost synonymous. The film was Lassie Come Home (1943), and a new dog star was born. Lassie, whose real name was Pal and who wasn't a she but a he, made a number of films throughout the 1940s. When the dog's films lost their appeal on the big screen, he, like Rin Tin Tin, began a new life on TV. In the 1970s, an attempt was made to resurrect Lassie's career in The Magic of Lassie (1978), a film in which he costarred opposite Jimmy Stewart. This descendant of the original Pal received good reviews, but the movie was, well, a dog. In more recent years, a new canine star has emerged. As only a supporting player by the name of Higgins for seven years on the TV series Petticoat Junction, the cute little mutt had his name changed to Benji and starred in the movie of the same name in 1974. His offspring have continued making the occasional successful film.
While dogs have enjoyed the lion's share of animal starring roles, they haven't had a monopoly. One of the most notable animal stars of the early 1950s was Francis the Talking Mule, who was introduced to movie audiences in Francis (1950). Of course, Francis didn't perform any tricks except move his lips, and Chill Wills supplied the voice, but there were plenty of Hollywood actors who didn't do very much more to earn their keep than Francis.
First cousins to Francis were the equine stars, such as Fury, Flicka, and the Black Stallion. But they, like other animal stars such as Flipper (a dolphin), Rhubarb (a cat), Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion (in a 1965 film of the same name), and other dog stars such as Old Yeller, had short-lived movie careers. Beethoven became the St. Bernard of the day in 1992 and 1993. Stephen King's Cujo (1983) was menacing and rabid. In 1995 a pig named Babe captured the hearts of children and sentimental adults.
Let us not forget, however, that in addition to the actual stars, there was a whole menagerie of animals who became well-known supporting players. These animals are often as well remembered today as the human actors who were the stars of the films in which they appeared. For instance, there was Cheetah (the chimp) in the Tarzan movies, Clyde the orangutan in two of Clint Eastwood's films, Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980), Asta (the dog) in the Thin Man series, Pete (yet another dog) in the Our Gang comedies, Ben (a rat) in Willard (1971) and Ben (1972), and Bozo (not the clown, the bear), who costarred in The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1974).
In westerns of the silent era and up into the 1950s, the hero's horse was also an important supporting player. For instance, how far would KEN MAYNARD have traveled without his horse, Tarzan? Or what would have become of Tom Mix without Tony? Gene Autry could sing, but he was just another yodeler without Champion. And Trigger was so important to ROY ROGERS that rather than forget him, Rogers had him stuffed when the horse died.
It is an old superstition among performers that there is nothing worse than acting with either a child or an animal - the adult actor is invariably upstaged. It's no wonder, then, that humans will never give an animal a Best Actor Oscar.
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