HOW TO TRAIN AN ICON

MORE ANIMAL MEGASTARS (AND THEIR HANDLERS)

C H E E TA

Tarzan’s ride-or-die ape was played by Jiggs in Tarzan The Ape Man and Tarzan And His Mate, trained by Tony and Jacqueline Gentry. Following Jiggs’ death from pneumonia in 1938 aged nine, the Gentrys trained other chimps to play the character.

LASSIE

Rudd Weatherwax (real name) trained Rough Collie Pal to play Lassie for 1943’s Lassie Come Home. Pal’s big break came when the dog earmarked to play Lassie was not sufficiently trained for the shots MGM wanted of Lassie in a flood. Pal, a canine Cliff Booth, stepped in, and the rest is history.

MISTER ED

Mister Ed, TV’S talking horse, was played by the brilliantly named Bamboo Harvester, a partarabian American Saddlebred, and trained by Les Hilton. Initially, the horse talked via a thread to his mouth, but eventually learned how to move his mouth when Hilton touched his hoof, reacting when his co-stars stopped talking.

ORANGEY

Frank Inn trained male marmalade tabby cat Orangey, best known for playing opposite Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Hepburn said throwing the cat out into the rain was the “most distasteful thing she ever had to do on film”. Still, Orangey bagged his second PATSY (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year), the animal equivalent of the Oscar.

BABE

Karl Lewis Miller handled the dogs in Cujo and Beethoven, and the hamsters in The Nutty Professor. His masterpiece, though, is Babe, training 970 animals for the film, including 48 Babe piglets who kept outgrowing the character over the three years of filming. Miller also cameos as the man who buys three puppies.