Frequently animals working as actors achieve considerable fame, though under the name of the character they portrayed, rather than their own. That hardly seems fair, especially as many animal actors played several different characters over the course of their career. Animal actors work just as their human counterparts do. They need to hit their spots, respond to cues, and convey a sense of reality to their audience.
According to human actors, some are a joy to work with, others a pain, and some even demonstrate the prima donna attitudes displayed by some humans. And many have earned sums over the course of their careers that have made their owners and trainers quite wealthy. Yet their real names remain known to few. Here are ten relatively obscure animal actors whose characters were quite famous.
10. Bamboo Harvester
Mr. Ed was a 1960s television situation comedy featuring a character which originated in a series of short stories written by Walter R. Brooks. The first of the short stories, which featured a talking horse owned by a dipsomaniac, appeared in Liberty Magazine in September, 1937. Eventually he wrote 23 short stories featuring the talking horse, Mr. Ed. In 1961 the series was adapted for television, though the drunken nature of the owner was dropped. For the role of the talking horse, the producers selected a horse named Bamboo Harvester.
Bamboo Harvester played Mr. Ed in the series, though he had no notable acting experience. He was a gelding out of an American Saddlebred mare, sired by an Arabian, eleven year old when the television series began. His trainer, Les Hilton, had been a protègè of Will Rogers. As Mr. Ed, Bamboo Harvester opened the show by saying, “Hello, I’m Mr. Ed”, followed by the program’s theme song. Mr. Ed’s lips moved to appear as if he were actually speaking and though many theories have emerged as to how this was done, though the means have never been officially revealed. .
Obviously, Mr. Ed/Bamboo Harvester did not actually talk, an actor named Allan Lane provided the voiceovers. Bamboo Harvester also had an understudy, a horse named Pumpkin, to pose in his place for publicity stills and occasional personal appearances. But he played the title role of Mr. Ed in all 143 episodes of the show over six seasons before retiring. He was put down in 1970 after a series of illnesses at the age of 20.
9. Pal
Lassie, the character dog in film and television, is a female Rough Collie. Pal, the dog which first portrayed Lassie on film in 1943’s Lassie Come Home (with a young Elizabeth Taylor), was a male Rough Collie. In fact, in feature films to date, the female Lassie was always portrayed by males, many if not most of them descendants of Pal. The same holds true for the long-running live action television series Lassie. The series began in 1954, with Pal filming the pilot, replaced by his son Pal II, renamed Lassie Jr, for the first season. It ran for 19 years and 591 episodes, with several dogs eventually portraying Lassie.
Pal and his many descendants were owned and trained by Rudd Weatherwax. Weatherwax used the earnings from Pal’s successful seven films as Lassie to acquire the rights to the name Lassie and the franchise, which he then helped develop for television. As noted, Pal performed in the pilot television movie for the series, after which a number of Pal’s descendants performed the role of Lassie. Pal thus created a famous character and a long family line of actors, though without achieving the fame of the Booths or the Barrymores.
Pal also performed as Lassie in personal appearances and even on radio where, obviously, he only needed to bark, whimper, or growl on cue, though with suitable emphasis as the role dictated. He retired as Lassie in 1954 and died in 1958. Since his death attempts to cast non-Pal bloodline collies in the role of Lassie have engendered legal disputes and negative commentary. The Lassie trademark was sold by the Weatherwax family (Rudd Weatherwax died in 1985) in 2000 and after changing hands due to mergers and other business dealings is now held by Universal.
8. Popcorn Deelites
The 2003 film Seabiscuit told a fictionalized story about a real race horse which caught the nation’s attention at the height of the Depression in the 1930s. To film the racing scenes, several horses were used to portray Seabiscuit, as well as the horses he raced against. Several real jockeys also took part in the film, including Gary Stevens as George “Iceman” Woolf. But in the scenes with interactions between Tobey Maguire, as Red Pollard, and others where humans interacted directly with Seabiscuit, the famous racehorse was portrayed by a thoroughbred racehorse named Popcorn Deelites.
Popcorn Deelites had a less than stellar racing career, starting 58 races with 11 wins, and just $56,800 in career earnings, racing both before and after filming Seabiscuit. In the paddock and around the barns he was called Pops, the name Tobey Maguire used for him in their scenes in the movie. Gary Stevens spoke fondly of Popcorn Deelites when he learned of the horse’s death in 2022, calling him his “go-to guy in all the big scenes”.
The film Seabiscuit, with its story of a disregarded underdog achieving success and winning the hearts of fans was a huge success in 2003. It was the only appearance in Popcorn Deelites acting career. He returned to racing, with limited success and retired to Old Friends, a thoroughbred retirement farm in Kentucky in 2005. He lived there for his remaining 17 years, forgotten both as a racehorse and as an actor.
7. Spike
Frank Weatherwax, a brother of Lassie’s Rudd Weatherwax, was also an animal trainer who assisted his brother training Pal and his offspring for their roles as Lassie. Another dog he trained was Spike. Spike was a Labrador Retriever/Mastiff mixed breed (sometimes called a mastador), yellow in color and lop-eared. He appeared in several films in the 1950s and 1960s, often uncredited. One such film was a major hit upon its release and again when it was shown on television. It was the story of a stray dog and the boy who found him in post-Civil War Texas, and though Spike played the titular role he was again uncredited.
The film was the Walt Disney production of Old Yeller, starring Tommy Kirk, Fess Parker, and Dorothy McGuire. Old Yeller became a cultural icon of the late 1950s and early 1960s, spawning comic books, merchandise, posters, toys, and other items now deemed collectibles. Old Yeller was rereleased in theaters in 1965 and again achieved considerable financial success. It achieved popular and critical acclaim, and in 2019 the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry. Try watching the end of Old Yeller without tearing up. Only the coldest can do so.
Spike went on to additional films, including appearing in A Dog of Flanders playing the featured dog mentioned in the title, Patrasche, again uncredited. He also appeared in the television series Lassie, The Mickey Mouse Club, and in the Brian Keith series The Westerner, again, all uncredited. He finally received a screen credit for one of his final roles, as Pete in the 1961 film The Silent Call. Spike died in 1962. Old Yeller, his most famous role, continues to hold high approval ratings on streaming and film review sites online.
6. Bruno
In the early 1900s there was a silent film bear actor known as Bruno the Bear. Trained as a circus performer Bruno the Bear appeared in film shorts such as Mack Sennett comedies. The later bear actor known simply as Bruno was born around 1962, though there are several disputing stories regarding his early life. The North American black bear eventually arrived and was trained at Africa USA Animal Ranch in California. From there he was recruited to appear in the film Zebra in the Kitchen, and later in an episode of Daktari.
In 1967 the 650 pound, nearly 8-foot bear (he had been declawed) appeared in the film Gentle Giant and the television series Gentle Ben in the role of Ben the bear. For the role Bruno’s name was changed to Ben, and like other actors he commuted from his California home to the sets in the Florida Everglades while filming the series. He found the humid Florida heat not to his taste. It had little effect on his appetite however, and Bruno was known to eat any food he found around the set, including packs of cigarettes left lying around by the crew.
Bruno eventually appeared in over four hundred roles, usually as a comic relief, and often appeared hesitant to work, due to laziness or heat, or his interest in food rather than work. He appeared as Watch Bear in the 1972 film The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, with Paul Newman and Jacqueline Bissett. In his career he was nominated for three PATSY awards, winning in 1968 for his appearance in Gentle Giant. He also appeared as a guest on television variety shows, including on a 1973 special, Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore, featuring Mama Cass. The date of Bruno’s death is unknown, speculated to have been around 1981.
5. Higgins
The dog actor Higgins first appeared on television as the little dog who lived at the Shady Rest Hotel in the series Petticoat Junction. Trained by animal trainer Frank Inn, Higgins went on to a 14 year career in film and television.
But back to Higgins. The dog, a Norwich Terrier, won a PATSY award for his role on Petticoat Junction and was featured on a 1966 TV Guide cover, but he was uncredited in the role. Additionally, his character had no name, referred to simply as dog by other characters. Higgins performed in a guest role on Green Acres with Eva Gabor, and with her sister Zsa Zsa Gabor in the 1971 film Mooch Goes to Hollywood, in which Zsa Zsa played herself, one of several actors to have worked with two of the three Gabor sisters.
But it was as the original Benji that Higgins tugged at the hearts of audiences, pairing with his old friend and star of Petticoat Junction Edgar Buchanan in 1974. Frances Bavier, Mayberry’s Aunt Bee, also appeared in the film, and it was the last for all three actors. As in his other roles Hiigins was not credited. By that time Higgins was 16 years old, an advanced age for any dog, and he was unable to appear in any of the sequels. He had by then sired many puppies, and it was one of his daughters, Benjean, who appeared as Benji in the first sequel, For the Love of Benji, in 1977.
4. Skippy
From 1932 to 1947 a Wire Fox Terrier appeared in more than two dozen films, appearing with stars such as Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Katharine Hepburn, William Powell, Irene Dunne, and other stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The dog’s name was Skippy, though he was credited under many names, including the character which he made famous, Asta. Asta was the faithful companion of Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man and its many sequels on film, and a later television series. Skippy was owned and trained by Gale and Henry East, and he became one of Hollywood’s highest paid animal stars during the run of The Thin Man series.
Most animal stars of the day were paid about $3.50 per day for their contribution to the film. Skippy received over $250.00 per week plus expenses and a stipend for his handlers. He could also be temperamental on the set, once biting Myrna Loy during a rehearsal. Beside his role as Asta, it was Skippy who played the dog in Bringing Up Baby who buried a paleontologist’s prized bone fossil. He also appeared as Mr. Smith, the subject of a custody dispute between characters played by Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth.
But he is remembered primarily as the dog who portrayed Asta, in at least the first three Thin Man films. The role is credited to Asta in all of the Thin Man movies, and it is likely another dog filled the later roles, as Skippy would have been too old for the final films. His last role credited as Skippy was in 1939’s Topper Takes a Trip. Beyond that, little is known of the remaining days of Skippy, the dog who created a role frequently used as the answer to crossword clues in newspapers and magazines across the country.
3. Sykes
The story of Sykes, the dog actor, is a true rags-to-riches tale (pardon the bad pun), canine style. Sykes was a foundling, a stray dog with the good fortune to be found by a stunt dog trainer named Gill Raddings. Raddings estimated the dog’s age to be about seven months when she found him in 2004. Trained and handled primarily by the reward with food method, Sykes first appeared before the public in British television advertisement campaigns. A mixed terrier, the dog soon had roles in major motion pictures, including in Curse of the Black Pearl, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Sykes starred in several advertising campaigns in the UK, starting with Every Home Needs a Harvey, a Thinkbox advertisement which extolled the power of television advertising. He played Harvey, a dog awaiting adoption. As a result he became known to the public as Harvey, rather than his real name. He later appeared in two additional Thinkbox advertisements, as well as in an ad with British actor and comedian Peter Kay for John Smith’s Brewery. He also appeared in several British television programs.
He then appeared in several seasons of Midsomer Murders, a British crime drama set in the fictional British county of Midsomer. Sykes portrayed the family dog of the character John Barnaby and was credited as a supporting character for several seasons of the show, a total of 29 episodes. He was replaced on the show with another dog actor named Paddy when Sykes went into retirement following his fifth season in 2016. His character died on the show. Sykes lived in retirement with a foster family, his expenses paid for by Raddings, until he died in June, 2019.
2. Orangey
In the 1958 fantasy film Bell, Book, and Candle, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, the latter as a witch, no fewer than 12 Siamese cats were needed to perform the role of Pyewacket, her cat, and herself a witch. The reason so many cats were needed was the difficulty in training the animals to perform their stunts. That wasn’t the case with Orangey, an orange tabby owned and trained by Frank Inn. Orangey was a professional cat actor that appeared in many films, including as Mouschi in The Diary of Anne Frank, and as Holly Golightly’s unnamed roommate in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Like many actors before and since, Orangey was known to be temperamental on the set, scratching his fellow cast mates and biting from time to time. But he got away with his less than professional attitude to his fellow players through his ability to perform, winning two PATSY Awards, for Rhubarb (credited as Rhubarb), in which he had the title role of a cat which inherits a fortune, and for Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Orangey also appeared on television. He was the cat Minerva in the 1950s series Our Miss Brooks, and also appeared in a 1967 episode of Mission: Impossible, titled The Seal, in which he played a cat trained as an agent of the Impossible Mission Force. His final known appearance was in a two-part episode of the 1960s camp version of Batman, in which he appeared alongside Eartha Kitt in her role as Catwoman. Orangey is the only cat to have won the PATSY Award twice, and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California, along with many other stars of the screen.
1. Terry
Terry was a Cairn Terrier with an impressive list of films on her resume in the 1930s and 1940s. During the filming of her most famous role, as Toto in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, she was injured when her foot was stepped on by one of the Winkies, breaking it. Star Judy Garland kept her in her home while she recuperated, the filming temporarily stopped. During the filming of the movie, Terry earned $125 per week. That was a wage level not achieved by average American workers of the time. It was also more than some of the actors in the movie were paid for their work.
She was credited not as Terry, but as Toto for the film, which became a classic and remains one of the most beloved films of all time. She was credited as Toto again in the film Son of the Navy, which led some to conclude her name had been changed to Toto following the success of The Wizard of Oz, but the claim is undocumented. She, like so many animal actors, became known as the character they performed, rather than for their own identity.
Terry performed with Jack Benny, Nelson Eddy, Joan Bennet, William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and many other A-list Hollywood stars during her career as an actor, always performing her own stunts under the guidance of her trainer, Carl Spitz. Yet she was never credited as Terry. Even on her memorial stone, in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, her name of Terry is shared with her role’s name of Toto. The site is not that of her burial. Her gra