And then while we were watching, I saw its lips start to move and it spit out the pill. And at that point in time, I gained an appreciation for the strength of the 40-pound chimpanzee, because eventually I had somebody, this was a fairly tame chimp, do a full… Read More
When I started the university, I admired the people that were my professors, and people that I worked with. And I had had some experience in my church of doing some teaching. And so I enjoyed teaching and I decided I want to become a teacher. And so an opportunity… Read More
And so the other thing that I got to appreciate in the movie industry was the editing process, because I was part and parcel of a lot of different scenes, if you will, and it looked like, how can that be put together?… Read More
On one particular film, I was asked to take four cattle steers up to Mojave Desert and anesthetize them in certain places on the desert to appear well eventually to be dead animals all over the place from the drought, or from a disease that was going through the area. Read More
But on the ranch, these animals were fed properly because they were valuable animals. And they’re a lot of them, they’re trained, you can train any animal to be attainment, have to work on a movie set. And I admire the people that spend the time, and you don’t have… Read More
So how did you come into contact with Cecil B. DeMille?… Read More
Well, when you get out of veterinary schools, you have to take state board examinations. And at that time it was a couple of months after you took the examination before you found out what the results were. And so during the time that I was waiting for that, I… Read More
I didn’t know him very well, but I was acquainted with him as a man, I wasn’t really privy to what his situation is with the directorship and all these sorts of things, but as a person, he was a good person. As is a little aside, did you happen… Read More
And how did you even meet the guy?… Read More
And what’s your attitude about animals being used in movies?… Read More
Well, I saw a lot of animals being used in movies and they were well cared for, they’re valuable animals. You take a horse, like a falling horse where you see them get shot or something like that. And they seemingly take bad spills, but those are highly trained animals… Read More
And so I found out that these people were human, they had likes and dislikes, J SIRVA Heels, who was Tonto, was also a client. And at that point in time, they were not just clients, they were friends. So we got well acquainted and I enjoyed those people. Read More
Where the stars more approachable then than they might be today?… Read More
Do you have any- No, I kind of tend to think that the real pros, the real good people are approachable, it’s the wannabes that don’t necessarily… They’re a little bit more egotistical. But later on, I got very well acquainted with Betty White, a dear friend of mine, and… Read More
What did you do for him?… Read More
What kinds of jobs did you do?… Read More
What was animal care like at the time?… Read More
And you mentioned met some interesting people. Well, the company was a partnership Daikin and AW. They were veterinarians that worked out of the San Fernando valley. And that’s just across a small bunch of hills from Hollywood, California. And they did movie and television work as well. When movies… Read More
And we were all over Southern California dealing with horses so that I got a pretty good foundation there. I got to know certain people like Gene Autry. In fact, I had known Gene Autry because I knew I wanted to come to California, and he was giving a performance… Read More
Now, I think what you were referring to was in 1955, you spent three years in the horse practice in Southern California?… Read More