by Susan Orlean
I believe there will always be a Rin Tin Tin because there will always be stories. He began as a story about surprise and wonder, a stroke of luck in a luckless time, and he became a fulfilled promise of perfect friendship; then he became a way to tell stories that soared for years. He made people feel complete. I had started my own story by thinking that Lee and Bert and Daphne were curious specimens for their stubborn devotion, and then I realized that I was no different, elbowing my way into the chorus of narrators to advance the tale that much further, to become a part of what “always” means.
I, too, had set out to be remembered. I had wanted to create something permanent in my life—some proof that everything in its way mattered, that working hard mattered, that feeling things mattered, that even sadness and loss mattered, because it was all part of something that would live on. But I had also come to recognize that not everything needs to be so durable. The lesson we have yet to learn from dogs, that could sustain us, is that having no apprehension of the past or future is not limiting but liberating. Rin Tin Tin did not need to be remembered in order to be happy; for him, it was always enough to have that instant when the sun was soft, when the ball was tossed and caught, when the beloved rubber doll was squeaked. Such a moment was complete in itself, pure and sufficient.
The final scene of Bert’s treatment for Rin Tin Tin and Me takes place on a movie set, on location in Corriganville, where a movie with Rin Tin Tin is being made, and Lee and Eva are there with the dog to film the movie’s climactic action sequence. They are all there, in a way: the real dog, who was always the adored companion, and the movie dog, who was the figure of inspiration, and Lee, always alone but here, in this scene, appearing to at last connect with his family, and the unnamed producer, making it all happen, just as Bert pictured himself: all of them in a movie together, in a story about a movie, the endless circle that the Rin Tin Tin story always managed to be. In this rendering, everyone is happy, everything is, at last, complete. Before the scene begins, the producer stops and asks Lee if he might be interested someday in having Rin Tin Tin star in a television show—just as, long ago, in real life, Bert had once asked Lee. Lee shakes his head and says that after this movie he is getting out of show business, and he has everything he could want or need at home, at El Rancho Rin Tin Tin.
“Besides,” Lee says to the producer, “what do I know about television?”
The producer smiles and says, “Let me worry about that.”
The director calls for everyone to take his place. The shot he’s trying to get is challenging; Rin Tin Tin has to run into the fort, climb a flight of steps to a balcony, run across the roof, and then leap to the roof of a nearby building. They all take their places. Lee says the dog is ready, and the camera begins to roll.
But the first take is no good: the dog runs and climbs, but he hesitates before he leaps. The director stops the camera. He asks Lee if he wants to rehearse again, but Lee says no, the dog will get it right this time. Lee puts his hand on the dog’s head, a light touch; he glances at Eva and then says they are ready. The director calls for action, and the dog begins. He runs into the fort, climbs the steps, dashes across the balcony, and this time, without hesitation, he soars, defying time and gravity, across the break.
“The dog is brilliant,” Bert wrote, at the very end of the story he had tried so many times to tell. “It is like the old days. Lee’s eyes are damp.” And then Bert added one final beat: “Lee feels a slight tug at his pant leg and finds himself looking down into the grubby little face of one of the many youngsters who live in the neighborhood and come to watch them shoot. The five-year-old asks Lee, ‘What’s your dog’s name?’ Lee turns to the boy. ‘Rin-Tin-Tin, son.’
“The camera starts back; the director’s voice is heard: ‘Okay, bring the camera over here.’ Eva is alongside Lee and so is Rin-Tin-Tin. The crew is moving and the camera reveals the whole scene. The End.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have many people—and many, many dogs—to thank for their help in getting this book out of my head and into the world.
Most of all, I want to thank the Duncan family, especially Carolyn McHenry and Kimberlee Duncan Demers; the Leonard family, especially Gina Leonard, Patty Leonard, and Victoria Leonard; and Daphne Hereford. They generously gave me their stories and their time, and bore with me through the years the book was in the making. The Riverside Metropolitan Museum was my home away from home for months, and I owe much of this book to having been given unlimited access to their Lee Duncan collection. My tireless guide there was Kevin Hallaran. Thank you, Kevin, for help above and beyond the call of duty. Allan Shields and Ann Elwood, who have written their own wonderful Rin Tin Tin books, were incredibly generous in helping me with my particular version of this story. Thanks, Ashley Van Buren, for research and encouragement, and for producing the ebook. Thanks, Rob Stone, for giving me so much insight into Bert Leonard. Alice Truax worked on these pages from the beginning, and with her extraordinary eye and ear she helped shape this into a finished product. I am lucky to have her insight and friendship.
The team at Simon & Schuster has been extraordinary. Jofie Ferrari-Adler, my editor, is remarkable in every way, on the page and in person. Thanks, Jofie. Jackie Seow deserves all the credit for this gorgeous, perfect book cover. Alexis Welby made the wheels turn with the press. As for my wonderful publisher, Jon Karp, how great to be back together again.
Richard Pine, who has been there for me ever since I first started thinking that maybe someday I’d write a book, thank you. Thank you!
My everlasting thanks to Ravi Mirchandani, my longtime British editor and friend.
Thanks, in this instance and always, to David Remnick and Virginia Cannon at The New Yorker, for inspiring me and for encouragement and forbearance.
To the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony—places where I blasted through huge sections of the work and in some cases improved my Ping-Pong game—I am so grateful to have been given the chance to immerse myself in this project. Without those residencies, I don’t know if I would have ever finished.
Thanks to the librarians and research helpers and press people who were accommodating, generous, and enthusiastic, especially Lauren Buisson at UCLA and Lisa Peterson at the AKC.
My friends and family provided cheerleading and were kind enough not to ask too frequently when I was finally going to be done. There are too many to thank, but here’s to Jeff Conti, Sally Sampson, Janet Tashjian, Lisa Klausner, Karen Brooks, Richard McCann, Chip McGrath, Celia and Henry McGee, Tricia and Foster Reed, Patricia Marx, Emma Daly, Santiago Lyon, Gail Gregg, Annette Osher, Ann Leary, Susan Casey, Jenny Martinez, Larry Riff, and Deb Thompson. Ann Patchett, you are the best. David and Steffie Orlean, Debra Orlean, and Dave Gross, thank you. Bill and Nez Gillespie, thank you. Jay Gillespie, thank you! Mom, I love you. Dad, I so wish you were here to see the book—I think you would have liked it, even though, true to your character, you asked me, when I began to work on this, why anyone would want to write a book about a dog. (See pages 1 through 317 for my answer.)
Here’s a modern moment: I want to thank my Twitter followers, who really did root for me on those long days in my writing studio when I would post my word count and ramble about procrastinating, and who shouted when I declared that I was finally done. Thank you, one and all, for helping me finish #RTT.
My amazing husband, John Gillespie, read every word, held my hand, and made me feel it was worth it, even when it was at great cost to him; there are no words that would suffice to express my love and thanks.
And my son Austin, who was just wishful thinking when I first considered writing this book, and now can actually read it to me, and who just told me that he has always, always dreamed of having a German shepherd just like Rin Tin Tin: you are my very favorite story.
NOTES ON SOURCES
This book covers a period of almost one hundred years and took me nearly a decade to writ
e, and the sources I drew from were many and various, ranging from raggedy archived copies of Physical Culture magazine to meticulously detailed sourcebooks of animals on film. In addition to what I’ve listed here, I combed through newspapers from around the country, countless websites and blogs, scraps of paper, leaflets, flyers, and brochures. This is a selected list of those resources.
Books
Baker, Steve. The Postmodern Animal. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.
Basinger, Janine. Silent Stars. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2000.
Berger, John. About Looking. New York: Vintage Books, 1980.
Boone, J. Allen. Kinship with All Life (San Francisco: Harper, 1954).
———. Letters to Strongheart. Harrington Park, N.J.: Robert H. Sommer, 1977.
Brownlow, Kevin. The Parade’s Gone By . . . Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968.
Burt, Jonathan. Animals in Film. London: Reaktion Books, 2002.
Canaan, Christopher. “Calexico,” unproduced screenplay, story by Herbert Leonard and Christopher Canaan.
Derr, Mark. A Dog’s History of America: How Our Best Friend Explored, Conquered, and Settled a Continent. New York: North Point Press, 2004.
Dodge, Geraldine and Josephine Rine. The German Shepherd Dog in America. New York: Orange Judd, 1956.
Duncan, Lee. “Mr. Duncan’s Notes,” unpublished manuscript (June 21, 1933), Rin Tin Tin/Lee Duncan Collection [A719]. Courtesy of the Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Riverside, California.
———. The Rin-Tin-Tin Book of Dog Care. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1958.
Elwood, Ann. Rin-Tin-Tin: The Movie Star. Copyright Ann Elwood, 2010.
English, James W. The Rin Tin Tin Story. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1950.
Fagen, Herb. White Hats and Silver Spurs: Interviews with 24 Stars of Film and Television Westerns of the Thirties Through the Sixties. New York: McFarland & Co., 1996.
Fetherling, Dale and Doug (eds). Carl Sandburg at the Movies: A Poet in the Silent Era 1920–1927 Metuchen, N.J., and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1985.
Foglesong, Clara M. Peter. Hollywood, Calif.: Myne Publishing Co., 1945.
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
Franklin, Jon. The Wolf in the Parlor: The Eternal Connection Between Humans and Dogs. New York: Henry Holt, 2009.
Grier, Katherine. Pets in America: A History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Hereford, Daphne. Rin Tin Tin’s Legacy. Daphne Hereford, Publisher, 1998.
Kete, Kathleen. The Beast in the Boudoir: Petkeeping in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.
Lee, Raymond. Not So Dumb: Animals in the Movies. New York: Castle Books, 1970.
Lemish, Michael G. War Dogs: A History of Loyalty and Heroism. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1996.
Little Folks’ Story of Rin-Tin-Tin. Racine, Wis.: Whitman Publishing Company, 1927.
MacDonald, J. Fred. Who Shot the Sheriff? The Rise and Fall of the Television Western. New York: Praeger, 1987.
Mitman, Greg. Reel Nature: America’s Romance with Wildlife on Film. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Paietta, Ann C., and Jean Kauppila. Animals on Screen and Radio: An Annotated Sourcebook. Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1994.
Rothel, David. The Great Show Business Animals. San Diego, New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1980.
Rothfels, Nigel, ed. Representing Animals. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Sax, Boria. Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. New York: Continuum International Publishing, 2000.
Shields, Allan. The Spirit of Rin-Tin-Tin. Copyright Allan Shields, 2001.
Simmon, Scott, and Martin Marks. More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894–1931. San Francisco: National Film Preservation Foundation, 2004.
Stuart, Reginald Ray, and Grace Dell Stuart. A History of the Fred Finch Children’s Home: Oldest Methodist Home for Children in California, 1891–1955. Oakland, Calif.: Fred Finch Children’s Home, 1955.
Taylor, Jordan. Wonder Dogs: 101 German Shepherd Dog Films. Bainbridge Island, Wash.: Reel Dogs Press, 2009.
Tuska, Jon. The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures 1927–1935. Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland & Company, Publishers, 1982.
Von Stephanitz, Max. The German Shepherd Dog in Word and Picture. Jena, Germany: Anton Kämpfe, 1925.
Wallmann, Jeffrey. The Western: Parables of the American Dream. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1999.
Warner Sperling, Cass, and Cork Miller with Jack Warner Jr. Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.
Weatherwax, Rudd, and John Rothwell. The Story of LASSIE: His Discovery and Training from Puppyhood to Stardom. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950.
Willis, Malcolm B. The German Shepherd Dog: Its History, Development and Genetics. New York: Arco Publishing Company, 1977.
Archives and Libraries
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles, California.
American Kennel Club, New York City, New York.
Herbert Leonard Collection of Scripts and Production Materials for Television and Motion Pictures (Collection 29). Performing Arts Special Collections, University Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Imperial War Museum, London, United Kingdom.
The Paley Center for Media, New York, New York.
Rin Tin Tin/Lee Duncan Collection [A719]. Courtesy of the Riverside
Metropolitan Museum, Riverside, California.
University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Warner Bros. Archives.
Website Resources
Condon, Dan: http://home.metrocast.net/~buggartt/bugga/
http://www.angelfire.com/film/horsefame/saddlebag2.html
www.pedigreedatabase.com
www.olive-drab.com
Hereford, Daphne: http://www.rintintin.com
U. S. Army Quartermaster Foundation: www.qmfound.com/War_Dogs.htm
www.uswardogs.org
www.silentera.com
www.lassiecomehome.info
http://www.b-westerns.com/corvlle.htm
www.tv.com
www.silent-movies.com
www.firstworldwar.com
www.london.iwm.org.uk
www.naiaonline.org
www.poodlehistory.org
www.imdb.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992. Her subjects have included chickens, surf girls, and origami. She previously worked as a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and Vogue and as a columnist for the Boston Phoenix and the Boston Globe, and her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Spy, Esquire, and Outside. Orlean is the author of several books, including Saturday Night, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, and The Orchid Thief, a New York Times bestseller that inspired the movie Adaptation, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. She lives with her family and her animals in Columbia County, New York. For more information, visit www.susanorlean.com or www.rintintinthebook.com.
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