RIN TIN TIN'S STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 224, 21 September 1932, Page 8

RIN TIN TIN'S STORY.

AN EPIC OF HOLLYWOOD. BORN IN A GERMAN TRENCH. EARNED* FOITrUNE FOR OWNER.

(By A' Special Correspondent.)

HOLLYWOOD (Calif.), August 20. Rin Tin Tin, king of dog stars, died a millionaire. But more than that. Kinty ! died a symbol: of all animal rescue and kindness to animals' leagues. He exemplified to the younger genera- * tion the theory that if you are kind to i pets you will grow up to be kind to your fellow beings. He was decorated' with kind-deed medals. He did not confine his personal appearances to stage and screen. He visited every children's ' hospital and orphan asylum in the country. Rin Tin Tin was an orphan himself. He also knew what it was to be crippled, I having worn a cast once for eight months. While he was appearing in a Pasadena dog show, a newsboy inadvertently threw a bundle of papers in and broke Rin Tin Tin's front leg. It healed so that it never interfered with his screen work, but he always limped a little.-

Mayor Walker gave him the key to the city of New York. He was honour guest at the finest hotels. He has been all over the world. He broadcast over a national network twice a week, played on vaudeville stages at 1300 dollars weekly salary, made personal appearances with "pet" shows and newspaper tieups.

His annual salary of £15,000, or more, always came in. He never was off the payroll and rarely lost a day from work. When last in Boston he had an abscessed tooth, which accounted for Rinty's longest lay-off, three days. His lost tooth, however, won him front-page headlines.

He was the first Vitaphone artist, ae an oil painting in Warner's sound room will testify. He was given the first test when Warner's bought sound from the Bell "Telephone Company. He-was one

of the first to appear on television. He introduced several of to-day's > stars to tlie screen.

Charlie Farrell made his screen debut with Rinty, as also did George Brent, the current rave, and little Davy Lee, whom A 1 Jolson saw with Rinty and chose for his famous Sonny Boy. Irene Rich, Lupe Velez and scores of others played opposite this dog star. John Barrymore was on the same payroll. Fans in big cities went to see Barrymore, but in every hamlet and' village everybody drove in to see Rin Tin Tin. German Shepherd Dog, The story of this German shepherd dog, 'born in the trenches, whose first kennel was a dry goods box, who died world-famous in a palatial kennel, on a 400-acre estate which his earnings bought, is, barring none, Hollywood's greatest human interest epic.'

So tied up with it is the story of Lee Duncan that it must start with the boy —a fatherless orphan, whose mother, with one baby girl in arms, was forced to put him in an Oakland orphan asylum. When he was six, he was sent to his grandfather's sheep farm in Sanquaquin Valley. The boy grew up loving dogs, speaking their language.

During the World War Lieutenant Lee Duncan, member of the 135 th Air Squadron, found another pet in an abandoned German dugout in a little town in Alsace-Lorraine. A German police mother dog lay there with five new-born puppies.

He took one of the dogs for the squadron's mascot, naming it Kin Tin lin, after the little yarn doll mascots poilus wore around their necks. He trained Rin Tin Tin along war dog lines, and when he returned to California joined the shepherd dog society in which Rinty won the championship as best working .dog. The man who invented the slow-motion camera made a picture of Rinty's 12ft jump.

"When I saw him on the screen,'' Mr. Duncan told the writer, "I recognised he had something. I had been reading an article about a man making £10 a month out of his hobby of raising chickens. This gave me the idea to put Rinty on the screen.

Monarch of All the Surveyed. "I wrote his first story, 'Where the North Begins.' After peddling it around I sold it to Warner Brothers forJfl2,ooo.

Kinty was laynclied. From then on, he was given star billing. He made.22 pictures for Warner Brothers—was continually under contract. : "In developing him I merely used patience, love, understanding. Never used a stick nor punished him. All you have to do, if you speak a dog's language, is to give him • time to develop. But you can't develop a dog in the back yard. Kitty has been all over the world. He lias seen everything. Just last year I took him on. a pleasure' tnp to Europe. "The first money he made I used to buy a white enamelled stove-for my mother, to replace the old rusty one-on which, she cooked us nourishing foo The next money I sent to the Oaklan Orphan Asylum for new plunibing. remembered as a boy what difficulty had getting a drink from the tall, ondoor faucet. . It nearly drowned me wfien I finally turned it on. , "My Spanish home, bought by Rinty earnings, stretches over 400 acres. /Here Rinty was monarch of all-he-surveye I built him a kennel, where I could live comfortably myself, with his own w i e enamelled kitchen, screened sleepin, quarters and runway inlaid with ®P tile on which water dries in ten minu ■ From his sleeping bench he could all the surrounding country. •• , "For my sister, his earnings P" 1 f a . pianos in lier Duncan College 0 . bought 400 rare music books forW studio, relieved her of much of tedium of teaching, yet there was a 7 when my sister thought my'being a n trainer' as she called me would r on her college."—(N.A.N.A.)