Animal actors

Daniel Brizuela                                                                                                                                  5/3/12

Animals in films.

            Humans aren’t the only ones who can act in films and earn very high praise and fame from the people who watch them. Animals, too, have been loved for years for their performances as many iconic film animals, both old and new.

            It doesn’t matter if they’re dogs, dolphins, whales, elephants, monkeys, bears, birds, or any other type of animal. People still love them even if they’re real animals, animatronics, CGI animals, puppets, or people dressed as animals.

            One such famous animal actor, or actors, are all of the dogs who have played Lassie over the years in the numerous films and television shows. Since 1943, the lovable collie dog has been played by numerous different dogs, all descended from the original dog up until the 1990s. Besides most being played by those related to the original, all of the dogs were male since their coats were thicker than females and it looked better.

            Animals that became famous from movies but weren’t played by actual animals are the sharks from the Jaws films. Steven Spielberg’s first big film had a mechanical shark that would often suffer malfunctions. Nicknamed Bruce, it was Spielberg’s idea for the audience not to see much of the shark but to see it from its point of view. It worked, even though the film went over budget and past its schedule, as Jaws went on to become the highest grossing film at the time of release, lifted Spielberg to the top, and led to three sequels.

            Some of the most famous fictional animals that are portrayed by humans are those that are half animal and half human. These can include the Wolf Man, first famously played by Lon Chaney, Jr., in 1941, and later played by Benicio del Toro in the 2010 remake. Another half human/half animal is a Were Cat, famously played at the start by Michael Jackson in his music video Thriller, directed by John Landis who is also famous for his own werewolf film An American Werewolf in London.

            Other famous animal actors, whether real animals, fake animals playing real animals, or fictional animals, are Uggie the dog from The Artist, Godzilla, Scooby-Doo, Flipper, King Kong, the Free Willy whale Winnie-the-Pooh, Santa’s Little Helper from The Simpsons, the cat stroked by Blofeld in the James Bond films, the monkey from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and others. This and many others have entertained audiences for over one hundred years and will continue entertaining more.