Rin Tin Tin

He was rescued from a World War I battlefield by an American soldier, Lee Duncan, who nicknamed him "Rinty".

Following advances made by American forces during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, Corporal Lee Duncan, an armourer of the U.S. Army Air Service, was sent forward on September 15, 1918, to the small French village of Flirey to see if it would make a suitable flying field for his unit, the 135th Aero Squadron.

The only dogs left alive in the kennel were a starving mother with a litter of five nursing puppies, their eyes still shut because they were less than a week old.

He dubbed them Rin Tin Tin and Nanette after a pair of good luck charms called Rintintin and Nénette that French children often gave to the American soldiers (the soldiers were usually told that Rintintin and Nénette were lucky lovers who had survived a bombing attack, but the original dolls had been designed by Francisque Poulbot before the war in late 1913 to look like Paris street urchins.

Contrary to linguistic clues and popular usage, Poulbot said that Rintintin was the girl doll.[5][6]).

[7] In July 1919, Duncan sneaked the dogs aboard a ship taking him back to the US at the end of the war.

Nanette was diagnosed with pneumonia; as a replacement, the breeder gave Duncan another female German Shepherd puppy.

In 1922, Duncan was a founding member of the Shepherd Dog Club of California, based in Los Angeles.

A heavy bundle of newspapers was thrown from a delivery truck and landed on the dog, breaking his left front leg.

Duncan had the injured limb set in plaster and he nursed the dog back to health for nine months.

At the dog show while making a winning leap, he was filmed by Duncan's acquaintance Charley Jones, who had just developed a slow-motion camera.

[11] Seeing his dog being filmed, Duncan became convinced Rin Tin Tin could become the next Strongheart, a successful German Shepherd film dog that lived in his own full-sized stucco bungalow with its own street address in the Hollywood Hills, separate from the mansion of his owners, who lived a street away next to Roy Rogers.

[12] Duncan later wrote, "I was so excited over the film idea that I found myself thinking of it night and day.

The dog's first break came when he was asked to replace a camera-shy wolf in The Man from Hell's River (1922) featuring Wallace Beery.

Dog food makers Ken-L Ration, Ken-L-Biskit, and Pup-E-Crumbles all featured him in their advertisements.

At the time, silent films were easily adapted for various countries by simply changing the language of the intertitles.

[21] Rin Tin Tin and the rest of the crew filmed much of the outdoor action footage for The Lightning Warrior on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, known for its huge sandstone boulders and widely recognized as the most heavily filmed outdoor shooting location in the history of the movies.

Magazine articles were written about his life, and a special Movietone News feature was shown to movie audiences.

[23] Duncan was suffering the financial effects of the Great Depression and could not afford a finer burial, nor even his own expensive house.

He sold his house and quietly arranged to have the dog's body returned to his country of birth for reburial in the Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestiques, the pet cemetery in the Parisian suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine.

With Ken-L Ration as a sponsor, the series continued on CBS from October 5, 1933, until May 20, 1934, airing Sundays at 7:45 pm.

[43] The final radio series was broadcast on Mutual from January 2, 1955, to December 25, 1955, a 30-minute program heard Sunday evenings.

The radio show also starred Lee Aaker (1943–2021) as Rusty, James Brown (1920–1992) as Lieutenant Ripley "Rip" Masters, and Joe Sawyer (1906–1982) as Sergeant Biff O'Hara.

[46] The tradition continued in Texas with Jannettia Brodsgaard Propps, who had purchased several direct descendant dogs from Duncan.

[51] Originally co-produced by Leonard, the 1988–93 Canadian TV series Katts and Dog featured the adventures of a police officer and his canine partner.

Leonard was funded by the Christian Broadcasting Network, whose founder, televangelist Pat Robertson, had been enthusiastic for the idea.

Leonard was criticized by his fellow producers for staying with his new wife in Los Angeles rather than helping with the show on location in Canada.

Partway through the first season, Robertson said that some of his viewers were deeply concerned that the plot involved a widowed mother who was living unmarried in the same house with the brother of her late husband.

Robertson recommended the mother character be killed off to stop the complaints, but Leonard protested such a change.

The Clash's 1981 song "The Magnificent Seven" referenced the dog - "Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin/ who's more famous to the Billion Millions?".