Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

by Susan Orlean

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Allegedly found in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel in France during World War I, then brought to Los Angeles by Lee Duncan, the soldier who found and trained him, by 1927 Rin Tin Tin had become Hollywood's number one box-office star. Susan Orlean's book--about the dog and the legend--is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship. It spans ninety years and explores everything from the shift in status of dogs from working farmhands to beloved family members, from the birth of obedience training to the evolution of dog breeding, from the rise of Hollywood to the past and present of dogs in war.--From publisher description.… (more)

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Before this book, my one vague memory of Rin Tin Tin was that short scene in 101 Dalmatians where the puppies are watching it on TV. Yet, I somehow knew that Rin Tin Tin was a dog, and even had a blurry picture of a German Shepard in my mind, and knew that he was a famous dog actor back in the day. So even me, who was born decades after Rin Tin Tin was last on the air, knew of him.

I found Orlean's dedication to her research and her ability to bring back to life the history of Rin Tin Tin and those around him remarkable. I sped through most of the book in one sitting, and probably would have finished it then if the plane hadn't landed.

After reading the book I found that a) I wanted to watch some of the original Rin Tin Tin silent movies, and b) get a German Shepard. Despite not having grown up with Rinty, Orlean made me fall in love with the dog and want to be a part of his legacy.

A great book for any dog lover, or any movie history buff.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Goodreads First Reads program. (

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wisemetis | Dec 28, 2022 |

In World War I, a young soldier named Lee Duncan found a litter of puppies in a ruined kennel on a battlefield in France. Lee managed to bring two of the puppies home, and one of them grew up to become the famed movie-star dog Rin Tin Tin. I had heard the name before, but knew nothing else about him. This book depicts pretty clearly what was so remarkable about the dog and how he became so famous. Coming from a rather lonely childhood, Lee bonded closely with Rin Tin Tin and trained him to follow detailed commands. The author does a great job at noting how different society and the role of dogs in America was back then- most dogs were working animals, didn’t live in the house, and were not trained- not even to the basic “sit”, “come” or “heel”. Rin Tin Tin was not only well-trained but had a very expressive face, this combined with his intelligence and aptitude for physical feats- leaping long distances, clearing obstacles, pulling items, etc- made him a star in silent films where his roles were central, just as much as the human actors. Apparently he embodied the values of bravery and loyalty to the public, caused german shepherd dogs to become wildly popular, and even led to the obedience training of household dogs to become common. Lee was enraptured with his dog and worked to breed Rin Tin Tin, selling the puppies then selecting and training a suitable inheritor for the dog’s role. Because of course the dog got old and eventually died, but one of his offspring took his place.

A lot of the book is about the show business, how the dog’s popularity waxed and waned, how it went from being one particular famed dog to a famous character portrayed by many dogs, about the people who took care of him, trained him, wrote scripts for him, and fought over rights to his image. How the character portrayal and management of dogs acting for Rin Tin Tin diverged from the actual canine descendants that were bred. The clash between Rin Tin Tin and Lassie for popularity, and how Rin Tin Tin the movie dog differed from the TV show. About people who collected Rin Tin Tin memorabilia, or longed for one of the german shepherds descended from him, and on and on. At times I thought I would get tired of this book because it was so much about the people and circumstances surrounding the dog, more than Rin Tin Tin himself. But in all it was pretty darn interesting, especially the cultural aspects, I learned things about American history I didn’t know before, especially in regards to the filmmaking industry, dog breed clubs and shows.

more at the Dogear Diary (

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jeane | Apr 4, 2021 |

While serving during World War I serviceman Lee Duncan came across a little of new born German Shepherd puppies. He took two for himself and gave the others to other soldiers. The two he kept he named Nannette and Rintintin. Unfortunately the little female Nannette died, but Rintintin grew up to be a star.

Orlean’s traces Rin Tin Tin’s development from his first roles as a stand-in for a wolf in motion pictures to his staring role in blockbuster films, and then his decline in popularity as the years go by.

Of course the film star of Rin Tin Tin was not just one dog. Or at least, not for long. At first Rinty was the star and did his own stunts and everything. Later he had stand-ins, and different dogs would play different versions of Rin Tin Tin, from playful to ferocious. And after the death of Rin Tin Tin a variety of his descendants took on his mantel, and even other dogs pretending to be Rinty while the “real” Rin Tin Tin descendant stayed at home playing the role of ranch dog.

But it is more than simply a look at a dog family. It is, rather, an examination of the role these German shepherds played in the lives of the men and women they touched. Duncan seems to have focused all his attentions and passions on the dog and promoting Rinty as a premier example of dogness.

She looks at how society changed over the years of Rin Tin Tin’s popularity and what he seemed to have represented to Americans, and other people whereever his films and later his television show played. But it isn’t a sociological examination either. Instead it is an examination of an obsession. Duncan’s obsession with his dog. America’s obsession with this canine hero. And all the others since then who have devoted their lives to keeping the memory of Rin Tin Tin alive.

I’m not so sure his memory is alive any longer, not over here anyway, I’d say very few children today would recognise the name, although I might be wrong.

All in all I found this a fairly entertaining book. I don’t think I’d be rushing out to buy it, or recommending that many people read it though. Solid would be an apt description, and that isn’t really a ringing endorsement, is it? (

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Fence | Jan 5, 2021 |

Orlean traces the history of the many Rin Tin Tins and his masters from WWI to the present. Interesting review for anyone who has lived through a bit of the Rin Tin Tin legend. (

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addunn3 | Jul 24, 2020 |

This book is not just about an individual dog (because there were many), but about the icon that Rin Tin Tin and about the people who built and fostered its legacy.

While reading this book, I admired the research that went into writing it--and my writer crush on Susan Orlean deepens. (

)

alyssajp | Jul 29, 2019 |

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But by the end of this expertly told tale, [Orlean] may persuade even the most hardened skeptic that Rin Tin Tin belongs on Mount Rushmore with George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt, or at least somewhere nearby with John Wayne and Seabiscuit.

added by Shortride | editThe New York Times Book Review, Jennifer Schuessler (Oct 23, 2011)

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Susan Orlean	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Dantes, Marlyn	Cover designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Singer, Nancy	Designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Canonical title

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Los Angeles, California, USA

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Important events

World War I

Related movies

Awards and honors

Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Nonfiction, 2011)

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Nonfiction Longlist (2012)

Ohioana Book Award (Nonfiction, 2012)

Richard Wall Memorial Award (Special Jury Prize, 2012)

Epigraph

Dedication

For John and Austin, my people
and
For Molly, Cooper, and Ivy, my dogs

First words

He believed the dog was immortal.

Quotations

But 'Clash of the Wolves' made me understand why so many millions of people fell in love with Rin Tin Tin and were moved by the way he wordlessly embodied many of the questions and conflicts and challenges that come with being alive.

Rinty was named as a corespondent in the divorce, a role usually reserved for mistresses.

The Academy Awards were presented for the first time, and Rinty received the most votes for Best Actor. But members of the Academy, anxious to establish the new awards as serious and important, decided that giving an Oscar to a dog did not serve that end, so the votes were recalculated, and the award was diverted to Emil Jannings, for his performances in both 'The Way of All Flesh' and 'The Last Command'.

In his way, Rin Tin Tin had come to represent something essentially American. He wasn't born in the United States, and neither were his parents, but those facts only made him more quintessentially American: he was an immigrant in a country of immigrants.

He got his own salary, separate from Lee's salary as his trainer, and he earned more than most of his costars; in 'Lighthouse by the Sea', for instance, he was paid $1,000 per week, while the lead human actor, William Collier Jr., was paid only $150.

(show all 21 items)

Rin Tin Tin grew from being one dog to being a sort of franchise. And as his fame grew, Rin Tin Tin became, in a way, less particular—less specifically this one single dog—and more conceptual, the archetypal dog hero. I think that's why the first question I was asked whenever I told someone I was writing about Rin Tin Tin was always, "Was there really just one?"

In her memoir Saunders recalled that at most of their stops, "the ringside was crowded because everyone was anxious to see the 'two crazy women from New York with their three trick Poodles.'"

I asked Carolyn if she felt sibling rivalry toward the dogs. She laughed and said, "No, there was never any rivalry. The dogs always came first."

Here you can pick your narrative. Rin Tin Tin III, the next Rin Tin Tin in line, who was born in 1941, might have been one of Junior's puppies, a chosen one who stood out from among all the other puppies, the embodiment of not his father but of his illustrious grandfather, old Rin, and who, like his grandfather, was marked for destiny. This is the narrative many people, including Daphne Hereford, choose to believe. Or you can believe that Rin Tin Tin III was a beautiful puppy purchased by Lee, quietly and without mention, from another breeder, and that he was a puppy as clever and responsive as old Rin, with that same compact build, but with a lighter sable and cream coat that was easier to light for film.

But in early Hollywood, animals that were not recognizable stars often had a rotten time. Horses got the roughest treatment: they were tripped, shocked, raced into open trenches, run ragged. To make a horse fall on cue, wires were strung around its ankles or threaded through holes that were drilled into its hooves; the rider simply yanked the wires to pull the horse up short.

Whichever dog showed up to put his paw print on headshots, to meet kids at a country fair—that dog was Rin Tin Tin for that moment.

Kresge's, a five-and-dime chain, set up larger-than-life Rusty and Rinty cardboard cutouts at the end of every aisle in a few of its stores to promote Rusty bugles and gun-and-holster sets. The promotion was so successful that Kresge decided to set up the same displays in every one of its 650 stores around the country.

The number of German shepherds in the United States had been growing even before the television show went on the air. In 1947, 4,921 German shepherds were registered with the American Kennel Club. In 1954, before 'The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin' had its impact, the number had more than tripled, to 17,400. By the time the show finished its prime-time run in 1959, German shepherd registrations with the AKC had grown to 33,735.

German shepherds are known as "trotting dogs," and they have a long, gliding gait. In a show ring, a German shepherd moving in a flying trot looks both powerful and weightless, as if it were on a cushion of air. To make that trot even more dynamic and long in reach, breeders started to look for dogs with hindquarters that were deeply angled, in a perpetual crouch, ready to spring forward. The line from the dogs' shoulders to their hips was no longer horizontal; it was an almost forty-five-degree slope. The inbreeding to produce dogs with such an unnatural pose also produced dogs with a tendency toward hip dysplasia, cataracts, hemophilia, and aggressiveness. Other popular dogs that were bred to exaggerate their show qualities suffered the same deterioration.

The arena was an open-air building with high rafters and a sloping roof, the sort of place that birds seem to view as a ready-made housing development for birds, so there was peeping and fluttering and nervous preening going on just overhead.

He said he'd been waiting to get a Rin Tin Tin dog his entire life, and he couldn't believe he was finally going to bring one home. "I think," he said, raising his eyebrows, "I was a German shepherd in my previous life."

But I reconsidered, and a few weeks after I came back from Texas I looked around on the Internet and found one of those Breyer Rin Tin Tins and bought it—and it sits on my desk to this day. There was something gratifying about being able to do that, and disappointing. It finally summed up a certain open equation in my life, but it also reduced a persistent memory, and even a persistent melancholy, into an eight-inch plastic figurine. I was happy to have it, but I sometimes missed the bittersweet weight of my memory, of recalling those days at my grandfather's desk, of feeling so sharply the aches and joys of childhood and the mystery of my family, of realizing that my hunger for that toy had led me to spend these years of my life learning the story of Rin Tin Tin.

With the television show off the air, the movie rights tied up in knots, Lee and Bert both gone, it sometimes felt as if Lee's promise that there always would be a Rin Tin Tin had been reduced to some toys and comic books for sale. It seemed like such a compacted version of what Rin Tin Tin had been. A more optimistic viewpoint might be that, these days, living forever means having been enough of a material presence in the world to win a permanent place on eBay.

As much as she hated Bert Leonard—and the feeling was certainly mutual—at that moment she would have found a lot to discuss with him. They both had come to know well the pain of parting with something you believed was priceless, especially when it was, ironically enough, to cover the cost of protecting it.

He is that rare thing that endures when so much else rushes past; he is the repeating mark in our memory, the line that dips and rises without breaking. It is the continuity of an idea that makes life seem like it has a pattern that is wise and beautiful and indelible, one thing leading to the next; the individual beads of our lives, rather than scattering and spilling, are gathered up and strung along that endless line.

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.

Last words

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Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Isaacson, Walter

Patchett, Ann

Skloot, Rebecca

Original language

Canonical DDC/MDS

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Wikipedia in English (3)

135th Aero Squadron

Academy Award for Best Actor

Rusty (film series)

▾Book descriptions

Allegedly found in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel in France during World War I, then brought to Los Angeles by Lee Duncan, the soldier who found and trained him, by 1927 Rin Tin Tin had become Hollywood's number one box-office star. Susan Orlean's book--about the dog and the legend--is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship. It spans ninety years and explores everything from the shift in status of dogs from working farmhands to beloved family members, from the birth of obedience training to the evolution of dog breeding, from the rise of Hollywood to the past and present of dogs in war.--From publisher description.

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