Hollywood animal trainer Frank Inn, who took a
mongrel named Higgins from an animal shelter and turned him into a
movie star called Benji, has died at age 86, his daughter said Monday.
Inn had been in failing health since February when he was admitted to a
hospital near his Saugus, California, home for a knee injury, his
daughter Kathleen Hees said. He died Saturday at the rehabilitation
center where he had lived since the fall, she added.
Inn's career spanned more than 50 years and his animal stars included
Arnold, the pig from "Green Acres;" the chimps from "Lancelot Link,
Secret Chimp" and many of Elly May's exotic "critters" on the "Beverly
Hillbillies."
Inn, born Elias Franklin Freeman in 1916, changed his name when he ran
away from his Indiana home at 17 to escape his strict Quaker
upbringing, which included daily church services.
He rode a freight train across the western United States and scraped by
as a rodeo clown. When he arrived in California, he hung around outside
the gates of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with others looking for odd jobs.
At 19, he got into an automobile accident that nearly took his life but
set him on a path to becoming one of Hollywood's most famous and
prolific animal trainers. A wheelchair-bound Inn recovered at the home
of a friend whose young son brought home a dog one day in the
mid-1930s.
When the dog had a litter of pups, Inn claimed one for himself and
named the animal "Jeep" after Popeye's pet.
The amateur trainer landed his first professional gig after
demonstrating to legendary trainer Henry East that Jeep could perform a
trick on a movie set that East's own dog had botched.
His reputation growing, Inn was recruited by Rudd Weatherwax, trainer
of the dogs that played Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, and spent the next 14
years perfecting his craft.
In 1952, Inn went into business for himself, making a TV star out of a
basset hound named Cleo in "The People's Choice" with Jackie Cooper.
Inn moved his family out to an isolated area in the San Fernando Valley
to accommodate his growing menagerie of more than 100 dogs, cats and
exotic animals.
A dog named Higgins that Inn rescued from the Burbank animal shelter
became his biggest star. The wiry-haired brown mutt did a turn as "Boy"
on "Petticoat Junction," then came out of retirement at 14 to star in
"Benji," the first of the hugely popular children's movie series.
Inn trained Benji's son in the following three movies and did acting
turns as himself in "Benji the Hunted" in 1987 and as a cook in the
1976 camel comedy "Hawmps!"
In his later years, Inn wrote poetry, assembled a museum of memorabilia
from his long career and trained a new generation of animal wranglers.
"My dad was the granddaddy of all trainers," Hees said. "Anyone in the
movies who trains animals was trained by him or someone who he
trained."
Inn is survived by two daughters, two grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren. Reuters/Variety
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