Animal stories in the movies

Subject: Animal stories in the movies Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:44 pm

Ross Elliott enjoyed several episodes of The Virginian, on which he was a regular as Sheriff Mark Abbott. He once told Jim and I:
“I saw one recently and it was kind of fun, because it made me think of Chips, my dog that died recently. I took him with me and we were on the backlot where the Shiloh Ranch House was. He spent the day and behaved himself; for some reason I couldn’t leave him home and we tied him up on the mock front of the ranch house. He was sitting on the porch and there was a horse, the one I was riding, tied up facing the porch. Chips very slowly, he’s never seen a horse before, snuck up closer and closer and the horse put his head down and started to nuzzle Chips. Now Chips took his big right paw and put it up, as to say that’s far enough. He pushed, and the horse nuzzled him; you know, the velvet lip routine. Chips looked at that, got up and went down on the ground and checked the horse out, put his forelegs up on his weathers and the horse put his head down. Then Chips went around and was now looking in his eyes, the horse gave sort of a whinny and he gave the horse a kiss. They became inseparable; the shooting stopped and the cast and crew couldn’t get over it, it was so funny. Every time Chips left him, the horse whinnied and we had to bring him back; we couldn’t do any shooting without having them together. A funny routine.” Tom.

Subject: Re: Animal stories in the movies Wed Jul 20, 2011 12:03 am

Howdy Tom!!

Thanks pard, for taking the time and sharing these memories of Ross Elliott with us. Like all the good supporting actors of the 50'-70's, Elliott appeared on most of the ole western series, but he became a staple as the Sheriff on The Virginian. I never knew that the Shiloh ranch house was just a front!! I assumed that it was a real house on someone's ranch, where they occassionally shot footage of the house. I knew that the inside shots were filmed back at the studio because the studio rooms don't have ceilings, so that they can manipulate the audio boom overhead and from outside the room. Good story about the dog and the horse!! Just goes to show that animals have more intelligence than we give them credit for. After all, the Orca or Killer whale has a brain that weighs 12 pounds and is six times larger than ours and about the only thing that we know for sure about them, is that they do communicate with each other!!

Thanks again

Ed