An Unremembered Book And the Man who Wrote It

Many years ago, my Aunt Robin, God Rest Her Soul, gave me a really cool book called Not So Dumb: Animals in the Movies by an amazing man by the name of Raymond Lee. I loved books about things like that, including dream interpretations, hand writing anyalysis and how certain movies were made.

I'd lost track of if for a couple of decades. In the process of transferring summer clothes to winter, I rediscovered the book.

So, thanks to the wonderful world of Google, I found the author. Turns out he died four years after the book's publishing date of 1970.

So I'm talking about thirty years ago. Ouch!

Anyway, for those that remain followers of my blog and my reading habits, you KNOW I love me some paranormal romances and that includes wolfies.

I'm not too sure about copyright laws after thirty years have passed but I wanted to share one of the stories from the book. And yes, Amazon actually does have it for sale. Imagine my shock.

I'm going to refer to Page 134, Chapter 30 and it's about The Wolf Queen.

I think the facts predate the 1921 movie called the Silent Call so you can appreciate how far ahead he was for his time.

His name was Larry Trimble. His idea was to use real wolves in movies. So he put a call out and trappers, hunters, zoos and ranchers sent him the most aggressive wolves they found. The book refers to the wolves as grey tails. Larry picked out 23 of the best lookers of the lot and he transported them all to their new home in Canada. He had a big area set aside as a stockade to house them.

As we readers know, pack status had to be established and amazingly enough it was NOT a male alpha that emerged but a female! We rock.

Anyway, Larry Trimble named her Lady Silver and was determined that she would be the first female wolf star of the cinema. Isn't that cool?
What's even more amazing, he did it.

How? After the pack dynamics were established, the man MOVED IN with the wolves! Yep, he was the first human wolfman. *grin*
He didn't even go in there armed. Nope, he just ate with them and hung out and watched them. And get this, to go to sleep the wolves dug holes!
I never knew that!
And so this Larry guy, he does the same thing but he's got a sleeping bag to help him out. I'd say he was cheating but hey, we humans don't have fur so I guess it was okay.

So there he was communing with the furred set and he started sharing his food. They'd eat it but they didn't trust him yet. Not until Lady Silver, the alpha female, came up to him and gently took the food from his hand. That was my favorite part. I really loved this story, can you tell?

Eventually, not only did other wolves follow the Alpha's lead, but when they dug their holes to sleep at night, they did it close to the human! He was IN!

And get this. The next part of the story? Larry shocked the heck out of his workers by taking the wolves OUTSIDE of the stockade! He was Brave! He was Courageous! He was nuts. But he did it and he proved that they could be trusted because he slowly introduced to them other dogs and people and environments. The next was Hollywood and stardom.

Larry Trimble ended up making movies with real wolves doing incredible scenes that no one ever accomplished before and no human or animal was ever injured. Incredible isnt' it?

This is the kind of story that appears throughout the book,
Not So Dumb: Animals in the Movies by Raymond Lee. Sure I paraphrased and left a bunch out but I shared the parts that spoke the most to me. Can you see why I am so excited I rediscovered my book?

And because I enjoy werewolf romances this really resonated with me. Oh, there are tons of stories in the book about famous dogs, cats, birds, elephants, chimpanzees, and of course dolphins - hello Flipper! But it tickled my fancy that a man was so enamored of wolves and believed they could outshine the ol' German Shepard, that he did what had never been done before. And proved that the wolf wasn't inherently a blood crazed killer of sheep and man.

Pack dynamics are a wonderful and amazing thing and somehow this man, Larry Trimble, without the benefit of 21st Century studies and documentaries, did what men and woman go to college to learn how to do.

He came to be trusted by the wolf. He became Pack.

Come on romance writers out there! This has the makings of an AWESOME PARANORMAL ROMANCE!!! And it partially can be based on fact. How cool is that???

I have to say, the idea of it is a FAVORITE THING!!