Thursday, October 11, 2007

Melvin Koontz and "Jackie"


Scan000010306, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Roger, isn't this the same couple as above?
Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 10/11/2007 08:38:00 AM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Right you are. Mel trained a number of arena acts, but made his fortune in film work as primarily a contact cat man. He did more with such animals than anyone else I've known of. Back in the '40s and '50s, he demanded $1500 a day from DeMille.

For those of you new to this, such lions as Mel's Jackies (there were 3 of them),become strictly one-man animals. No one else can approach them without immediate and dire results. As stated long ago in a Mel Koontz discussion, Pat Anthony wrestled a Jackie lion, doubling as Samson for Victor Mature. But Pat was well wised-up by then and would never have tried it without Mel being just inches out of frame.

12 October, 2007 17:52
Anonymous said...

Another great Mel Koontz story, if anyone returns to comments several days later:

Benny Bennett would fall down laughing when he told this one. They were working on some gladiator picture and Mel had a few tigers on the set. He had on his wardrobe, complete with a heavy, ornate Centurion's helmet. The tiger bounded off his seat and landed with all four feet on the helmet, jamming it hard down around Mel's jaws. There was Mel out there cussing and trying to pry off the helmet, and Benny said it was the only time he had seen a tiger laughing.

16 October, 2007 15:10
suek919 said...

Hi -

I am the wife of Melvin's grandson, Thomas Koontz. I am working on a family tree on ancestry.com and have recently been delving into Melvin's life. I would appreciate any pictures or stories you have about Melvin that I could add to our tree so his great, great-great, and great-great-great grandchildren can read them. Thanks so much - Susan Koontz

25 January, 2014 16:24

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