I just finished reading Susan Orlean‘s Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. Aside from the heart (and I mean heart) of the main story itself, after something like ten years of borderline-obsessive research Orlean managed to weave into the book dozens of little stray details about the lives and personalities of the many people whose lives drifted into and out of the great movie and TV dog‘s* orbit. Here’s one such side story.
Background: TV producer H.B. “Bert” Leonard ran into financial difficulties and ended up owing his lawyer, a man named James Tierney, a ton of cash. To partially settle the debt, he gave Tierney his shares of two TV programs whose rights Leonard had retained over the years: Naked City and Route 66. Orlean writes:
…this cinematic windfall couldn’t distract [Tierney] from his own troubles. A year earlier, in 1992, one of his clients told him he needed some cash. The client owned a number of valuable paintings, including a Monet and a Picasso, and, he explained, if the paintings disappeared, he could file a $17 million insurance claim for them. Tierney agreed to help him out. By their arrangement, Tierney broke into the client’s house and stole the paintings. Then he gave the paintings to a young lawyer in his firm for safekeeping. The young lawyer decided to stash the paintings in a warehouse in Cleveland.
Unfortunately, the young lawyer also had some problems, including a volatile ex-wife, who happened to be the first California highway patrolwoman to pose for Playboy, a jealous girlfriend, and a crack cocaine addiction. He was also, evidently, unable to keep a secret and ended up telling both his ex-wife and his girlfriend about the stolen paintings; they, in turn, both informed on him to the police, each hoping to beat the other to the $250,000 reward being offered for information on the case. When the young lawyer was arrested, he immediately pointed the police back to Tierney. Before long, Tierney ended up in prison and lost his law license, his house, and his marriage.
No word on whether either the ex-wife or the girlfriend scored the hoped-for reward. I did love this story, though.
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* Technically, that should be dogs’ — plural possessive — as Rin Tin Tin was and continues to be played (in film, on TV, in hundreds of personal appearances) by a whole list of German shepherd dogs, from only one or two paternal bloodlines. The current incarnation is up to somewhere around Rin Tin Tin X or XI.
Rachel says
Very cool. I love those kinds of stories, with all the crazy things that people never believe are true, but they are. I’ve been debating whether or not to buy the book. I think you just helped me make up my mind. : )
John says
So good to see you here, Rachel! And I’m not surprised it was a dog-related post which drew you out. :)
Susan Orlean is very, very good at covering (without obscuring) a central core of narrative with these kinds of surrounding-context stories. (You may be familiar with her book The Orchid Thief, which was turned into the movie Adaptation.) Interesting, that knowing a subject fully involves knowing about all the stuff which is not the subject!
Jayne says
Which is why it took her 10 years to put it all together. I need to read this book. Been a long time since I’ve read Orlean.
Hard to feel sorry for any of these characters. And are they ever characters.
John says
Characters: yeah! Most of the characters which the book is actually “about” are/were really nice people — some neuroses sprinkled about here and there, and a little bit of, um, scoundrel-and-scallywagism, but for the most part charming and likable. I did laugh at the passage above, though; the effect is almost breathless, like Orlean couldn’t wait to lay it all out… and no wonder!
Ann Elwood says
Actually, the story of Rin-Tin-Tin’s birth on a battlefield in September of 1919 very likely is myth. The first story that Duncan told (in October, 1919, to the Los Angeles Times) and that three officers of his squadron told goes like this: Duncan and his mates found an adult German shepherd male on the battlefield, and Rin-Tin-Tin was one of a litter born to him and a female German shepherd. That means he was born around the time of the Armistice. Evidence shows that story to be the true one. In a photograph taken after the 135th Aero Squadron arrived back in the United States in May, 1919, Duncan sits on the ground with Rin-Tin-Tin in his arms; next to him is another man with Nanette, Rin-Tin-Tin’s sister. Rin-Tin-Tin’s ears are floppy; Nanette’s stand straight up. German shepherd puppies’ ears start to stand up when they are five or six months old. (That’s also the age the puppies appear to be, not the nine months they would have been had they been born in September.)
See my book, Rin-Tin-Tin: The Movie Star, available on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1453866655
John says
Thank you so much for the comment, and for the pointer to your own book!
In fairness to Susan Orlean, though, the story she tells doesn’t 100% conform to the “born on a battlefield” storyline. (The chapter about it DOES start with the phrase “born on a battlefield,” which is misleading only if a reader overlooks what follows; I’d put it in the same category as my saying I “grew up in the Philadelphia area” — because it’s a condensed, however strictly inaccurate, version of the facts.) See the “Look Inside” preview of the hardback edition of her book on Amazon, and search on the phrase “General John Pershing launched.” That should take you to the bottom of page 27, where she begins her detailed account of the finding, in a bombed-out kennel: the mother and five puppies, in September of 1918.
I’m guessing the photograph you mention is the one on page 10 of Orlean’s book? (This is the photo which your Web site features, in more tightly cropped form, in a post on September 29, 2011.)
All of which said, I’ve clearly not done anywhere near as much research on the subject as either of you have! :)