In the 1974 film “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” and the NBC television series of the same name, Dan Haggerty portrayed a kind mountain man with a lush beard and a bear named Ben. Haggerty passed away on Friday in Burbank, California.
He was seventy-three.
According to his buddy and manager Terry Bomar, the cause was spine cancer.
Mr. Haggerty was employed in Hollywood as an animal trainer and stuntman when a producer asked him to reprise portions of the film’s opening sequences, which were about a woodsman and his bear.
Based on Charles Sellier Jr.’s novel “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams,” it narrated the tale of a man from California who runs away from the woods after being wrongfully convicted of murder. There, he befriends the local wildlife and tames an abandoned bear.
Mr. Haggerty consented, provided that he may do the full film. After being remade for $165,000, the movie finally brought in close to $30 million from ticket sales. After that, it was made into a television series, and in February 1977, Mr. Haggerty returned to his environmentally conscious duty as the forest’s defender and animal buddy.
John Leonard described the first episode in The New York Times as “lukewarm to the heart.” Mad Jack (Denver Pyle) and the honorable red man Makuma (Don Shanks) bring bread and advise to the man and bear who have taken up residence in a log cabin. Bear washes his fur while the man traps his as they depart the cabin. There’s also a lot of connecting with nature, raccoons, owls, deer, bunnies, hawks, badgers, cougars, and a lump in the throat.
Warm and nostalgic, the show won over fans to Mr. Haggerty, who went on to win the 1978 People’s Choice Award for best new series actor. “Grizzly Adams” gave rise to two sequels: “Legend of the Wild,” which aired in 1978 and was eventually released in theaters in 1981; and “The Capture of Grizzly Adams,” which aired as a TV movie in 1982 and saw Adams being brought back to his hometown by bounty hunters in order to clear his record.
On November 19, 1942, Daniel Francis Haggerty was born in Los Angeles. After his parents divorced when he was three years old, he had a difficult upbringing and repeatedly escaped from military school. Eventually, he moved in with his actor father in Burbank, California.
He wed Diane Rooker at the age of 17. The union broke down in divorce. In 2008, he lost his second wife, Samantha Hilton, in a motorbike accident. His children, Don, Megan, Tracy, Dylan, and Cody, survive him.
In his debut movie, “Muscle Beach Party” (1964), he starred with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello as physique builder Biff. Then came came cameos in nature and motorcycle movies, such as “Biker With Bandana” and “Bearded Biker.” In “Easy Rider,” he made a fleeting appearance as a visitor to the hippie commune visited by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda.
In reality, Mr. Haggerty kept a variety of wild animals that he had either tamed from birth or rescued from harm on his tiny ranch in Malibu Canyon. His abilities brought him work as a stuntman and animal trainer on the television shows “Daktari” and “Tarzan,” in addition to sporadic roles in movies. “People magazine didn’t like actors jumping on them,” he said in 1978.
He acted as a Siberian tiger trapper in “Where the North Wind Blows” (1974), one of his outdoor-themed flicks, and in “The Adventures of Frontier Fremont” (1976). In the David Carradine movie “Americana,” he had an appearance as a dog trainer (1983). He portrayed a figure who was strikingly similar to Grizzly Adams in the movies “Grizzly Mountain” (1997) and “Escape to Grizzly Mountain” (2000).
As his career faded, Mr. Haggerty starred in horror movies such as “Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan” (2013), “Terror Night” (1987), and “Elves” (1989), in which he played an inebriated mall Santa. He was given a 90-day jail sentence in 1985 for supplying cocaine to two police agents who were undercover.
A negligent diner carrying a flaming cocktail ignited Mr. Haggerty’s well-known beard in 1977. He attempted to put out the fire, but instead burned his arms in the third degree. He was sent to a hospital where he would have therapy that would likely take a month.
“For the first few days, I was like a wounded wolf trying to heal myself—I just laid in the dark room drinking water,” he said to People. “Nurses urged me to open the curtains and attempted to give me morphine.” But occasionally, animals have better medical knowledge than humans. After ten days, he left the hospital on foot.
Animal rescued from the cold looks like a hairless cat — you’ll never guess what it really is
For many animals, fur is essential because it offers much-needed insulation from the cold. Additionally, it gives them their unique appearances; there are some creatures that you might not even identify when they are fully bald.
A more rarer critter that resembles a hairless cat was just taken up by rescuers. Continue reading to find out more about this unusual species and her improbable survival.
The strangest animal was adopted by Hope for Wildlife, a charitable conservation organization in Nova Scotia, last month. A couple in West Arichat found the animal, suffering in the cold, in their backyard, according to the Canadian Press.
The creature appears to be a Sphynx cat at first glance, but it’s actually a fully hairless raccoon!
Without their distinctive fur pattern that resembles a mask, raccoons are definitely difficult to identify. This small animal, a northern raccoon, suffers from severe alopecia, which has left it entirely bald.
There have been examples of balding raccoons in the past, but nothing like this, according to the rescue: “It’s just tufts of fur around the snout, ankles and feet.” The Canadian Press was informed by Hope Swinimer, director of Hope for Wildlife, that the situation was serious.
Despite being female, the raccoon has been named Rufus in honor of the character from the Kim Possible cartoon who is a naked mole rat.
The rescue said on Facebook that they are still in the process of diagnosing the reason for her hair loss and that it might be an autoimmune condition causing harm to her hair follicles. Not only did they rule out fungal infections, mange, and parasites, but they also noted that her skin looked healthy.
Since raccoons rely on their fur to remain warm and shield their skin from the weather, Rufus’s survival for this extended period of time astounded the rescuers.
“We are astonished that this small lady survived the winter without fur and without getting frostbite or worse!” the Facebook post stated.
They went on to say that she was “her own doing” and that she had a “feisty” personality. Nevertheless, given that she was apparently “down and out upon arrival,” it appears that she was saved just in time.
For a few brief hours, we were in a panic, but then she became hungry and came out. We’ve noticed a significant change since she first came, and she’s becoming really feisty now, Swinimer told The Canadian Press.
Given the situation, Rufus may end up staying at the shelter permanently. In addition to having a dedicated habitat, an outside area with a place to crawl into for warmth, and other facilities like hammocks and nesting boxes, Rufus will have all of these.
We’ve never before seen a raccoon without hair! Rufus’s prolonged survival in the wild is amazing, and we’re happy that she was discovered and is receiving quality care.
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