Review: Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean

Published October 11, 2011 |

Rin Tin Tin was discovered in a bombed out kennel in Lorraine, France towards the end of the First World War by an American serviceman, Lee Duncan. Duncan brought Rin Tin Tin back to the US with him where by 1922 he started a film career. Susan Orlean’s new book Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend goes beyond the dog and delves into the story behind all the people who revolve around the idea of Rin Tin Tin. Thomas J Walsh explains these details in his review of Orlean’s book for the Houston Chronicle.

Susan OrleanaE�s new book about a particular sliver of Americana is no biography of the most famous German shepherd in history.

ItaE�s not even the life story of Lee Duncan, a fatherless California kid turned G.I. who aE" so the story goes aE" discovered the orphaned Rin Tin Tin as a puppy on a World War I battlefield.

Instead, OrleanaE�s curious narrative, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, is a meditation on the human stories within Rin Tin TinaE�s orbit, a history of dogs in America, a rare look at HollywoodaE�s gritty early years, and, not least, a provocative treatise on mortality and immortality.

ThereaE�s the dog himself, of course, and the many heirs to his cinematic and TV thrones. ThereaE�s Duncan, a country boy whose love of the original Rin Tin Tin ensured that the dog, no matter how famous the man himself became, was always the star aE" even decades after the originalaE�s 1932 death. (aEoeHe believed the dog was immortal,aE� is OrleanaE�s opening line.)

ThereaE�s Bert Leonard, a tragicomic figure who produced the 1950s TV show and resuscitated the Rin Tin Tin brand for millions of Baby Boomers (including the author), but who also held onto the story with the clenched jaws of a pit bull for the rest of his life, dragging himself to slow ruin in the process. And thereaE�s Daphne Hereford, the Houston area native who inherited descendents of the original Rinty. Like Duncan and Leonard, she had her own dreams of keeping the dogaE�s legacy alive, only to reap a flurry of litigation and even homelessness.

Read the rest of the review at Review: Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend | Bookish | a Chron.com blog.

Chris Rivait

Chris loves history and hopes that Yesteeyear becomes a place where everyone can share their history knowledge. Chris owns an Internet Marketing company, Arrivait Marketing. He has a wonderful wife and four great children.