From the Great War to Hollywood Greatness: Leland Duncan saved Rin Tin Tin and made him a star
- Staff
- May 11
- 8 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
by #LizPublika
Ironically, the biography of Rin Tin Tin, the German Shepherd who became an international movie star, could read a lot like a script on its way to Hollywood greatness: Destined for the German Imperial Army but born in bomb-torn quarters to a starving and desperate mother during the Great War, Rin Tin Tin and his four siblings appeared to be at death’s door, until a chance encounter with an American service member changed their lives forever. See?
Rin Tin Tin was, in fact, born on a WWI battlefield situated in north-eastern France. The exact date is unknown, but when the pup was first found by Leland Duncan — the man who would soon become his owner, trainer, and champion — he was about a week old, blind, and still nursing. Duncan, a country boy and a third-generation Californian who joined the Army just one year prior, was among the first 300 Americans sent to France in the 135th Air Squadron.
On the morning of September 15th, 1918, he was tasked with surveying the small French village of Flirey to assess the ruins of a German encampment for a possible plane landing. Duncan had always kept a journal and even though his records during his soldierly days were rather understated, on the morning of September 15th, when he stumbled on an abandoned family of dogs, his notes and remarks grew surprisingly vivid.
So, when Duncan left the German encampment, he took the canine family with him, eventually keeping two puppies for himself and homing the rest of the animals with other service members. He named his Rin Tin Tin and Nanette, in honor of a pair of yarn dolls made to represent two lovers during the war, which were considered good-luck charms by the locals. In fact, he believed that finding the dogs was a stroke of good luck, a sentiment he held onto for life.
“It wasn't a coincidence… that Duncan was the one to rescue a pup who had no one; he had spent five years in an orphanage himself as a child. Even when the same mother who had left him there came back to get him, she took him to live with her parents on an isolated property with no other kids around. He did, however, get a dog. So perhaps it's no surprise that later, on the field of battle, surrounded by the death of the war, Duncan once again got a dog.”
In July of 1919, Duncan snuck his dogs aboard a ship scheduled to take him home to the states. When they got to Long Island, New York, for the re-entry process, the young veteran put his pups in the temporary care of a Hempstead breeder known for training police dogs. There, Nanette was diagnosed with pneumonia, so the breeder offered Duncan a female German Shepherd puppy to take Nanette’s place, which Duncan accepted and set off to California by rail.
Sadly, Nanette died in Hempstead during that time, so Duncan named the new puppy Nanette II in the original’s honor. The three of them settled at Duncan’s home in Los Angeles. By then, Rin Tin Tin had grown into a rambunctious dog of average height and build, with a dark and lustrous coat that gave way to gold marbling around his legs, chin and chest. He was powerful, energetic, and nimble. Plus, he had comically large, tulip-shaped ears that were set far apart.
Although Duncan was married to a wealthy woman named Charlotte Anderson, his real true love was Rin Tin Tin, with whom he spent all of his free time. Duncan had trouble readjusting to civilian life; he experienced emotional and physical symptoms, and found it difficult to hold down a job. So he passed the time teaching tricks to Rin Tin Tin, whom he lovingly called Rinty, much to the dismay of Anderson, who could not compete with the canine, despite her many efforts.
Since German shepherds were a relatively new breed, and very new in America, Duncan met and teamed up with other German Shepherd enthusiasts and ultimately helped found the Shepherd Dog Club of California in 1922. Duncan came to believe that Rin Tin Tin could become an award-winning dog, who, when bred with Nannette II, could produce a valuable litter of puppies. He decided to enter Rin Tin Tin in the club’s first show, but it didn’t go as planned.
While Rin Tin Tin showed off his agility, he also revealed an aggressive temper by growling, barking, and snapping at others during competition. Worst still, on the way home, a heavy bundle of newspapers thrown from a delivery truck landed on the dog and broke his left front paw. Duncan had the injured limb set in plaster and nursed the dog back to health. The recovery took a whole nine months, after which Rin Tin Tin was ready for another chance at the big time.
Duncan entered the dog in a competition for German Shepherds. Duncan’s friend Charley Jones asked if he could come along, as he had just developed a type of slow-motion camera that he wanted to try out. By that point, Rin Tin Tin had improved his skills and learned to leap great heights, so when he competed in a jump-off for first place in the “working dog” part of the show, for which the bar was set at eleven and a half feet, Jones had filmed the whole thing.
“Charley Jones had his camera on Rinty as he made his jump and as he came down on the other side,” Duncan wrote. Indeed, the dog sailed over the head of the judge and several others, and won the competition. Watching the Rinty on film inspired Duncan, who came to believe that the canine could become the next Strongheart, a German Shepherd star who lived in a stucco bungalow with its own Hollywood Hills street address, separate from the mansion of his owners.
In his diary, Duncan documented his new aspiration: "I was so excited over the motion picture idea that I found myself thinking of it night and day.” To turn the dream into reality, he took Rin Tin Tin to Hollywood’s Poverty Row, a hub for less established studios. Together, they walked up and down the street, knocking on doors and trying to entice any willing industry leader into putting the dog in a film. As strange as that may seem now, it was a standard strategy then.
The break came when Duncan was able to secure a small part for Rin Tin Tin in a Warner Bros. melodrama called The Man from Hell’s River (1922). A wolf who was first cast for the part did not perform well, so it went to Rin Tin Tin. Although Rinty was not placed on the film’s cast list, he performed perfectly and was mentioned in the Variety review as “Rin Tan,” a dog who plays a sled-dog team leader belonging to Pierre, a Canadian Mountie. More opportunities followed.
Harry Warner liked what he saw and agreed to look at Duncan’s script entitled Where the North Begins (1923). While writing it, Duncan had studied Rin Tin Tin’s facial expressions and was convinced that the dog could be taught to act a part and “to register emotions and portray a real character with its individual loves, loyalties, and hates.” A few weeks later, Duncan got a letter from the studio — Warner wanted to produce his screenplay and cast Rin Tin Tin in the lead.
Production began almost immediately. The film had an accomplished director and featured notable stars that were cast opposite Rin Tin Tin. The experience exceeded Duncan’s expectations. “It didn’t seem like work,” Duncan wrote. “Even Rinty was bubbling over with happiness out here in the woods and snow.” But a dog is a dog, and so Rin Tin Tin chased foxes into snowdrifts and even attacked a porcupine, which peppered his face with quills.
Still, Duncan was proud of the dog’s performance, which included a twelve-foot jump — higher than the one filmed by Jones. The film, too, was a hit, earning more than four hundred thousand dollars. Thousands of fan letters arrived at Warner Bros. each week. Where the North Begins was playing all over the country, and, as was typical with popular films, most theatres extended its run as long as people kept showing up.
Rin Tin Tin, an immediate box-office success, went on to appear in 27 Hollywood films, gaining worldwide fame. Along with Strongheart, Rin Tin Tin helped spread awareness about the breed and increase the popularity of German Shepherd dogs as family pets. And the immense profitability of his films contributed to the success of Warner Bros. studios and helped advance the career of Darryl F. Zanuck, who went from screenwriter to producer to studio executive.
Warner Bros. paid Rin Tin Tin two thousand dollars a week, which was a bargain; the dog became known as “the mortgage lifter” since releasing a Rin Tin Tin film proved to be an effective strategy for balancing finances every time the studio experienced a setback. Duncan, too, was given every privilege: he was driven to the set each day, he had an office on the Warner Bros. lot, where he sifted through Rinty’s fan mail, and lived a lavish lifestyle.
But Duncan’s personal life at home was hardly enviable. Charlotte Anderson had had enough of watching her husband obsess over Rinty while ignoring her, so she filed for divorce in 1927. Competing with a dog was more than she could handle. “All he cared for was Rin Tin Tin,” she testified. An article in the Los Angeles Times also noted: “Evidently, Rin Tin Tin’s company was so much pleasure to Duncan that he considered Mrs. Duncan’s presence rather secondary.”
In 1929, Warner Bros. decided to focus on its speaking human stars and dismissed Rin Tin Tin and Leland Duncan, but that was not the end of the canine’s career. The dog was signed to another label and continued to appear in serials and films. But nothing lasts forever. Rin Tin Tin died in 1932, and his name was passed on to his offspring and further progeny that were featured in fictional stories on film, radio, and television. None reached his level of success.
Leland Duncan passed away in 1960. In the thousands of pages, which include a detailed memoir — a rough draft for the autobiography he planned to write and the movie he hoped would be made about his life — Duncan had preserved his love and dedication to Rin Tin Tin (as evidenced by his poem featured below). In the end, the greatest story of all ended up being the one about a good man who really, really loved his dog. And it’s the one that still endures.
In a ceremony on February 8, 1960, Rin Tin Tin was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1627 Vine Street.
Rin Tin Tin
by Leland Duncan
“Alert and ready for my slightest word,
Rin Tin Tin I so often watch you stand;
Eager to serve me for that high reward-
A smile, or just a light touch of my hand.
Deaf to allurements of those standing by
when I am near, and deaf when I'm away.
Forever overjoyed at my return
However brief or lengthy is my stay.
Believing in me always, tho I fail,
Your trust you gave but once, and that to me.
Your's are the qualities that men hold high,
Strength and pride and love and loyalty.
Wherever led my path you'd walk my way.
And gladly give your life my own to save.
Enduring pain and hunger, heat and cold-
And broken hearted die upon my grave.
A real unselfish love like yours, old pal,
Is something I shall never know again;
And I must always be a better man,
Because you loved me greatly, Rin Tin Tin.”