Frank Inn - Career

Career

Inn's career as an animal trainer spanned more than 50 years. His first professional work was as an assistant trainer of Skippy, the dog who played Asta in the Thin Man movie series.

In 1943, he assisted Rudd Weatherwax in the training of Pal, the dog who originated the movie role of Lassie.

In the early 1950s, Inn left the Weatherwax animal training organization and began to work as an independent trainer. His animal stars included Orangey, a cat who was in the films Rhubarb (1952), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and appeared in the television series Our Miss Brooks with Eve Arden; Cleo, a basset hound who was in the film Bell, Book and Candle (1957) and in Jackie Cooper's 1950s television show, The People's Choice; Arnold Ziffel, the pig from Green Acres; the chimps from Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, the dog and two cats from The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty, Tramp the dog of My Three Sons and many of Elly May Clampett's exotic "critters" on The Beverly Hillbillies.

Possibly his most famous animal was Higgins, a fluffy brown mutt he rescued from an animal shelter in Burbank, California. The dog, which Inn believed to be a cross between a miniature poodle, a cocker spaniel, and a small terrier (either a miniature Schnauzer or a Border terrier), starred in Petticoat Junction in the 1960s, and in the feature films Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971) and Benji (1974). A sequel For the Love of Benji (1977) starred Higgins's daughter Benjean, also trained by Inn. Benjean portrayed the title role in the following three Benji movies.

In addition to his assistant trainers Gerry Warshauer and Karl Miller, Juanita Inn also helped Frank with animal training; she was listed in the opening credits of Benji and given credit as an animal trainer in Oh! Heavenly Dog, a 1980 movie starring Benjean.

Frank Inn also took on small character roles in films that featured his trained animals. He portrayed a studio security guard (uncredited) in Mooch Goes to Hollywood in 1971, appeared as himself in Benji the Hunted in 1987, and played a cook in the 1976 camel comedy Hawmps!. He can also be seen working as Benjean's trainer in the 1980 documentary Benji at Work, and the voice of Juanita Inn can be heard calling Benjean from off-camera during the behind-the-scenes description of a complex multi-part stunt that required the dog to approach a building, try to enter, and then run away as if driven off.

A true animal lover, Inn could not bear to see healthy animals euthanased or "put to sleep," as he called it, so he took them in. Those with acting ability he and his assistants kept and trained; the others he gave to friends and admirers as pets. Inn said that at one time he and his helpers had one thousand animals under their care, and the feeding bills alone came to $400 per day.