And the Oscar Goes to... Rin Tin Tin!?
Did you know that a dog almost won the first ever Academy Award for Best Actor? In September 1918, following a victory in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, an American aerial gunner named Lee Duncan was sent to the small French village of Flirey to ascertain whether it would make a suitable flying field for his unit, the 135th Aero Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Service. There, he found a severely damaged kennel which had once supplied the Imperial German Army with German Shepherd dogs. The only dogs left alive in the kennel were a starving mother with a litter of five newborn puppies. Duncan rescued the dogs and brought them back to his unit. When the puppies were weaned, he gave the mother to an officer, three of the litter to other officers and kept two for himself. He named them Nénette and Rin Tin Tin, after the little woolen puppets that French children gave to Allied soldiers as lucky charms. LEFT: Lee Duncan and Rin Tin Tin after World War I. MIDDLE: Rin Tin Tin c. 1925. RIGHT: Lee D...