100 Cats Who Changed Civilization

PEPPER ^{THE FIRST FELINE MOVIE STAR}

At the dawn of the twentieth century, when the first “flickers” started playing at packed nickelodeons worldwide, it seemed as if almost anyone could step in front of a camera and become a star. All they needed were pluck, luck, and, perhaps, a slightly larger than normal ego. Those were the days when former Shakespearian actors, vaudeville hacks, and even theater stagehands all made fortunes in Hollywood. Even a bedraggled alley cat saw her name up in lights.

Her name was Pepper. According to her press clippings, she was “discovered” by famous comedy director Max Sennet. One day, while the creator of the Keystone Cops was shooting a picture, he noticed that a gray cat had sneaked onto the set through a loose floorboard. Far from causing a scene, she actually shot one. The unflappable feline walked out among the actors as if on cue, emoting as if she’d done it all her life. Sennet, impressed, decided he had a star on his hands. He instantly christened the cat Pepper and put her to work.

Her career spanned the late 1910s to the late 1920s. As it turned out, she was much more than a furry, purring prop. Capable of learning complicated tricks, she convincingly played checkers onscreen with comedian Ben Turpin. Over the years she contributed to a long list of comedy shorts with titles such as The Kitchen Lady, Never Too Old, and Rip and Stitch: Tailors.

She also worked with a truly stellar list of costars. Pepper shared billing with talents ranging from the Keystone Cops to Charlie Chaplin to Fatty Arbuckle. She was even able to restrain her instincts when paired with another of Sennet’s furry actors, Frederich the Mouse.

But her favorite costar was a Great Dane named Teddy, who was arguably America’s first canine movie hero. Pepper worked with Teddy (a.k.a. Keystone Teddy, America’s Best Friend, and Teddy the Wonder Dog) in several of Max Sennet’s comedies. The two became inseparable—so much so that when Teddy died in the late ’20s, his four-legged friend went into deep mourning. The feline fatale threw in the towel shortly thereafter, retiring from acting to enjoy, one hopes, a well-earned rest on a sunny window ledge.

KASPAR ^{THE WORLD’S LUCKIEST BLACK CAT}

London’s famous Savoy Hotel has been the epitome of grace and high style since it opened in 1889. From the start, it made a point of taking care of guests’ every need. That’s what made the unfortunate events of 1898 so unnerving. One night, a South African businessman named Woolf Joel booked a dinner for fourteen. But at the last minute one guest dropped out, turning it into a decidedly less festive party of thirteen. Of course, Joel was well aware of the old legend that the first person to rise from such an unlucky assembly will meet disaster. He chose to laugh off the danger. In a grand act of gallantry, he took any possible consequences upon himself by exiting first.

It was a brave deed—but perhaps a foolish one. Shortly after his return to South Africa, Joel was found murdered in his office.

Did his dining arrangements that night at the Savoy have anything to do with it? The management elected not to take any chances. For several years thereafter, a staff member would sit in with shorthanded groups, partaking of the meal at the hotel’s expense. However, since dining with a stranger could make for awkward table talk, a more permanent solution was developed. In 1927, a three-foot-tall wooden statue of a black cat was commissioned from artist Basil Ionides. The Art Deco sculpture was named Kaspar and deployed to round out lunch and dinner groups that formed an unfortunate baker’s dozen.

Since then, Kaspar has become a Savoy celebrity, often requested even by groups of more or less than the fateful thirteen. Like all other lunch and dinner guests, the mute feline has his cutlery and plates replaced with each course. The servers even tie a napkin daintily around his neck.

Over the decades, Kaspar has broken bread with numberless luminaries. The cat was a favorite of Winston Churchill, whose dining society, the Other Club, was born at the Savoy. The great wartime prime minister once had to come to Kaspar’s aid, securing his release after he was kidnapped as a prank by some Royal Air Force members. Perhaps Churchill liked him so much because he never, ever, repeated anything he heard at the table.

ORANGEY ^{THE QUEEN OF THE MOVIE CAMEOS}

When one thinks of four-legged actors and actresses, canines generally come to mind. But a handful of cats have also clawed their way to the top. At the summit of this short list of feline thespians proudly perches Orangey, a red tabby “discovered” by legendary animal trainer Frank Inn (whose other pupils included Benji and Arnold, the pig from Green Acres). Orangey debuted in 1951 in the forgettable flick Rhubarb, which chronicled the story of a cat who inherits a baseball team.

Her later roles, however, were more stellar. In addition to playing Minerva in the 1950s television series Our Miss Brooks, she also found time for cameos in a number of well-known big-screen projects, including the science fiction classics This Island Earth and The Incredible Shrinking Man, in which she tried to chase down and eat the film’s diminutive title character. Orangey reached the pinnacle of her fame in 1961, playing opposite Audrey Hepburn as her pet cat, Cat, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In 1952, she received a Patsy Award (the animal world’s equivalent of the Oscar) for Rhubarb, and in 1962 she crowned her career with another statuette for Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

MIMSEY ^{THE CAT WHO MADE FUN OF LEO THE LION}

When Mary Tyler Moore Enterprises (MTM) debuted in the late 1960s, no one knew it would soon create such hits as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Hill Street Blues, and The Bob Newhart Show. The upstart production company decided to trade on its passing resemblance to the Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) name to make it’s mark. That storied company was represented by a roaring lion. MTM wanted something similar, but since it was a much smaller, younger operation, management picked a much smaller, younger feline mascot—an orange kitten named Mimsey.

The former animal shelter inmate, only a few weeks old, was placed in front of a camera. She uttered a squeaky, uncertain meow, and her TV career was over. She was given to an MTM staffer as a pet.

But her TV incarnation developed a life of its own. The eternal kitten’s meow graced the closing credits of every MTM show. Over the decades her appearance was even tailored to fit specific programs. On Hill Street Blues she wore a police hat, and on St. Elsewhere a surgical mask. The real Mimsey passed on in 1988, but her TV doppelganger remains forever young.

TOWSER ^{THE WORLD’S MOST SPIRITED MOUSE HUNTER}

On the grounds of Scotland’s Glenturret Distillery, birthplace of the delectable Famous Grouse whiskey, stands a bronze statue honoring a distinguished former employee. But it doesn’t celebrate an owner or a particularly skilled distiller or even a human being. It bears the likeness of a female long-haired tortoiseshell cat named Towser, along with her proud claim to fame: “Towser, the famous cat who lived in the still house, Glenturret Distillery, for almost twenty-four years. She caught 28,899 mice in her lifetime. World mousing champion, Guinness Book of Records.”

It’s no surprise that a distillery needs such a bloody-minded creature. The large amounts of barley stored there attract large numbers of rodents. At Glenturret, as at other distilleries, a feline is the first line of defense. But even among such exceptional company, Towser stood alone. During her very long life, Towser is estimated to have killed three mice every day from shortly after her birth on April 21, 1963, to shortly before her death on March 30, 1987.

This reign of rodent terror made Towser a celebrity. She appeared on television programs, received fan mail, and was much in demand for photo opportunities with distillery visitors. After her death, she was replaced by another cat, Amber. Though Amber was quite happy to greet guests, during her tenure (which lasted until her own demise in 2004) she reportedly never killed a single mouse. Today her duties are performed by a former stray named Brooke, who earned her job in a Scotland-wide talent search. Unfortunately, when it comes to killing rodents, Brooke is no Towser. According to the Glenturret Web site, she’s “more usually found curled up on a barrel asleep in the sun than chasing mice.” Happily, improved grain storage techniques have drastically reduced the mouse population at Glenturret, leaving Brooke plenty of time for the task at which she truly excels—posing for photo ops with visitors.

How did Towser catch so many mice? Staffers at the distillery wonder if she got an extra boost from her evening saucer of milk, which was fortified with a “tiny wee dram” of the distillery’s powerful product. Perhaps she defended the place so well because she knew, from firsthand experience, what she was fighting for.

LUCKY ^{THE CAT WHO CREATED AN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN}

Everyone knows Morris the Cat, the spokesfeline for 9 Lives Cat Food. The big orange tabby, who first took to the airwaves back in the ’60s, is famous for his jaded voice, blasé worldview, and, of course, his finicky attitude toward every comestible under the sun, save for 9 Lives.

That persona made him an icon. But the real-life feline who portrayed Morris was neither blasé nor finicky. A friendless stray can’t afford to be.

The cat selected to play Morris on TV was originally called Lucky. And lucky he was. An inmate at the Hinsdale Humane Society Animal Shelter in Lombard, Illinois, he was only hours away from being euthanized. But shelter officials saw something special in the cat’s distinguished good looks and green eyes. In the spring of 1967, they contacted animal trainer Bob Martwick, who was so smitten by the feline that he adopted him.

Springing for Lucky’s $5 adoption fee was the best investment Martwick ever made. A few months later he was contacted by the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency, which needed a good-looking cat to eat a bowl of food for a commercial. The product was, of course, 9 Lives. Lucky—soon to be rechristened Morris—wowed the agency’s executives, and in June 1969 he debuted on national TV. Almost overnight, an advertising icon was born. Soon bags of fan mail addressed to Morris inundated the 9 Lives headquarters. Even more to the point, mountains of their product flew off of store shelves.

Morris’s fame soon spread to other media. He appeared in the 1972 movie Shamus; posed for the cover of Cat Fancy’s thirtieth anniversary issue in 1995; and won back-to-back Patsy Awards (the animal world’s equivalent of the Oscar) in 1972 and 1973. He was also offered as a presidential candidate in 1988 and again in 1992.

But while the name and fame of Morris live on, his original alter ego, Lucky, passed away in 1975. Since then he’s been played by a string of look-alikes. The current incarnation lives in Los Angeles with his trainer, Rose Ordile. The original Morris, who lived to an estimated age of nineteen, was buried with great ceremony in Martwick’s backyard.

THE MEOW MIX CAT ^{THE CAT WHO ALMOST GAVE HIS LIFE FOR ADVERTISING}

In the days before computer-generated special effects, animal trainers used heroic measures to get four-legged thespians to “talk” onscreen. (The only thing that got the famous Mr. Ed to move his mouth on cue was a dose of peanut butter smeared under his upper lip.) But one famous feline pitch cat managed to spontaneously inaugurate one of the world’s most recognizable promotional campaigns.

It began in the early 1970s, when the advertising agency Della Femina, Travisano & Partners was engaged to create TV spots for Meow Mix cat food. When they shot footage of an orange-and-white tabby consuming the product, however, the luckless cat started choking. All they got was at-first-unusable footage of the feline working its mouth soundlessly as it fought for air. But then ad exec Jerry Della Femina thought of a way to turn lemons into lemonade. He added a soundtrack to the film, created the now-immortal “Meow, meow, meow” Meow Mix theme song, and started a sensation. Fortunately, the cat managed to spit out the offending food and went on to live a long and happy life.

HOWARD HUGHES’S CAT ^{THE FELINE WHO HAD EVERYTHING EXCEPT AN OWNER}

Billionaire movie producer, aviation pioneer, and casino owner Howard Hughes was as incredibly famous as he was incredibly odd. The stories about his strangeness—from his dinnertime practice of sorting all his peas by size (he carried around a tiny rake for the purpose) to his obsession with designing the perfect brassiere for his amply endowed film protégée, Jane Russell—are legion. So it’s probably no surprise that he reacted bizarrely when his wife, Jean Peters, told him that a rather dicey-looking tomcat she’d adopted had gone missing.

The name of the cat is lost to history, but Hughes’s reaction to his departure is enshrined in the lexicon of eccentric anecdotes. According to the story, the billionaire launched a massive effort to locate the missing pet. He micromanaged the project from his mansion, demanding progress reports from his minions every hour on the hour. But when the poor cat was finally located hiding in an old barn, Hughes examined him personally and pronounced him unfit for his household.

This ignited a closely managed effort to find the cat a suitable new residence. Several potential adoptive owners were interviewed extensively, then rejected for various reasons. After much debate, the feline was bundled off to a high-class cattery—the sort of cattery that seemed more than ready to cater to Hughes’s oddball ideas of propriety. The tomcat took up residence in its own carpeted, tastefully decorated room, complete with a TV should it desire to catch a program.

The cattery required that former owners dash off a letter to their pets once each month. Hughes, eager to be rid of the problem, is said to have fobbed off the task on an underling. The writer was apparently still on the job—and the cat, presumably, was still enjoying his television-equipped suite—when Hughes passed away on April 5, 1976. Jean Peters, who had instigated the entire situation by taking in the feline in the first place, had divorced the erratic billionaire five years earlier.

PHET AND PLOY ^{THE CATS WHO GOT MARRIED}

Every bride gets a bit testy as her big day approaches. But in the case of one Thai couple, the bride and groom were both quite catty. That’s because they were Siamese cats named Phet and Ploy. Their 1996 Bangkok nuptials are considered the most opulent feline “wedding” on record.

Why do cats need to get married? According to their owner, cosmetics magnate Vicharn Charas-archa, it was only fair. Both felines were rare “diamond-eyed” cats, which according to Thai beliefs are extraordinarily lucky. Charas-archa became a believer after discovering the cats on the Thai/Burmese border and taking them in. Shortly thereafter, his struggling business started taking off.

So he shared the wealth by staging a wedding for his good luck charms at a Bangkok disco. The groom arrived by helicopter, and the bride (who came with a $40,000 dowry) by limousine. They wore a tuxedo and bridal gown and sported tiny wedding rings on their paws.

Post-wedding plans included a honeymoon river cruise and, sometime afterward, a trip to the vet. That’s because the “diamond eyes” effect is caused by a form of glaucoma.

TIDDLES ^{THE FAT CAT CHAMPION OF LONDON}

The most beloved fictional character associated with London’s venerable Paddington Station is undoubtedly Paddington Bear. There’s even a gift shop at the cavernous train depot selling everything to do with its cuddly namesake. Of slightly more modest renown is the landmark’s other animal mascot—Tiddles, the lavatory cat. His somewhat less heartwarming story began in 1970, when lavatory attendant June Watson adopted a six-week-old stray and started bringing him to work with her. Soon, as many people dropped by to visit the personable feline as to use the facilities.

They came bearing gifts of steak, chicken, lamb, and whatever other tidbits they thought would tempt the cat. The deluge of goodies became so overwhelming that Tiddles got his own personal fridge to store them. Not surprisingly, this lord of the ladies’ loo soon swelled to royal girth. By 1982 he weighed so much that he was named “London Fat Cat Champion.”

Of course this was far from healthy, and visitors soon were discouraged from feeding him. But the goodies kept coming. Poor Tiddles, swollen to an ungainly thirty-two pounds, came to resemble a beach ball with fur. Though he eventually passed away from obesity-related health issues, it can safely be said that he died happy.

TONI ^{THE WORLD’S MOST ELIGIBLE FELINE BACHELOR}

Is it possible to be too desirable? In the case of one hapless feline, it certainly was. Pity poor Toni, a cat with a pedigree so excruciatingly rare that he became an object of desire not only to aficionados, but to thieves.

His sorry tale began in June 2000, when British cat breeder Peter Collins heard someone snooping around the outdoor run used by Toni, his longhaired Turkish Angora. When Collins stepped outside, he saw a woman wearing orange glasses and a hooded jacket carrying his prized pet away in a basket. “I chased her and saw her getting into an estate car with foreign plates that had its engine running,” he told the BBC. “She jumped in and the car roared off before I could reach it.”

The heist, police surmised, was carefully planned and executed. But why would anyone go to so much trouble to nab a cat? Because Toni (full name Antonio B. Pinardin) was both exceedingly rare and exceedingly valuable (somewhere, experts guessed, in the neighborhood of £250,000). He’d been purchased a couple of years earlier by Collins and his wife, Joy, from a German breeder for the comparatively reasonable price of £1,500. But his stock soared after a catastrophe overtook his breed.

When he started life, Toni became one of a handful of absolutely pureblood long-haired Turkish Angoras in the world. He was born into a forty-year breeding program overseen by the Ankara Zoo and designed to save the felines, which were once favorites of European royalty, from extinction.

Toni’s role as a stud cat was ordained before he was conceived. But then an outbreak of an AIDSlike virus at the Ankara Zoo devastated the breeding population, leaving Toni as the only male cat with top-notch bloodlines who was capable of reproducing. Not surprisingly, his value rose faster than an Internet stock before the dot-com bust. His stud fee alone was reckoned at around £600. Over his lifetime, this Secretariat of cats would fetch a fortune.

That cash is now most likely going into someone else’s pockets. In spite of intervention by Interpol, no one has seen hide nor hair of Toni since his abduction. Police theorize that perhaps a German “collector” absconded with the cat. Collins reported that the woman said something in German as she dashed away.

One needn’t worry about the conditions of Toni’s imprisonment, however. Wherever he is, he’s probably being treated well—and having lots and lots of intimate encounters with female cats. One hopes his new owner keeps a close eye on him and keeps his outdoor run securely locked.

DOCKET ^{THE LOST CAT WHO BECAME A COLLECTOR’S ITEM}

It’s hard to tell where the private life of renowned London conceptual artist Tracey Emin ends and her very public professional life begins. She’s worked in media ranging from paint to photography to appliquéd quilts. Her most famous piece was called, simply, My Bed. True to the name, it was her own unmade bed, surrounded by dirty clothes and other refuse. It caused an uproar in the art world, turning Emin into a celebrity. Today the piece is valued in the neighborhood of £150,000.

Clearly, almost anyone or anything can become part of her work—a fact that came back to bite her when her cat, Docket, ran away from home in 2002. Distraught, Emin posted handmade “lost kitty” posters around her neighborhood. Almost immediately they were taken down by collectors, who sold them for as much as £500. Flabbergasted, Emin put out the word that there was nothing in the least artistic about the hastily written notices. Fortunately, everything worked out in the end. The collectors got to keep their trophies, and Docket found his way home on his own.

FRANK ^{THE CAT WHO BECAME THE FIRST FELINE INTERNET PHENOMENON}

Many artists suffer for their work, but few suffered as much as Internet celebrity Frank the Cat. In 2003, the search engine Yahoo! declared his Web offering to be one of its top sites of the year. All Frank did to gain such plaudits was lie quietly in a cage. Oh, and almost get himself killed.

The unlikely story began in January 2002, when Frank, an English cat residing in Cambridge, was hit by a car. The accident broke his pelvis, requiring reconstructive surgery and a lengthy recovery. The feline spent his convalescence piled up in a cage at the home of his master, David Donna, the managing partner of a small Internet firm.

Donna had an idea. Ostensibly to test some company software—but also, perhaps, because he thought it might be cool—he created a Web site chronicling Frank’s ordeal, complete with pictures of his X-rays and a biography of his pet. As the piece de resistance, he rigged up two webcams so that surfers could watch every moment of Frank’s recovery.

What took everyone by surprise was just how many people seemed interested in the injured cat’s plight. Within minutes of going public, the site was getting two thousand hits per minute. Unknown to Frank, who spent most of his time sleeping, close to five million people logged on to check up on him. But it couldn’t last forever. Once the feline regained enough strength to get around on his own, he would no longer lie obligingly in front of the webcams for his fans.

Shortly after Frank’s recovery, the live site was taken off the Web. In the aftermath, more than a few social commentators scratched their heads about what made it so popular. “It’s just one of those things that has been blown out of all proportion,” Donna told the BBC. The project did produce one unlooked-for benefit, however. A mysterious couple had assisted Frank shortly after his accident, probably saving his life. When they spotted him on the Internet, they got in touch with Donna, who arranged a meeting between the cat and his benefactors.

OTHER FELINES OF DISTINCTION

GRIMALKIN: The celebrated pet of French astrologer Nostradamus. Grimalkin was also the name of the witches’ cat in Macbeth.

DELILAH: The favored pet of Freddie Mercury, front man for the famed British rock group Queen. The female tortoiseshell was immortalized in the song “Delilah,” on the band’s 1991 album Innuendo. The lyrics, while enumerating her good qualities, also take her to task for peeing in the house.

RUPI: The pet of Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson and inspiration for the title song of his 2004 solo album Rupi’s Dance.

JELLYLORUM: The feline owned by T. S. Elliot, who served as the inspiration for (and appears in) the book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The collection of poems spawned the musical Cats.

KAROUN: Cat owned by famed French writer and film director Jean Cocteau. The distinctly feline makeup used for the Beast in his famous 1946 version of Beauty and the Beast was reportedly influenced by Karoun’s features.