Let Yourself Go ... To Old Hollywood

The source of the rumor that the dog from High Sierra was Bogart's

A few weeks ago I started reading my first biography of Humphrey Bogart. This book was written by Ann Sperber and Eric Lax, published in the late '90s, and appears to be very thoroughly researched—especially regarding anything that happened at Warner Bros. So I was curious if they mentioned anything about the dog in High Sierra and his relationship to Bogart.

Given my earlier research that uncovered that Zero, the dog that played Pard, was not owned by Bogart at the time of filming High Sierra, I was not expecting to find anything in this thoroughly-documented biography. But, in fact, there actually is a mention of Zero in this book, and he is specified as Bogart's dog!

This was troubling to me. My research, based on contemporary newspaper articles, seemed highly unlikely to be outright incorrect. So I quickly turned to the end notes to try to find out the source for this brief mention.

Here it is:

Ida Lupino!

That was certainly a surprise. She said this in a 1991 interview with author Ann Sperber, over 50 years after the filming of the movie. Given the time that had passed, and the lack of corroboration from sources of 1941, it seems clear this is a case of Lupino misremembering.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, a newspaper story from 1941 had reported, second-hand, that Bogart sought (unsuccessfully) to purchase Zero the dog after the movie. If I may speculate, maybe that was true, maybe Bogart talked during the filming about a desire to own Zero, and maybe, over many decades, that became, in Lupino's mind, that Bogart actually owned Zero.

Due to the solid reputation of the Sperber-Lax biography of Bogart, could it be the original source of all the rumors about Bogart's ownership of Zero that have been repeated so often in internet writings and other sources over the last decade or so? I am inclined to believe so for the time being—pending further discoveries, of course.

Pard the dog from High Sierra. Was he really Bogart's dog?

In the classic 1941 film High Sierra, a small dog plays a critical part in the plot. This dog plays a stray named "Pard" that the lead character, a fugitive played by Humphrey Bogart, grows attached to and adopts. In the credits, the dog even gets billing: Pard was played by a dog named Zero.

When reading modern articles about High Sierra, it is common to find asides asserting that Zero belonged to Humphrey Bogart in real life. This is certainly plausible, as Bogart and the dog appear to share a deep bond in the film, and there are a number of promotional shots from the movie showing Bogart playing with Zero.

References to Zero being Bogart's dog show up in some books. An example is Crime Wave: The Filmgoer's Guide To the Great Crime Movies (2006), by Howard Hughes: "Bogart's own dog Zero played Pard." Another is The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies (2011), by George Anastasia and Glen Macnow: "Pard is listed in the credits as Zero the Dog and was, in fact, Bogart's pet in real life." This bit of trivia has become so prevalent as to be nearly ubiquitous in mentions of the dog in High Sierra on social media platforms.

Even renowned experts on Hollywood history like TCM's Eddie Muller have promoted this bit of Hollywood trivia. In his outro to High Sierra from a Noir Alley showing in March 2019, Muller states, "The pooch who played Pard was actually Humphrey Bogart's dog, Zero. Just one more example of this film's spot-on casting."

But the reality appears to be different, as I stumbled across recently while reading old newspaper articles about the production of the movie. This Philadelphia Inquirer article from Jan. 31, 1941 provided the first revelation for me that Zero was not, in fact, Humphrey Bogart's dog.

A shocker for me! Zero belonged to a "talent scout for dogs" named Rennie Renfro.

Other newspaper articles from that year describing the making of the movie discuss Zero, but none that I've found suggest any connection between Bogart and Zero outside of the film production. Plenty, however, mention Renfro's connection to Zero.

A little more research revealed that Renfro was not just any talent scout, but one of the largest suppliers of dog actors for Hollywood at the time, and for years before and after. His most famous dog was Daisy from the long-running Blondie series of films, but he trained and managed dozens more.

The dog Zero had acted in at least two movies prior to High Sierra: Samuel Goldwyn's They Shall Have Music (1939) with famous violinist Jascha Heifetz, and 20th Century-Fox's Daytime Wife (1939) with Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell. Some more research revealed a few films that Zero was in after High Sierra, including MGM's Men of Boys Town (1941) with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, and Warner Bros.'s Sergeant York (1941) with Gary Cooper. The last film I have so far found evidence of him in is a poverty row one starring Marjorie Reynolds called Law of the Timber (1941).

While Zero was clearly not Bogart's dog at the time of High Sierra, filmed in the fall of 1940, could Bogart have obtained Zero afterwards?

In fact, there was a story reported in 1941, told second-hand, that Bogart requested to purchase Zero for $600 only to be told by Renfro that the price had increased to $6000. I presume that put an end to Bogart's efforts to obtain Zero.

But of course plenty of this story remains hidden. What became of Zero after 1941? Was Zero in movies in 1942 that I haven't uncovered yet? Did Renfro retire Zero from films after his assistant, Zero's trainer Neil Gazeley, entered the Army in 1941, or for other reasons? If so, could Renfro have sold him to Bogart at that time?

I'm certainly curious of the answers to these, as well as to how and when the urban legend that Zero was Bogart's dog began. If anyone has more info, please let me know!

To close, there is a Life magazine profile of Bogart and his wife Mayo Methot from mid-1944 that contains a posed photo of them with their three dogs. This is three-and-a-half years after the filming of High Sierra. In case it is meaningful, none of the dogs look anything remotely like Zero.