Scott's World -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

HOLLYWOOD, July 29 (UPI) -- Frank Inn was the best of breed among trainers of movie and TV animals and one of the most respected.

The breed, incidentally, is formally known among filmmakers as "wranglers," no matter if they handle horses, lions, dogs or fleas.

If a movie includes close-ups of a beetle or, say, a column of ants, there will be a final screen credit reading "bug wrangler" or "ant wrangler."

Wranglers are not among Hollywood's social elite; never seen at fancy parties or industry banquets.

If they were lucky, they might have appeared on the old P.A.T.S.Y. Awards, an acronym for Performing Animal Top Star of the Year, the only acting awards limited to animals, now defunct.

All the same, Frank Inn was a winner one year for "Benji," the lovable mutt who starred in the "Benji" movie franchise.

Inn -- who, according to the Los Angeles Times died this past Saturday -- worked with any number of fanged, clawed, hoofed and scaled critters who appeared in movies and TV, sometimes in starring roles. He was not as famous as Rudd Weatherwax, the hard-drinking master of a series of collies who played "Lassie" in films and television.

Nor did Inn run a huge empire of trained animals as did Fat Jones, a wrangler who provided most of the horses for Hollywood during the heydays of horse operas and period films.

Neither did Inn get as much publicity as Mel Koontz, a wild and woolly trainer of lions, tigers and other ferocious beasts. Koontz became a legend working with Jackie, the famed MGM trademark lion. Actor Alan Young remembers to this day his near escape from a mauling by an enraged Jackie on the set of "Androcles and the Lion" (1952).

The scene called for Young to creep on hands and knees around an enormous boulder until he came nose-to-nose with Jackie coming around the crag from the other direction.

On the first take actor and lion were staring at each other perfectly when trainer Koontz leaped from behind the camera and broke a two-by-four over Jackie's head.

The furious lion roared and hurled himself out of camera range looking for someone to punish. Young, providentially fell flat on his face in terror and played dead -- perhaps his best acting in years.

When director Chester Erskine demanded why Koontz had taken this barbaric action, Koontz explained: "I could tell by the look in his eyes he was about to take Alan's head off."

"They put a heavy plastic partition between me and the lion when they finally filmed that scene," Young recalled this week.

Frank Inn would never have resorted to punishment, much less violent action in training and working with his animals. He did, in fact, refrain from using the word "train."

Inn preferred "working with," which, along with food rewards and a great deal of affection accounted for his success with acting animals.

His bulk didn't hurt either.

Inn was a huge man who weighed considerably more than 250 pounds. His size alone commanded respect from the dogs and cats and other animals with which he worked. One can only imagine how the little mouse in "Gigot" felt about his overwhelming persona on the set.

Inn traveled to Paris to wrangle the tiny mouse who was seen as Gigot's pet. Gigot was played by Jackie Gleason, a large man himself but no match for Inn.

A quietly eccentric man, Inn had a knack for meeting and dealing with animals on their own terms. He respected critters large and small and treated them accordingly. Unlike many wranglers who put the fear of God into the beasts and birds in their charge, Inn always was gentle and patient.

He was smarter than the animals, at least smart enough to let them know that they were indeed brighter than he was. With that assurance, the creatures confided their well-being to him and trusted his tactics.

Inn's relationships with the dogs Benji, and Cleo of "The People's Choice" TV series (1958) with Jackie Cooper, and Arnold the pig of "Green Acres" (1965) were mutual admiration societies.

Of all the creatures, wild and domestic, with which Inn worked he found dogs to be the most affectionate and easiest to communicate with. He did, however, say that Arnold, the sassy pig, had the highest natural intelligence of any of the critters with whom he worked.

For the most part Inn shunned publicity and the limelight. He let his animals take all the bows and, difficult as it was for a man his size, he tried to blend into the background.

His work with dozens of animals in scores of films and TV shows will be enjoyed for years to come in re-runs and re-releases.

Frank Inn will be missed, especially by the animals who loved him, happy to do his bidding.