My Tribute to Bart the Bear

Bart the Bear: A Tribute 

 

Human actors usually get all the credit when it comes to movies. Lately there’s been criticism over the lack of acknowledgement for visual effects artists who are overworked and underpaid despite contributing greatly to the majority of big movies being released. Many other behind-the-scenes roles have been pointed out as being more important than the average viewer realizes, but what about roles in the scenes that have gone unappreciated? When it comes to animals in movies, they have largely been seen by viewers as mere props or set decoration, and all too often the fact that they are real, living beings like the actors playing the human characters alongside them is lost or ignored.

One of my favourite animals to have worked in Hollywood is the Kodiak bear known professionally and personally as Bart the Bear, and I have talked about him numerous times before in reviews and countdown lists. You might not have even realized you’ve seen this particular bear in more than one movie before; his history in Hollywood is a rich one, full of success and incredible roles alongside many famous Hollywood stars. So, this is my tribute to one of the most underrated thespians to have worked in the motion picture business: the titan of animal actors, Bart the Bear!

 Bart as an adorable cub

The story of Bart begins with his birth at the Baltimore Zoo on January 19^th, 1977. By this point in time, many great bear actors had come before him, in memorable films and television programs such as The Night of the Grizzly (1966), Gentle Ben (1967-1969), The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1974), and Day of the Animals (1977). Bart was only five weeks old when animal trainers Doug and Lynne Seus adopted him and took him to his new home in Utah. He got an early start in acting, landing his first role in the TV series following the film of the same name, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1978). Bart was still only a cub, but grew up fast, and reached an adult size of 1500 pounds and 9.5 feet tall. It’s hard to believe such a massive, imposing creature had such a cute, innocent origin, and harder yet to imagine he could be on a film set—and yet, his career as a bear actor took him to many parts of the world for over two decades, and according to Lynne Seus, Bart knew when he was on camera.  

The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986)

Bart made his film debut in Windwalker (1981), a western shot in his home state. He had an even bigger role in The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986), playing the prehistoric ursine after which the clan was named, even though the now-extinct cave bear was larger than the modern day Kodiak. In fact, Bart often played brown bears, or grizzly bears, which are actually smaller than the Kodiak subspecies, but audiences never really noticed, usually because they were too scared by his size and ferocity. That ferocity he displayed, though, was pure acting talent. Trainer Doug Seus would tell Bart to “get angry” and Bart would do just that, but then Doug would follow it up with “easy, big guy” and Bart would go back into teddy bear mode. When I first saw Bart in a movie, I was terrified, but when I saw behind-the-scenes footage much later, I realized he wasn’t actually the vicious, bloodthirsty beast he played so convincingly.

Doug Seus & Bart

It cannot be said that most animals in Hollywood’s history have had it easy and made it through the system unscathed. Many animals not as well trained or as well cared for as Bart have injured people on set, been injured themselves, or even escaped their enclosures, but with only one exception that we’ll soon look at, Bart never hurt anyone during the making of any of the movies he was in, and he was never hurt either. This is thanks in no small part to Doug Seus and the many other trainers that worked with him throughout the years. Even though it can be nail-biting to watch Doug playfully rolling around with Bart, being pushed around by his comparatively massive paws and head, you can tell there is complete trust between man and animal. Doug cited Bart as “his soulmate” and never showed fear with him, but you can bet many of the actors who worked with him didn’t have to try all that hard to look scared when facing down a snarling Kodiak that could easily kill them if he wanted to. For example, when Bart barges into the cabin John Candy and Dan Akyroyd's families are staying in during their vacation in The Great Outdoors (1988), they look pretty genuinely terrified, though the scene is played for laughs.

One of Bart’s biggest roles was in The Bear (1988), made by French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud. Annaud previously worked with a different bear in 1981’s Quest for Fire, but that bear was only in one short scene. The Bear was to follow the story of an orphaned Grizzly cub who becomes unofficially adopted by a loner adult male, and the two bears try to evade hunters. The bears were the main characters, and like Quest for Fire, there would be little dialogue. Many bears went through the casting process, and Annaud eventually settled on Youk the Bear for the Cub and Bart for the adult male. You might think the big challenge was going to be having two bears carry a whole movie, but in fact it was getting Bart to act alongside another bear.

Bart had a heart of gold and never hurt any of his human cast mates, but male bears instinctually kill young bears, so Bart had to be conditioned to not hurt the cub. Not only was Bart gentle with Youk, he gave one of the best performances of his career. The only evidence I could find of Bart ever hurting someone was in the case of director Jean-Jacques Annaud. Photographers wanted Annaud to pose with Bart for publicity photos, but Bart’s trainers warned the director not to enter the bear’s enclosure. Annaud ignored their warnings and received some nasty wounds on his backside from Bart’s claws. Even after this incident, Annaud still respected Bart, and called him “the John Wayne of Bears.”  

The Bear (1988)

Bart received so much praise for The Bear upon its release that a campaign was organized to get him nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. How awesome would that have been? A Kodiak bear nominated for Best Actor in a motion picture? He deserved that nomination, but the Academy refused to include animals in their Best Actor category. Bart wasn’t about to hold a grudge, though, and he kept giving it his all in every role he landed. Some of his roles were small, but no less impactful because of their brevity. The most notable films in the years following The Bear were White Fang (1991), one of many adaptations of Jack London’s novel, and Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), a remake of The Incredible Journey (1963) based on the novel by Sheila Burnford. Then came one of Bart’s biggest films since The Bear: the western drama Legends of the Fall (1994).

Ed Zwick, the director of Legends of the Fall, had this to say about Bart: “Of all the movie stars I’ve ever worked with, Bart the Bear is as talented, cooperative and charismatic as the best of them. He takes no time at all in make-up, never wants to stay in his trailer, and does all his own stunts. I can’t wait to work with him again.” Human actors who worked with Bart over the years had nothing but praise, as well. Some co-stars throughout his career included Daryl Hannah, Ethan Hawke, Steven Seagal, and Brad Pitt. One of the actors who worked with him in Legends of the Fall was Sir Anthony Hopkins, who ended up working with him again even more closely in another production that, like Legends of the Fall, was shot in British Columbia and Alberta. This would end up being Bart’s greatest role since The Bear.

The Edge (1997)

The 20^th Century Fox production The Edge (1997) proved to be the perfect combination of talent in front of and behind the camera to make Bart into one of the scariest bear characters to ever appear on film. Even though his screen time amounts to only a few minutes, he made a very strong case for why he was the best bear for the job: a man in a suit or a digital bear created by CGI artists just would not have had the same impact as him. The film made Bart appear to be the deadliest apex predator in the Alaskan ecosystem, and in real life it’s true that the Kodiak bear is deadly, but behind-the-scenes, it was a totally different story. Bart was so chill while they were shooting that star Alec Baldwin was actually worried The Edge was going to flop because the bear wouldn’t be scary enough. Baldwin couldn’t believe how terrifying Bart was in the final cut, and suggested he reward the editor for making him look so scary. It was actually the work of the editor and the special effects department who used fake stand-ins for quick cutaway moments when Bart might have been injured or caused injury and the composer Jerry Goldsmith who conducted an ominous musical theme to accompany his scenes and director Lee Tamahori who knew how to direct him and his human co-stars.

Bart the Bear and Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Edge

Anthony Hopkins was likewise impressed once again, and spent lots of time with Bart in between takes. Lynne Seus is quoted as saying this about Hopkins: “He acknowledged and respected [Bart] like a fellow actor. He would spend hours just looking at Bart and admiring him.” Hopkins also acted in many scenes with Bart directly when shooting The Edge. Historically, when a real animal like a bear was used in a film production a stunt person would often take the place of the primary actor, or the trainer might even play a role if they have to interact closely with the animal, but in the case of The Edge you can see in the completed film that it’s very clearly Hopkins and Baldwin in many shots with Bart menacing them. Though the film underperformed at the box office and received some average reviews from critics, it has since grown a more positive reputation, and no one could deny how great the acting was (regardless of the species).

Bart at the Oscars

Bart would play a circus bear in the box office bomb Meet the Deedles (1998) following The Edge, but his most famous appearance post-The Edge was on TV, during one of the most star-studded nights of the year. Bart was introduced by Mike Myers at the 70^th Academy Awards and presented an oversized Oscar envelope to Myers! Respect to Bart: even after being rejected by them as a nominee for Best Actor, he still showed up to present in-person on stage. He had finally reached that level of fame, but unfortunately, this would end up being in the twilight of his career.

Just over a year after The Edge was released, Bart developed cancerous tumors in his paw, and had them surgically removed. I was surprised to learn the average lifespan of a male Kodiak bear in the wild is only about twenty five years, and unfortunately Bart would not even live that long. The cancer became too severe, and he died on May 10^th, 2000 at his home on the Seus family ranch in Utah, where he was buried. At the time of his death, Bart was filming a documentary for TV called Growing Up Grizzly (2001) which was narrated by his Legends of the Fall co-star Brad Pitt. Even though Bart has passed on, his legacy lives on with that impressive filmography, but he’s left his mark in more ways than one.

Rattler (Chance) & Bart: Homeward Bound

In the 1990’s Doug and Lynne started the Vital Ground Foundation, which aimed to bring awareness to the importance of brown bears to the ecosystem and to protect and restore their dwindling habitat. Bart was Vital Ground’s first ambassador (or “spokesbear”) and continues to represent the nonprofit organization to this day, helping teach people about how intelligent and crucial bears are. He also became a “spokesbear” for the Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University, but it’s his contributions to Vital Ground that he will be most remembered for aside from his films. Bart never knew a life outside of captivity, and Doug and Lynne have said they learned more from Bart than he ever learned from them. They have saved many bears from the life he had—not to say he had a bad life, but wild animals belong in the wild, and Vital Ground has helped ensure more bears live the lives they should be living in their natural environment.

"Little Bart" in Game of Thrones

Bart also had some adopted siblings. In 1995 Doug and Lynne adopted Tank the Bear—a Grizzly bear, not a Kodiak, meaning he wouldn’t grow as large as Bart when he reached adulthood—and Tank would go on to star in a few movies, but he never tried to live up to the legacy of Bart. Shortly before Bart’s death, Doug and Lynne adopted two more bears orphaned in Alaska, and one of them would carry on Bart’s namesake and take on the mantle of most-sought-after bear actor. This bear was known as Bart the Bear 2 or frequently nicknamed “Little Bart”, and he was in films and TV shows such as Without a Paddle, Into the Wild, and Game of Thrones. Bart the Bear 2 also had a sister named Honey Bump who, along with Tank, remains an ambassador for Vital Ground to this day. Sadly, Bart 2 passed away in 2021, but like the original Bart before him, he too has left an indelible impact on Hollywood and the world.     

Bart the Bear, The Edge

There was much more to Bart the Bear than what came across on the big screen, and his story deserved to be told. I’ve been fascinated by Bart ever since I saw The Edge when I was just a kid, with that distinct sagging bottom lip, those bright brown eyes, huge claws, burly shoulders, and his imposing stature. I hope you enjoyed reading about this underrated Hollywood star as much as I enjoyed learning all about him and writing this tribute. With Hollywood now opting to feature bears in movies by utilizing digital visual effects instead of casting actual animals, there may never be another bear actor as great as the original Bart ever again.

 

Sources:

https://bartthebear.com/

https://www.vitalground.org/

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1075976/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm

Top Ten Movie Bears: CCC Issue #92

 

Top Ten Bears in Movies

 

I just saw Cocaine Bear last week, and it will surely go down in cinematic history as one of the most entertaining movies to feature a bear—certainly the most entertaining to feature a bear high on cocaine.

With the release of Cocaine Bear, I finally had the perfect opportunity to do a top ten list that I have wanted to do for a long time. This is my countdown of the top ten best bears in movies!

 

Honourable Mention: The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986)

This was one of the earliest film roles for one of the best bears to ever work in Hollywood, but he won’t pop up again until later on this list. The first—and, currently, only—adaptation of the novel of the same name by Jean M. Auel is pretty uneven and dated, and it was not a big success when it was released. However, the scene where the clan battle the creature for which they are named with spears is one of the most entertaining scenes in the whole movie. It doesn’t quite make the cut for inclusion in the top ten, but in a prehistoric drama like this you would hope the bear scene would at least be decent, and it’s more than just decent.

 

10. Mutant Mother – Prophecy (1979)

At number ten is the true star of the eco-horror flick Prophecy, which follows a bunch of uninteresting human characters being menaced by Katahdin: the horrific result of nature being polluted. She’s a huge mutated mother bear with partially melted skin. Prophecy is not a good movie, but the mutant bear saves it from being a total loss. She isn’t a scary movie monster, but rather a hilarious one—unintentionally. The bear suit is floppy and fake (with actor Kevin Peter Hall inside, later most famous for Predator and Harry and the Hendersons), the melted skin looks like cheese pizza, and it moves in an awkward way, but every time it comes on screen it’s gloriously ridiculous. She also makes what I think is one of the funniest kills I’ve ever seen in a horror movie: swatting a young boy wrapped up in a sleeping bag so hard he strikes a tree trunk and explodes into a cloud of feathers.

 

9. Homerton (The Screamer) – Annihilation (2018)

This bear is a little tougher to explain, because it’s just so horrific and unique. I didn’t love Annihilation, but I did think the horror scene this bear was part of was one of the scariest scenes of any movie from that year. In a strange area called “The Shimmer” an alien presence is mutating all life forms, and a team of scientists discover just how deadly the mutations can be when a mutated bear attacks them in a house while most of the characters are tied up. This bear has absorbed the DNA from one of their comrades it killed earlier, which not only has messed up its face, but has also given it the ability to use her voice, which initially tricks them, then torments them, as they try to remain still while it lumbers about, screaming in a distorted human voice. The only down side to this bear is that the incredible practical effects they used during production were replaced with CGI in post-production. Even though the visual effects aren’t top notch, all other aspects of the execution make it a seriously effective and frightening bear scene. Fun fact: the name comes from the name of a rail station in East London, because the VFX creator also worked on the bear at #7 on this list, whose name also comes from a rail station.

 

8. The Thunder Buddy – Ted (2012)

Most of us remember having at least one stuffed teddy bear when we were kids. Seth MacFarlane had the great idea to write and direct a movie about what would happen if a child’s stuffed bear came to life—and continued to live with him as an adult. MacFarlane lent his voice to the character aptly known as Ted, which makes him sound an awful lot like Peter Griffin from Family Guy, but aside from this and a few other elements that are very clearly derivative of MacFarlane’s long-running adult cartoon series, Ted is a pretty funny movie with yet another very unique bear in a big role. Mark Wahlberg actually does a pretty good job acting alongside the foul-mouthed CGI creation, and they both returned for the sequel three years later. I actually thought Ted 2 was funnier than the first Ted, but regardless of what you think of either movie, you have to hand it to Ted for being a great movie bear—and probably the only one to have had sex with a woman, smoke weed, get drunk, and sing a song about being afraid of thunder.

 

7. The Marmalade Lover – Paddington (2014)

I loved the character of Paddington as a kid, in both the books and the cartoon series, but it wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that the live-action movie adaptation, which used CGI to bring the anthropomorphic young bear to life, finally came out. Paddington is a movie best described as delightful, and the character of Paddington (named after the famous rail station) is a charming protagonist, for both kids and adults alike. The CGI is quite good, and his characterization is spot-on, from the coat and hat and British accent (voiced by Ben Whishaw) to his love of marmalade. Even though they changed his origins a bit, it works for the world established in the film, and his interactions with the human characters are nearly flawless. Paddington returned for Paddington 2, and will hopefully be returning for a third movie in the near future.

 

6. Black Bear – Backcountry (2014)

Next up is another bear from 2014, but coming from a completely different kind of movie compared to Paddington. In real life there are no lovable talking two-legged bears obsessed with marmalade, but there are black bears in the Canadian wilderness that might pose a threat to campers. It’s a simple premise with a slow build-up, as a young couple go camping in the Ontario backcountry, get lost, and get stalked by a bear, which attacks them in their tent. It is one of the most intense animal attacks in any movie I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen many), and after the attack scene it’s a nail-biting fight for survival until the end. The filmmakers used a real black bear instead of CGI or a person in a bear costume (two bears were used during filming, in fact), and it adds a level of authenticity that most horror/thrillers featuring bears lack. The bear’s behaviour is also quite realistic, which helps make it one of the most frightening black bears to ever appear on film.  

 

5. Ursus Satanus – The Fox and the Hound (1981)

As a child, I was utterly petrified by the bear that abruptly enters the fold in the climax of Fox and the Hound—an animated Disney film that, up to that point, is pretty light on tense scenes and scary moments. Copper (The Hound) is trailing Tod (The Fox) along with his master, and they stumble into an absolute mountain of a bear. This thing has blood-red eyes, huge teeth, and a monstrous set of roars and growls. In terms of audio, this is the scariest sounding bear in any movie by far. Canonically, it’s just known as “Bear” but the name I gave it is a fictional Latin one that translates to “Satan’s Bear” and if you take one look at him you can’t tell me I’m wrong! I put this in my Top Ten Scariest Disney Moments because as far as animation goes, I’ve never seen a bear as scary as this one—and this is supposed to be a children’s movie! The bear meets its fate at the bottom of a waterfall not long after it appears, but in those few precious minutes of screen time it successfully manages to be one of the most memorable parts of the film and one of the flat-out scariest bears in cinema history.

 

4. The Grizzly That Got Glass - The Revenant (2015)

You might be a little surprised to see this bear a few spots from the top, as it was part of an Academy Award-winning movie, and even made an appearance at the 88^th Academy Awards! Well, it was actually a person in a bear costume, and the actual bear in The Revenant was brought to life by ILM putting CGI over a man in a blue body suit who acted out the scene with Best Actor-winner Leonardo DiCaprio. The scene in question is what the movie is most famous for: DiCaprio’s character High Glass accidentally gets between a couple of cubs and their mother, and the momma bear savagely attacks him. This scene will make you cringe and hold your attention for its entirety. The CGI is extremely well done, even though you can still tell it’s not a real bear, but after seeing Cocaine Bear it’s clear we’re in a new era of filmmaking: they don’t need to use real wild animals in films anymore, they can make computer generated ones, and honestly, I’m okay with that. Animals belong in the wild, not in Hollywood, and as much as I’ll miss seeing real animals on screen, I won’t miss hearing about animal abuse and will be more content to know the actions of the animals on screen were not the results of exploiting an actual one.

 

3. The Cub - The Bear (1988)

I know I just said I don’t mind that real bears aren’t used in movies very much anymore, but two of the all-time best movie bears are as great as they are because they weren’t made with CGI or hand-drawn animation, they transcend being just animals and are actual characters, played by real bears. The Bear was made by French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud who cast one of the great bear actors (who we will talk about more shortly) as the large male Kodiak Bear, and in the role of the Bear Cub he cast Youk the Bear, who is one of the most well-trained young animals from any movie of this era, and that’s saying a lot, considering some of the other animal-centric films of the time (such as Cujo (1983), Milo & Otis (1986), and Homeward Bound (1993)) as well as the other great bears on this list. All her interactions with the other animals in the movie are wonderful, and it’s not a case of just one scene being a standout—the whole movie is about them, not human characters, and they carry every scene. To be what is essentially a child animal actor and yet still be so versatile and on point, all while acting next to one of the titans of animal actors? Youk definitely earns a spot in the top three.

 

2. Baloo – The Jungle Book (all versions)

Disney may have given us one of the scariest bears in all of cinema, but they also gave us one of the most endearing and philosophical. Technically the character originated in the works of Rudyard Kipling, but for Disney’s adaptation they wanted to soften the dark content of the stories, though Baloo’s role remained the same. He is a friend and mentor for the “man-cub” Mowgli, and is usually depicted as a member of the sloth bear species, making him fairly unique in that regard. In the original Disney version, Baloo is most famous for his song “The Bare Necessities” and being very laid back, but other versions of the character have appeared in a number of subsequent film adaptations. He was played by a black bear in the 1994 live-action version of The Jungle Book, was depicted using CGI for the 2016 version (voiced by Bill Murray), and even returned in animated form for The Jungle Book 2 in 2003 (voiced by John Goodman). A more book-accurate version appeared in Andy Serkis’ grittier non-Disney live-action/CGI hybrid Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018), and was voiced by Serkis himself, who also did the motion capture for the character. Baloo has proven to be a versatile character, and one of the long-time representatives of the great movie bears.  

 

1. Kodiak - The Edge (1997)

I wrote a whole review for The Edge for my Favourite Films Series, which I will link below, so to minimize the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to keep it brief as to why the bear in The Edge is the greatest bear in the history of bear movies. First of all, the film he’s in is great, which helps immensely, and the way I see it, The Edge is to bear thrillers what the shark in Jaws is to shark thrillers: it’s the best there is for what it is. The Kodiak was played by Bart the Bear, who is the best bear actor to have ever worked in Hollywood. He was in Clan of the Cave Bear, he played the large male in The Bear, and here, he’s at his absolute best, chasing after Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin in truly terrifying fashion. Even though like the shark in Jaws he only gets a few minutes of screen time throughout the whole film, the impact he makes is huge, and this was one of his last roles. Whether your favourite role Bart played was in The Edge or The Bear or any of the other films he appeared in, one thing is clear: he is the greatest movie bear of all-time.  

Did I leave out any of your favourites? I didn’t even get to talk about Brother Bear or Disney Nature’s Bears or Grizzly Falls or Kung Fu Panda or even Yogi Bear or Winnie the Pooh. I will be focusing more on Bart the Bear in a future post, so stay tuned for that, coming soon!  

 

Reviews:

Backcountry: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2020/10/backcountry-2014-review.html

The Edge (Favourite Films): https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-edge-1997-review-favourite-films.html

Prophecy: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2014/10/prophecy-1979-review.html