An Actor's Best Friend

Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one?

--Sherlock Holmes

In Hollywood, dogs are naturally more nervous than dogs in other places. The trouble, says Dr. Stanley Cooper, a busy Hollywood veterinarian, is that movie pets are living under the strain of Cinema-Scope and wide-screen tension. Last week, while waiting for Comic Jerry Lewis' poodle to come out of a coma. Cooper, a kindly, 36-year-old man, explained some of his theories:

"I notice, for instance, that when Hollywood writers are unemployed for a while and get to the hysteria stage, their dogs will often start vomiting in the morning like their owners. But as soon as a writer gets a good assignment, the problem al ways straightens itself out." Walls & Cabanas. In Hollywood, even a well-adjusted dog can eventually go to pot. Sometimes a movie star may be away for weeks on location, leaving his dog to frisk around the swimming pool or a 20-room mansion. But loneliness finally catches up with him. and he is apt to be found merely staring at So walls all day long. Sometimes the master sends his pet to the Double E, a dude ranch for dogs, which features a swimming pool and canopied miniature cabanas with adjoining fire hydrants. Here, in a pleasant environment, dogs can enjoy themselves in supervised play and even tell each other the latest shaggy people stories.

Dr. Cooper believes that Hollywood dogs, like animals everywhere, manifest their neuroses chiefly in a physical way. Items:

P:Producer Joe Pasternak's wire-haired terrier died from "New Year's excitement."

P:Danny Kaye's boxer keeps coming down with a severe urinary infection on Saturdays only. "I don't know why," says Dr. Cooper.

P:S. Z. ("Cuddles") Sakall has a German shepherd, which is so neurotic that he frequently has to be kept under sedatives.

P:Jack Benny's female poodle recently "became ill with bronchitis because Benny has a respiratory infection."

Ice Cream & Ginger Ale. If everybody could be as happy as, say, Joan Crawford, Dr. Cooper would have much less work to do. Last week Cinemactress Crawford described life with her six-year-old dog Cliquot, a Harjes poodle. Cliquot, she says, was always happy when she was at the glamorous studios, like M-G-M and Warner Bros. But at Republic Pictures, a horse-opera factory, Cliquot was sad. "He chewed up a carpet," said Joan. "He swallowed 5 1/2 yards of string. He usually eats white meat of chicken, ground sirloin, ice cream and ginger ale. He wears custom-made jackets, red with black velvet collars with C. C. on them. They have heart-shaped pockets with Kleenex in them in case he has to blow his nose. We wear matching costumes. He wears his red jacket when I wear red slacks and sweater. When I wear green, he wears green. He has a rhinestone collar for evening wear.

"We also have a parakeet," added Joan, "named Crazy Crawford." But parakeets (like Peter Lorre's pet sea gull that recently suffered a broken wing) have their own special emotional problems.

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