Free Broadway Tails by Bill Berloni

And I reassured him that I could think of no better home for this dog. It was love at first sight and the least I could do for the man. Snowy lived a very full and healthy life. Vic stayed in touch over the years and let me know when Snowy died. Before all the props were thrown away, Vic got to the theater and salvaged that beautiful puppet dog Bil Baird had made. He kept it on the top of his couch and would often freak out his friends by pretending that it was Snowy.
    Fritz was too good a soul to send back to the breeder. He was perfect for someone who needed a quiet dog. Around that time my mother’s dogpassed away of old age. Even though she and my dad swore no more dogs, I conveniently made an excuse for them to babysit Fritz, and after that, he never came home to me again, the first of many “show” dogs and cats they adopted. He was the best pet. He would ride in the front baskets of my parents’ bikes and soon became a local celebrity. He made his daily rounds, getting treats from all of their friends. He did a few more commercials and print jobs for me, and lived a long and happy life.

Chapter 5

Black Cats Are Bad Luck
    Annie
was such a big hit that they started preparing for national tours in 1978, and Simon & Schuster even asked me to write a book about Sandy. That summer the producers asked me if I would be interested in training the dogs for the first and second national companies. Now with Sandy, I had just made it all up as I went along, and the prospect of doing it again with a different dog was a little scary, but I was very interested.
    At the time, I was being represented by one of the big New York animal agencies. They helped negotiate my new contract and were taking 15 percent of all my earnings. They were trainers themselves, and, as I quickly learned, having my competitors negotiate for me was not a very good idea. As the summer progressed, I was writing my book
Sandy: The Autobiography of a Star
, and thinking about rescuing dogs for the tours. I kept talking to our general managers about when I was going to be able to start. In September I asked again and was told that my agents had said I wasn’t qualified to do the road companies—so the general managers had hired them instead of me.
    I felt betrayed both by the show and my agents. I was in the theater because I loved it, and I thought people would genuinely support my work. Plus, the fact that the producers had agreed to hire another animal trainer made me doubt my abilities. I subsequently fired my agents and received all my back commissions. I started to think about going back to acting and forgetting all about animal training. Maybe
Annie
had been a one-time deal with a special dog. But soon after that I was asked to work on
Camelot
and
Frankenstein
, so by 1981, I had three Broadway credits to my name. It seemed I was slowly building a reputation for my ability to train animals for live theater.
    David Alan Grier, as Jackie Robinson, in
The First. Photo by Martha Swope, © New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
    One person who always had faith in me was Martin Charnin, the creator and director of
Annie
. He had written the lyrics for a new musical based on the book and movie
I Remember Mama
. Martin asked me to train a cat for this show. Still feeling somewhat doubtful about my credentials and my expertise, I turned him down. I said, “Martin, I really don’t know anything about cats. They’re difficult animals to train. I’ve had cats, but they don’t really listen to people.” They ultimately contacted my old agents, but from what I’ve been told, the cat they provided didn’t work out, and they ended up using a stuffed cat in the production. The next time Martin came to me was when he asked me to train the dogs for the third and fourth national companies of
Annie
because he was unhappy with the job done on the first and second companies, and he felt I could do it right. I’ve always been grateful to Martin for being