How did Towser catch so many mice? Staffers at the distillery wonder if she got an extra boost from her evening saucer of milk, which was fortified with a “tiny wee dram” of the distillery’s powerful product. Perhaps she defended the place so well because she knew, from firsthand experience, what she was fighting for.
LUCKY
THE CAT WHO CREATED AN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
Everyone knows Morris the Cat, the spokesfeline for 9 Lives Cat Food. The big orange tabby, who first took to the airwaves back in the ’60s, is famous for his jaded voice, blasé worldview, and, of course, his finicky attitude toward every comestible under the sun, save for 9 Lives.
That persona made him an icon. But the real-life feline who portrayed Morris was neither blasé nor finicky. A friendless stray can’t afford to be.
The cat selected to play Morris on TV was originally called Lucky. And lucky he was. An inmate at the Hinsdale Humane Society Animal Shelter in Lombard, Illinois, he was only hours away from being euthanized. But shelter officials saw something special in the cat’s distinguished good looks and green eyes. In the spring of 1967, they contacted animal trainer Bob Martwick, who was so smitten by the feline that he adopted him.
Springing for Lucky’s $5 adoption fee was the best investment Martwick ever made. A few months later he was contacted by the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency, which needed a good-looking cat to eat a bowl of food for a commercial. The product was, of course, 9 Lives. Lucky—soon to be rechristened Morris—wowed the agency’s executives, and in June 1969 he debuted on national TV. Almost overnight, an advertising icon was born. Soon bags of fan mail addressed to Morris inundated the 9 Lives headquarters. Even more to the point, mountains of their product flew off of store shelves.
Morris’s fame soon spread to other media. He appeared in the 1972 movie Shamus; posed for the cover of Cat Fancy’s thirtieth anniversary issue in 1995; and won back-to-back Patsy Awards (the animal world’s equivalent of the Oscar) in 1972 and 1973. He was also offered as a presidential candidate in 1988 and again in 1992.
But while the name and fame of Morris live on, his original alter ego, Lucky, passed away in 1975. Since then he’s been played by a string of look-alikes. The current incarnation lives in Los Angeles with his trainer, Rose Ordile. The original Morris, who lived to an estimated age of nineteen, was buried with great ceremony in Martwick’s backyard.
THE MEOW MIX CAT
THE CAT WHO ALMOST GAVE HIS LIFE FOR ADVERTISING
In the days before computer-generated special effects, animal trainers used heroic measures to get four-legged thespians to “talk” onscreen. (The only thing that got the famous Mr. Ed to move his mouth on cue was a dose of peanut butter smeared under his upper lip.) But one famous feline pitch cat managed to spontaneously inaugurate one of the world’s most recognizable promotional campaigns.
It began in the early 1970s, when the advertising agency Della Femina, Travisano & Partners was engaged to create TV spots for Meow Mix cat food. When they shot footage of an orange-and-white tabby consuming the product, however, the luckless cat started choking. All they got was at-first-unusable footage of the feline working its mouth soundlessly as it fought for air. But then ad exec Jerry Della Femina thought of a way to turn lemons into lemonade. He added a soundtrack to the film, created the now-immortal “Meow, meow, meow” Meow Mix theme song, and started a sensation. Fortunately, the cat managed to spit out the offending food and went on to live a long and happy life.
HOWARD HUGHES’S CAT
THE FELINE WHO HAD EVERYTHING EXCEPT AN OWNER
Billionaire movie producer, aviation pioneer, and casino owner Howard Hughes was as incredibly famous as he was incredibly odd. The stories about his strangeness—from his dinnertime practice of sorting all his peas by size (he carried around a tiny rake for the purpose) to his obsession with designing the perfect brassiere for his amply endowed film protégée, Jane Russell—are legion. So it’s probably no surprise that he reacted bizarrely when his wife, Jean Peters, told him that a rather dicey-looking tomcat she’d adopted had gone missing.
The name of the cat is lost to history, but Hughes’s reaction to his departure is enshrined in the lexicon of eccentric anecdotes. According to the story, the billionaire launched a massive effort to locate the missing pet. He micromanaged the project from his mansion, demanding progress reports from his minions every hour on the hour. But when the poor cat was finally located hiding in an old barn, Hughes examined him personally and pronounced him unfit for his household.
This ignited a closely managed effort to find the cat a suitable new residence. Several potential adoptive owners were interviewed extensively, then rejected for various reasons. After much debate, the feline was bundled off to a high-class cattery—the sort of cattery that seemed more than ready to cater to Hughes’s oddball ideas of propriety. The tomcat took up residence in its own carpeted, tastefully decorated room, complete with a TV should it desire to catch a program.
The cattery required that former owners dash off a letter to their pets once each month. Hughes, eager to be rid of the problem, is said to have fobbed off the task on an underling. The writer was apparently still on the job—and the cat, presumably, was still enjoying his television-equipped suite—when Hughes passed away on April 5, 1976. Jean Peters, who had instigated the entire situation by taking in the feline in the first place, had divorced the erratic billionaire five years earlier.
PHET AND PLOY
THE CATS WHO GOT MARRIED
Every bride gets a bit testy as her big day approaches. But in the case of one Thai couple, the bride and groom were both quite catty. That’s because they were Siamese cats named Phet and Ploy. Their 1996 Bangkok nuptials are considered the most opulent feline “wedding” on record.
Why do cats need to get married? According to their owner, cosmetics magnate Vicharn Charas-archa, it was only fair. Both felines were rare “diamond-eyed” cats, which according to Thai beliefs are extraordinarily lucky. Charas-archa became a believer after discovering the cats on the Thai/Burmese border and taking them in. Shortly thereafter, his struggling business started taking off.
So he shared the wealth by staging a wedding for his good luck charms at a Bangkok disco. The groom arrived by helicopter, and the bride (who came with a $40,000 dowry) by limousine. They wore a tuxedo and bridal gown and sported tiny wedding rings on their paws.
Post-wedding plans included a honeymoon river cruise and, sometime afterward, a trip to the vet. That’s because the “diamond eyes” effect is caused by a form of glaucoma.
TIDDLES
THE FAT CAT CHAMPION OF LONDON
The most beloved fictional character associated with London’s venerable Paddington Station is undoubtedly Paddington Bear. There’s even a gift shop at the cavernous train depot selling everything to do with its cuddly namesake. Of slightly more modest renown is the landmark’s other animal mascot—Tiddles, the lavatory cat. His somewhat less heartwarming story began in 1970, when lavatory attendant June Watson adopted a six-week-old stray and started bringing him to work with her. Soon, as many people dropped by to visit the personable feline as to use the facilities.