This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series RAINBOW

Orangey Minerva

Animal characters on television and film can be as memorable as the most iconic human personalities.

Toto.

Mr. Ed.

Lassie.

In 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, Toto was played by a female Cairn Terrier named Terry.

For many of the television roles, multiple critters played the part. Six collies played Lassie, starting with Pal and ending with Hey Hey. Bucking the trend, Bamboo Harvester starred as Mr. Ed for all 143 episodes of the classic black-and-white series about a talking horse.

Most animal actors dip into fame briefly, as with the hexad of dogs in Lassie.

Sometimes, though, star power is undeniable, and an animal becomes a screen legend.

Meet Orangey Minerva:

The photo above pictures Orangey, a domestic shorthair tabby born in 1950, with perhaps the biggest film star of the age, Audrey Hepburn.

If you’ve seen 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you knew you saw Hepburn, but you likely didn’t know the kitty behind the film’s unnamed cat was Orangey.

Although Orangey seems an accurate name, his coloration is technically referred to as red. The gene that codes for redheadedness in cats also ensures that Orangey was a tabby. Additionally, nearly all red tabbies are male.

Canine characters in film and television are much more plentiful for one specific reason: dogs can be trained. Cat owners know that nearly all cats are hardwired with the stubbornness gene. Directing a cat can be a fool’s errand, which does not lead to many long, distinguished feline careers in cinema.

Orangey, for some reason, featured a temperament that allowed him to sit still for hours at a time, even under the stress and stimulus of a Hollywood set. This attribute made him a highly desirable addition to casts requiring cats.

Starting at just a year old in 1951’s Rhubarb, the tale of a millionaire cat, Orangey starred in at least 10 films (he was often uncredited).

A few of his pieces were notable films. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, of course, but also The Diary of Anne Frank and a few cult classic sci-fi/horror movies.

As Butch, Orangey chased The Incredible Shrinking Man; remaining larger than life, but in the opposite direction, he was Giant Cat in Valley of the Giants.

Orangey was such a good boy that he won two PATSY Awards – Performing Animal Television Star of the Year, the critter equivalent to an Oscar – for Rhubarb and Breakfast.

His small-screen work was just as impressive.

Few actors could cobble together a resume that includes appearances in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, My Favorite Martian, Mission Impossible, and Batman!

Though Orangey might have been more pliable than the average cat, he was still a cat.

One studio executive was not a fan, calling him “the world’s meanest cat.” He would occasionally bite and scratch his human colleagues. After complying for a scene, sometimes Orangey had enough and bolted, prompting production to halt until he could be corralled. Eventually, his handler, the legendary Frank Inn, who also dealt with Benji, resorted to posting guard dogs at studio entrances to keep him from escaping.

The biggest stars can be the biggest divas.

Orangey lived a long nine lives, heading across the rainbow bridge in 1967, shortly after appearing in back-to-back episodes of Batman, alongside Eartha Kitt as Catwoman.

Displaying the cat’s lasting legacy, Orangey is one of the few animals to be interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, the resting grounds of many famous Hollywood personalities.

In 2020, Canadian filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz produced a documentary about the life and mythos of Orange, called The Hardest Working Cat in Show Biz, based on a piece of the same title written by Dan Sallitt.

Sixteen years is more than many A-list humans make it in Hollywood.

Most of them probaby didn’t need dogs to guard their escapes, but the biting and scratching might not be so abnormal.