Skippy aka Asta (born 1931 or 1932; retired 1939) was a Wire-Haired Fox Terrier dog actor who appeared in dozens of movies during the 1930s.
Skippy starred in many movies. He is best known for the role of the pet dog "Asta" in the 1934 detective comedy The Thin Man, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Skippy's name was changed to Asta after the first Thin Man film was released[1] and he was listed under the name Asta in the Thin Man sequels he appeared in.[2]
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Skippy was trained by his owners Henry West and Gale Henry East, and also by Frank Weatherwax and assistant trainers Rudd Weatherwax and Frank Inn.
In 1936, Skippy and several other movie dogs were profiled in the book Dog Stars of Hollywood by Gertrude Orr. At the time Skippy was said to be four and a half years old, giving him a birth year of 1931–32. He was said to be one of the most intelligent of animal stars then working in pictures.
In addition to verbal commands, he also worked to hand cues, essential for a dog performing in sound films. According to Orr, his training began when he was three months old, and he made his first professional film appearances at the age of one year, in 1932–1933, as a bit player providing "atmosphere." In Orr's book Skippy was shown in a series of photo stills from otherwise unidentified 20th Century Fox films starring Mae Clarke and Mary Carlisle, as well as publicity shots with Wendy Barrie from It's a Small World and Myrna Loy from The Thin Man.[3]
Skippy also made a hit as "Mr. Smith" in the 1937 film The Awful Truth, where his character was the subject of a custody dispute between characters portrayed by Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. (In an interesting gaffe, at one point when Cary Grant wrestles and plays with "Mr. Smith," he can be heard distinctly calling him "Skippy.")
In Bringing Up Baby (1938) Skippy played "George," the bone-hiding pup belonging to Katharine Hepburn's aunt; and in Topper Takes a Trip (1938), he was "Mr. Atlas".
The American Magazine detailed Skippy's professional life in an August 1938 profile of the East kennels, titled "A Dog's Life in Hollywood":
At a time when most canine actors in Hollywood films earned $3.50 a day, Skippy's weekly salary was $250.00.[5]
As a character in the movie The Thin Man, Asta was the playful pet dog of Nick and Nora Charles, tugging them around town on his walks, hiding from danger, and sniffing out corpses. ("Asta, you're not a terrier, you're a police dog," Nick tells him.) The character later appeared in the sequels After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home, Song of the Thin Man, as well as the 1950s television show The Thin Man.
The original character of Asta in Dashiell Hammett's book of The Thin Man was not a male Wire-Haired Fox Terrier, but a female Schnauzer. Due to the enormous popularity of the Asta character as played by Skippy, interest in pet terriers skyrocketed. Asta's enduring fame is such that the name is a frequent answer in The New York Times crossword puzzles (crosswordese), in response to clues such as "Thin Man dog" or "Dog star."
Although Skippy played Asta in the first two Thin Man films, other terriers, trained by the Weatherwax family and by Frank Inn, took on the role in subsequent films of the series, and in the television show.