Google Earth Community: Rin Tin Tin's grave in France

Rin Tin Tin, the German Shepherd whose Hollywood films in the 1920s and 1930s had a huge following and whose progeny went on to star in popular television series, is buried among the pets of the rich and famous here at the Cimetière des Chiens in Asnières-sur-Seine on the Île-de-France on Paris' outskirts, believed to be the world's first zoological necropolis.

The Cemetery of Dogs, opened in 1899, is also the burial place of horses, monkeys, lions and fish. Though there are many ornate sepulchres, few tourists arrive nowadays to be greeted by a monument to Barry, a Saint Bernard that died in 1814 after saving 40 people in the mountains during his lifetime.

Film director Sacha Guitry's pet dog and a lion kept by actress Marguerite Durand are interred here, as is the pet of Camille Saint-Saëns, the composer of "Carnival of the Animals".

American serviceman Lee Duncan found Rin Tin Tin, affectionately known as Rinty (c 1918-32) as a pup in a bombed-out kennel in France just before World War I ended. Duncan took him home to Los Angeles and taught him tricks, including a leap of nearly 12 feet. A film producer cast Rinty as a wolf in "The Man From Hell's River" in 1922 and a year later he starred (as a dog) in "Where the North Begins", the success of which has been credited with saving Warner Brothers from bankruptcy. Soon Rin Tin Tin was receiving 2,000 fan letters a week.

He died at age 16 and Duncan had him buried here beneath a tombstone of black onyx marked "star of the cinema". The dog shown in the publicity still above right from television's "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin" (1954-59) is either Rinty's son or grandson, both of which carried on the star-billed name.

The website Roadside America says the pedigree continues via a kennel in Houston, with most of the offspring helping disabled children and some in rescue and police work.

Wikipedia on the cemetery and Rin Tin Tin

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