Jim Fowler through the years, intrepid host of ‘Wild Kingdom’ nature series, dies at 89...as co-host and sidekick (he was joined for several years by Stan Brock), ...
He was accused by a herd of 200 elephants who were running with the help of only one flatbed truck, and once he was unconscious by a snake chimpanzee called Mr. Mokey, who called him "the middle of the eyes" Punched, but there was no incident compared to them. The 22-foot Anaconda swallowed his arm up to the shoulder.
"Fortunately," Jim Fowler, long-time co-host of the Wild World of Om Fallah, said, "I knew what to do. "As the indigenous tribe gathered around them fled from the scene, the fouller was calm, waiting for Anaconda. Before he got out of his fist and prepared another episode of" Wild Kingdom ", at work Come back, already tired.
For more than two decades, Fowler brought the wonders of the natural world to millions of Americans, combining storytelling with entertainment and adventure, which raised awareness of the planet's biological diversity and environmental crisis. He was 89 years old and had heart disease, when his son, Mark Fauler, at his home in Rovaiton, Connecticut on May 8 said.
Known for standing 6-foot-6 and weighing over 200 pounds, the large foulter was known to swim through the snake-infected water, diving with sharks and remapping the remote cliff face while his companion, the zoologist Marlin Cajun was often seen or heard from the jeep. From the studio - for the pleasure of Johnny Carson host of "Tonight Show".
"Johnny said that I will mimic Marilyn, drinks will be back in the drink mixing drink for the country girls, while I send the donation of Jim to the two-horned rhinoceros for wrestling in the summer," Fouler remembered once . In fact, both men played an important role in popularizing wildlife series and nature documentaries.
Losing heavy cameras and tripods in all seven continents, they introduced the Baby Boomers and their parents to unusual animals such as San or Bushman of the Aquarium desert as well as unusual creatures. With the show on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet by Steve Irwin, many people copied in his show, the fouller said that he praised, even he liked short pants on Irwin's long pants.
In 1963, Love on NBC, "Wild Kingdom" went into syndication, started in 1971, and aired on more than 220 stations, reached an estimated 30 million weekly audience and won four Emmy Awards. The series was initially played by Perkins, a white-haired former director of Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.
Fowler worked as a co-host and sidekick (he was involved with Stan Brock for many years), then he headed the program after retiring Perkins in 1985, as long as the next year's production wrapped up No. In 2002 the series was revived by the animal planet.
He hosted a successor program "The Upbringing of Omaha" as a Wildlife Correspondent of NBC's "Today" show and was a frequent guest of television host such as Carson, who often appeared on the stage with the Overstage Boa Constrictor or Sunflower Were. Squirrel monkey.
For "wild kingdom", Fowler took cool cold winds of 76 below, while keeping an eye on polar bears in Alaska, which was hooked on a helicopter pontoon, to tag a mousse from the ears to a crocodile Used to use a "catch stick" to save a puma from floodplains.
An authority on the birds of prey, he set up his boy's ride as an adventurous wildlife filmmaker while flying from Guantanamo in 1955 to study one of the world's largest raptors, the crisp eagle. Incident by the ornithologist Jim Cope, he spent exploring northern Amazon, using ropes and using climbing spikes to climb the rainforest of the rainforest and study the birds in their natural habitat.
He returned to the United States with 16 mm film footage, material for an ornithological research paper and three hearty Eagles, one of which joined them for an episode of "Today" show. Attendance attracted the attention of Perkins, who hosted the Chicago event "Zoo Parade" and wanted to start a new nature series.
"Fowler was trying to create some hope and interest in the next generation, what they can do to participate in saving the natural world," said Peter Gros, in "Wild Kingdom" and "Spirit of Adventure" His co-host for many years. "
"There are so many shows which are based on teeth and claws, and Jim was doing what he was trying to change with fear of knowledge about wildlife and with worry and admiration," he said in a phone interview. Nevertheless, he said, Fowler knew his way around carnivorous - and was so experienced that he sometimes met potential catastrophes.
For one episode, Fowler and Gross visited crocodile researchers in Louisiana and tagged Gates for further study by floating in a flat-bottom paddleboat, through Beau, in the night. With the light of the boat, "You can see a runway of red eyes," said Gros.
"It was my turn to tag it," he remembered, "and as soon as I got down I felt this big hand on my shoulder." Not so, Jim said. 'His eyes are far away - he's 8 Feet is long, not 4 feet. "Jim knew that the length between the eyes meant the length of the algator.
"If this was not for the gym," he continued, "my nickname will probably be 'left' today."
Fourth of the five boys, James Mark Fowler was born on April 9, 1930 in Quaker family in Albany, Georgia. He spent his childhood in Mad Creek, 680 acres of family, which he later converted into a free house. Locating wildlife preserves home for wolves, hyenas, zebras and other animals.
His mother was a housewife and former franchise, and his father was a federal soil scientist.
To go out from a young age, they gathered snakes and sold them to the nearby cattle manufacturer for $ 1 each. Until 7, he was immersed in the falcon training tool, with the help of books and later a patron, John Hamlet.
Fowler received a quaker schooling, attended private Westtown school in Philadelphia and Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he studied zoology and geology while performing excellent in the game. He once said that after graduating from High School, he paid $ 30,000 from the Philadelphia Athletics Baseball team and was committed to becoming only a naturalist after a knee injury in college football game.
He graduated in 1952 and was working as a teacher at the Raptor Sanctuary of Heatle, which was near Oakland, Florida when he first met Perkins. "Marlin did a show from there," Fowler told Memphis Flyer, "And my boss said, The Marlin, the boy got a bribe." I was in my early twenties. "
In 1970, he married a wildlife artist, Betty Burhan. In addition to his wife, surviving people include two children, Mark Fowler and Carrie Fowler Stove, who co-hosted the nature series "Life in the Wild" with their father, starting in 2000; And two grandchildren.
Fouler was honorary president of the Explorer Club and he made several wildlife refuges, including his former property in New Canon, Connecticut.
In the interview, he remembered sometimes that the first episode of "Wild Kingdom" was almost exhausted in the disaster. Filmed in Lincoln Park, Chicago, it featured a massive rigid eagles that Fowler had captured and trained.
He said that he put a line on the line to prevent the Chicagoians from escaping and scaring, which could make the bird a mistake for "pterodactyl". But later the crew encouraged him to let the bird fly free in an effort to improve the shot, Fowler tried, Fowler tried. An experiment, putting it on a tree, still on the line.
Unfortunately, he told Omaha World-Herald, a woman and her poodle made her way into the Rope-Ve filming area. The bird flew, apparently the place of food. Fowler said, "Thank you, I was able to grab the line." "If Eagle had caught a woman or a dog, then my career would end before it started."