Tracking The History of Grizzly Adams

 

Above: Charles Nahl’s 1856 etching of the real “Grizzly Adams.”

After Grizzly Adams became famous in both San Francisco and New York during the Gold Rush era, a full century passed before his name would once again surface in American pop culture. 

Only in recent decades did people begin to realize a real Grizzly Adams once existed, for after he died in 1860, his brief period of celebrity was obliterated by the advent of the Civil War. This does not, however, negate the fact that some western historians have referred to the real Grizzly Adams as “California’s greatest mountain man.”

In modern-day pop culture the name “Grizzly Adams” is often associated with a burly man sporting a scraggly beard. And recently the popular catch-phrase, “get your Grizzly Adams on” translates to “toughen-up” when it comes to both men and women. A recent example of this can be found in David Letterman’s 2017 eulogy for his late mother, Dorothy Mengering, wherein the legendary Late Show host told a story about his mother killing a snake in her yard with a garden-hoe, causing him to think at the time, “My mother is Grizzly Adams for God’s sake.”  

                  

Above: Richard Dillon’s biographies of Meriwether Lewis and Grizzly Adams

It was no surprise that Dillon’s comprehensive biography of Meriwether Lewis would lead him to also explore the incredible life of Grizzly Adams. After California became a state in 1850, Adams notably traversed the entirety of that rugged American region. Dillon could not help but compare Adams’ adventurous spirit and fearless stature to that of Lewis and Clark, especially when it came to the process of settling the perilous western frontier. It is clear that the real John “Grizzly” Adams is due more credit in that arena than today’s historians recognize. As Dillon began one of his lectures during his 1966 book-tour, he referred to the inordinate magnitude of trekking Adams did in the 1850s, remarking how it was “all but impossible for a venturesome traveler to avoid cutting Grizzly Adams’ trail.” He also referred to Adams as, “Perhaps the greatest individualist California ever produced.” That was quite a statement—especially about a region that has produced such an enormous number of noted “individualists.”  

Richard Dillon’s book about the real Grizzly Adams, as good as it was, only made a minor splash after it was published, but it exists today as the first modern historical account of Adams’ famous western exploits. A more archaic profile of Adams from 1860 exists, authored by a young journalist named Theodore Hittell who came to know the mountain man during the late 1850s. Hittell’s book is based upon numerous interviews he conducted with Adams and, therefore, is a hard read by today’s standards; separating fact from fiction in its pages can be a difficult exercise, thanks to Adams’ habit of over-embellishing his adventures to Hittell. 

           

Above left: A rare first edition of Theodore Hittell’s 1860 book about the real Grizzly Adams. On the right, an 1861 publication emphasized the way Grizzly Adams was known for embellishing his mountain man exploits.

It wasn’t until the motion picture industry caught on to who Grizzly Adams actually was—by way of Richard Dillon’s book and his follow up lecture tour— that the meaning of the name, “Grizzly Adams” began to earnestly take form in American pop-culture.

It can be said that Lee Marvin’s character of ‘Ben Rumson’ in the 1969 movie, Paint Your Wagon was partially molded from the likeness of a Grizzly Adams character. After all, Adams had endured the Gold Rush in a way similar to Marvin’s gruff portrayal of Ben Rumson. 

     

Above left: Shown with his mining partner played by Clint Eastwood, The spine of Lee Marvin’s “Ben Rumson” character as depicted in the Great California Gold Rush movie, Paint Your Wagon resembled the likes of the real “Grizzly Adams” who originally came out to the west as a 49’er.

 Paint Your Wagon left its Gold Rush mark on American cinema, but it was not until 1972 that the first two broad “Grizzly Adams” strokes would land on the motion picture screen by way of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and Jeremiah Johnson.

       

Above left, John Huston as Grizzly Adams in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. To his right, Will Geer and Robert Redford get their Grizzly Adams on in, Jeremiah Johnson.

This brings us to television and the winding road that led NBC to introduce its viewers to Grizzly Adams in a TV series. 

In the wake of the success of Jeremiah Johnson,” an animal trainer named Dick Robinson, who happened to possess a pet grizzly bear and had devoured Richard Dillon’s book about Grizzly Adams, came up with a notion to ride the new mountain man movie wave by making his own film. He intended to portray the role of Grizzly Adams himself and have his own bear play Ben, who was Adams’ favorite bear in the 1850s. Dick Robinson’s humble enterprise raised a little money from investors aligned with the Sun Classic independent film company and soon his production effort was underway.  

Filmed in wilderness settings northeast of Salt Lake City, Robinson adorned himself in layers of buckskins as Grizzly Adams. His trained bear ambled at his side while days went by and thousands of feet of film were shot. But when the Sun Classic executives began to preview the footage they quickly realized it wasn’t working. Robinson had never made a movie before and his early results raised serious concerns, so the company ceased production. 

Attempting to salvage what it could, Sun Classic Pictures partnered with former Schick Razor Company owner, Patrick Frawley, and it became Schick Sunn Classic Pictures, adding an extra “n” for legal reasons. Remaining intent on doing a movie about Grizzly Adams, they endeavored to see if any of Robinson’s footage could still be used. The company tapped its lead producer, Charles E. Sellier Jr. to try and save whatever he could. But after screening hours of footage, Sellier and his team ultimately determined the wisest thing would be to start from scratch. 

Frawley also knew of an animal trainer in the movie industry by the name of Dan Haggerty, who he determined would make a much better Grizzly Adams than Dick Robinson. Sellier hired Richard Friedenberg, a talented young filmmaker to direct the film and George Stapleford as cinematographer, and in quick order Sunn began shooting its new Grizzly Adams movie on a shoestring budget of $165,000.  

After a court case, Dick Robinson was ultimately compensated for his co-origination of Sunn Classic Picture’s effort, and later, in 1984, he was able to stitch together enough footage to release a rough version of his own movie on VHS. A trailer for the resultant production—titled The Rogue and Grizzly even popped up on YouTube a few years ago.

 

Above: Dick Robinson as Grizzly Adams and his bear as Ben from Robinson’s 1984 European release of The Rogue and Grizzly. 

In 1974, on the heels of Jeremiah Johnson and John Huston’s first-ever screen depiction of Grizzly Adams in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Schick Sunn Classic Pictures premiered its new low-budget feature film— with its obviously repurposed title—The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.

The movie was a huge success in its nationwide theatrical release. It took in over $55 million at the box office and it still ranks today as one of the highest grossing independent films ever made, especially after its budget-to-profit ratio is factored in.

 

Above, the one-sheet movie poster from, “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.”

Technically, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams movie was somewhat sub-standard. Shot on 16MM, its completely dubbed soundtrack even looped in another actor’s voice for Dan Haggerty’s dialog; at the time it was thought he sounded too much like a contemporary surfer dude. Just the same, the movie played far-greater than anyone ever expected, so Sunn Classic Pictures decided to take some of its profit margin and make yet another mountain man movie, once again starring Dan Haggerty—only this time, letting him speak for himself. 

Originally titled Beyond the Wind River during production, the title was ultimately changed to The Adventures of Frontier Fremont upon its release. The screenplay was written by David O’Malley and the film was once again directed by Richard Friedenberg, who later went on to receive an Oscar nomination for writing the Robert Redford film A River Runs Through It. Sunn Classic’s newly celebrated Charles E. Sellier produced the movie along with screenwriter David O’Malley. 

In Frontier Fremont Dan Haggerty played Jacob Fremont—a character similar in many ways to Grizzly Adams; he is an eastern greenhorn who must learn to survive in the wilderness the hard way and he has more than a few run-ins with wild animals. He is joined on-screen by an irascible and grizzled mountain man named Mean Bill Driggers played by Denver Pyle. 

 

Above: Schick Sun Classic’s 1976 feature film, Frontier Fremont paved the way for NBC’s The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams popular TV series that featured the same cast of Dan Haggerty, Denver Pyle, and Don Shanks. 

Filmed on a larger budget and in 35MM TechniScope wide-screen format, Frontier Fremont had a much more polished look than the original Life and Times of Grizzly Adams feature film. While the theatrical release of Frontier Fremont didn’t quite achieve the same box office heights of Grizzly Adams, it did strong enough business to attract the attention of Hollywood and the television networks. 

When NBC picked up Frontier Fremont for a network primetime run, they were happily startled by its success in attracting a TV audience. Drawn to the storyline and the addition of Denver Pyle as Mean Bill Driggers, they decided to greenlight a Grizzly Adams series using the technically superior Frontier Fremont as a template. Everyone agreed that Dan Haggerty made the perfect Adams and Don Shanks was cast to play Nakoma, the role he originated in the Grizzly Adams feature. Denver Pyle emulated his mountain man character, Bill Driggers, but his name for the series was changed to Mad Jack, a moniker originally coined for a character played by Ray Walston in Paint Your Wagon.

Once again titled The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams it quickly became a prime-time hit TV series on NBC and a pop cultural phenomenon in the late 1970s. Curiously, no one seemed to notice or recall the connective tissue to The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean title and John Huston in the very first interpretation of Grizzly Adams on screen. 

NBC’s depiction of Grizzly Adams was a far cry from the real mountain man of the 1850s, but Haggerty’s suave, rugged-beard look and Charles Sellier’s innovative formulaic style of producing motion picture entertainment enhanced growing TV marketing trends, many of which remain in place today. 

After the series came out, it wasn’t long before kids were toting their Grizzly Adams lunch pails around and begging their parents for the new Grizzly Adams Halloween costume and dozens of other branded items put out by NBC. Beyond representing a “wannabe image” for men and boys from every walk of life, Dan Haggerty’s Grizzly Adams rugged macho “look” became a new heartthrob to the female gender as well. In the spirit of its Gilligan’s Island-like formula that focused on only a few characters in an isolated setting, weekly episode guest stars were also easy for NBC to come by.

              

Above: “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” TV series starring Dan Haggerty twice made the cover of TV guide.

Incredibly enough, the series was still very highly rated when NBC announced its intention to cancel it in 1979. There were several reasons it had fir doing so, with the trappings of how “great fame” but “little fortune” took its toll on Dan Haggerty listed among them. Big money for the stars of television series, with future syndication profit shares and “image rights” protection clauses, were not yet commonly featured in contracts back then. Haggerty, whose Grizzly Adams image was promoted worldwide in various forms, made no money from it. By contrast, in today’s world the same exploitation of his brand connected image would have easily made him a multi-millionaire.

Charles Sellier, who was credited for creating both the film and TV series, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, continued producing many more years for Universal and CBS. He also managed to trademark the Grizzly Adams brand name that he held until his passing in 2011. After the trademark lapsed out of his estate it was filed on by Grizzly Adams® LLC, a company comprised of former associates of Sellier, who managed to secure the future rights for new Grizzly Adams film and television offerings.  

While the brand was entering the process of securing trademark protection, other actors tried their hands at playing the legendary mountain man on film. Two of them, Tom Tayback and Gene Edwards had hoped to claim the famed Grizzly Adams mantle, but ultimately realized little success while doing so. It quickly became evident the public recognized only one man as the true image of Grizzly Adams… and that was Dan Haggerty.

        

Left, Tom Tayback, right, Gene Edwards

It seems the loud “Grizzly Adams” bell that the NBC TV series rang proved impossible to un-ring in terms of where “Grizzly Adams” falls in the pantheon of American pop-culture. The name currently appears in search engines most often associated with the popular TV series and its star, Dan Haggerty, and occasionally as the description of a masculine beard-style. But the strong bear image isn’t overlooked either; the inclusion of “Grizzly” in the name itself doesn’t allow it to be ignored.

References to “Grizzly Adams” have appeared often in the press, media and entertainment—from Seinfeld to Big Bang Theory, The Tonight Show to The New York Times, CNN to Letterman and SNL—the list is long and always growing.

 

Many recall the quote from Happy Gilmore where famed golfer, Lee Trevino counters Shooter McGavin’s challenge with, “Grizzly Adams did have a beard.” 

Producer Art Linson’s self-inspired feature, What Just Happened, features a movie producer played by Robert Deniro who is befuddled upon hearing that his next picture’s lead actor—Bruce Willis, playing himself—is “overweight” and “wearing a Grizzly Adams beard.” It becomes a major bone of contention when the studio insists Willis should be forced to shave it off. 

        

Above: Bruce Willis played himself with a “Grizzly Adams beard” in What Just Happened.

 

The popular cartoon series, “Family Guy” also did a hilarious spoof on The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams in one of its episodes. Amy Poehler was also seen wearing an old Grizzly Adams T-shirt on her TV series, Parks and Recreation in recent years. Even a professional hockey team in Wolfsburg, Germany named itself “Grizzly Adams.” (The TV series was very popular in Germany, Australia, and England.)

 

                                       

      Grizzly Adams spoofed on “Family Guy”         And a Wolfsburg, Germany “Grizzly Adams” pro-hockey jersey

Historically, however, the real Grizzly Adams should mean much more to Americans today. Here was a guy—the real John ‘Grizzly’ Adams—of the same Massachusetts American family tree initiated by Henry Adams of Braintree, the mountain man’s fourth generation paternal great grandfather who came over from England in the year 1632, not long after the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock. That’s right—the real Grizzly Adams was one deeply rooted American whose famous cousins included Revolutionary War patriot, Samuel Adams, as well as two Presidents of the United States, and a number of other eminent Americans. Born in 1812, he was one of seven siblings who grew up to become a Boston shoe cobbler, until, while in his late thirties in 1849, his business failed when his inventory was destroyed in a tragic fire, causing him to turn westward to seek his manifest destiny in the great California Gold Rush. He joined a multitude of other Americans lured by the vast frontier and the possibility of striking it rich. 

After enduring his arduous trek west—and before he earned his “Grizzly” nickname—Adams spent a few years as a gold rush hopeful in California, until he made the choice of abandoning the corrupt, greed-driven throngs that quickly enveloped San Francisco and its surrounding boom-town communities. Adams, the mountain man to be, left all of that to live “deliberately,” as Henry David Thoreau once put it, in search of the peaceful refuge of the mountains. Having abandoned civilization, he found himself compelled to traverse the western frontier. During the next four years he cut an incredibly large swath extending from the southern Arizona desert to the Los Angeles coast, up to and far beyond San Francisco both coastally and inland, then into the Oregon-Washington territory as far north as the Canadian border above what is now Montana, and then back over to Portland along the Columbia River. From his primary cabin-camp near the Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevada range, he even journeyed up to Salt Lake City, where happenstance left him part of a curious crowd listening to a lecture delivered by Brigham Young.  

Grizzly Adams was also an early advocate for the better treatment of Native Americans whom he often scouted, hunted and traded with. But Adams was also an archetypical loner as well; he preferred having the wild denizens of the forests and mountains as companions over his fellow human beings.

After his self-imposed exile, in 1856 Grizzly Adams moved back down from the mountains with his impressive menagerie of live bears and other wild animals and relocated to San Francisco. Once there, he became a celebrated showman with his ursine troupe, performing in the rapidly growing city’s top venues. After a few years in the public spotlight, he decided the time had come to return to his roots on the east coast.

      

Above left, Charles Nahl’s 1856 etching of the real Grizzly Adams with his bear, Ben, by his side. Adams looked like this after he came down from the mountains to relocate in San Francisco that same year. On the right is Grizzly Adams four years later in New York, as depicted in an 1860 daguerreotype taken by famous Civil War photographer, Mathew Brady. The Brady image was struck after P.T. Barnum got hold of Adams and gave him a new, fancier set of ‘showman’ threads.  

Grizzly Adams left California in early 1860 to sail back to New York with his large menagerie of wild beasts. During the final year of his life he would experience impressive notoriety in throughout the east as a performer for P.T. Barnum. He had no idea that the painting of Samson, his mightiest and most ferocious grizzly bear, executed by famous western artist, Charles Nahl, would one day be transposed onto California’s state flag—where it has remained ever since.                                                                                                             

         

Above, famous western artist, Charles Nahl’s 1855 painting of the real Grizzly Adams’ bear, Samson was later re-rendered and transposed onto California’s State Flag. 

While it is true today that most people over the age of forty-five associate Grizzly Adams with the popular NBC TV series and the late Dan Haggerty, the real Grizzly Adams’ indomitable legacy dwarfs everything that is associated with his famed moniker in modern-day pop culture. He truly was cut from the same cloth as famed frontiersmen Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, although in many respects he was more formidable than either of them. When speaking of his mighty grizzly bears, Adams once remarked that he was, “the toughest one of the lot.” And he wasn’t kidding.