Brad Pitt got more than a bear hug from 60-stone grizzly Tank. The actor received a furry kiss while filming Growing Up Grizzly, a documentary about a Utah conservation charity. “It was unnerving,” said Brad, “but an experience I’ll never forget.”
The Hollywood superstar offered to help the Vital Ground Foundation after performing with Bart, an enormous Kodiak bear trained by Doug Seus, the charity’s founder, in the 1994 flick Legends Of The Fall.
“Brad is a man of his word,” says the bear trainer. “He called one day and asked, ‘What’re we going to do and when?’ He is a man of integrity who believes in the environment.” The $20 million-per-picture hunk worked on the documentary free of charge.
Brad shares screen time in the project with Tank and two Alaskan cubs, Honey Bump and Little Bart, who were orphaned when their mother was killed by a poacher.
It’s not the first time that seven-foot Tank has glimpsed the special glitter of Hollywood stardom however. The furry paramour shared his first on-screen love scene with a charming lady-bear, after they were brought together by Eddie Murphy’s character in Dr Dolittle 2.
Although the charity provides performing animals, its main work is to buy up the threatened habitat of the grizzly bear, a task it has also been helped in by Anthony Hopkins.
Brad is currently in Vancouver, working on the final scenes of action thriller Spy Game with Robert Redford.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
