James Dannaldson


James Melven Dannaldson starred in the Frank Buck film Jacaré.

Early life

Dannaldson was the son of James Jerrmiel Dannaldson and Lulu Belgium Rola Hiatt. Young James
was a shot put star at Hollywood High School in 1934, when he suffered his first animal mishap. A pet rattlesnake nipped Dannaldson's finger when he playfully stuck his thumb into the reptile's mouth. Dannaldson was not deterred, and kept a barn filled with three rattlesnakes, five king snakes, ten turtles and one hoot owl when he was a University of Southern California student. The neighbors were not pleased.

Jacaré

In Jacaré Dannaldson traveled up the Amazon to catch specimens. In the film, Dannaldson worked with jaguars and caymans, whose jaws had been wired shut. He said his only close call came when an anaconda he wrestled got a loop around his neck and almost strangled him before the natives could unwrap it. Dannaldson's most primitive adventure occurred on Marajó Island, at the mouth of the Amazon, where the movie company spent four weeks, ran out of imported food and had to subsist for five days on moldy doughnuts filled with small worms and on chickens which, Dannaldson said, seemed to be 90 per cent vulture. Producer Jules Levey incorporated a narration by Frank Buck and music by Miklos Rozsa into the finished film.
Dannaldson came home from the Amazon with a rare eagle from Manaus, obtained as a fledgling from a native hunter. Dannaldson presented the eagle to the San Diego Zoo in 1943.

Later life

In his later years, "Jungle Jim" Dannaldson provided animals for Hollywood films, especially reptiles, spiders, scorpions and insects for horror films. In 1977 he was to appear on The Tonight Show with a six-foot angleworm from Australia. Dannaldson was author of two books, Serpent Trails and A Trek in the Amazon Jungles.

Filmography



... aka John Steinbeck's Cannery Row

Jennifer

... aka Jennifer Power

... aka Jennifer the Snake Goddess

Damnation Alley

... aka Survival Run

Sisters of Death

The Hills Have Eyes

... aka Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes

Snakes

... aka Fangs

... aka Holy Wednesday

The Wild Bunch

Earth vs. the Spider

... aka Earth vs. the Giant Spider

... aka The Spider

The Land Unknown

The Cyclops

The Hellstrom Chronicle

Jacaré .... Adventurer

... aka Jacare, Killer of the Amazon