Those were the days: A talented chimp that grabbed audiences’ attention

An American cine comedian once memorably mentioned a piece of advice for fellow actors. “Never act with children or animals. Two superstars — Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand — doing a movie in Madras learned that tutorial the hard route. SS Vasan, the movie mogul, who ran the Gemini Studio, was obsessed with tempo.

A shrewd moviemaker, Vasan did not mind changing the storyline halfway. Many a time, after shooting substantial footage of films, Vasan would review it and if he felt a need to introduce some pace-creating element, he would just go ahead. If the director objected, his head was on the block. So the creative department followed his changes meekly.

Halfway during Chandralekha, SS Vasan felt there wasn’t sufficient entertainment value in the film and that a circus set up should be included in the storyline. He had two of them camp within his sprawling studio on Mount Road (one of them renamed itself as Gemini Circus).

Vasan had spread his tentacles far and wide. He was adept at producing Hindi movies as well but made sure the entire team moved to Madras to shoot in his studio. While producing Insaniyat with megastars Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand (the only time the two legendary actors shared screen space) and Bina Rai, he felt the same itch. “There wasn’t enough tempo,” during the studio discussion someone remarked, “if only there was a monkey in the storyline…”

Vasan immediately decided to import a chimpanzee to star in his half-done film. Widely connected, Vasan heard of Zippy the Chimp. It was proficient at playing piano, roller-skating and even typewriting. However, Zippy had regular engagements on American TV shows and at nightclubs and was believed to have earned $55,000 a month. It had played the sidekick role Cheeta in Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle.

But it was SS Vasan on this side and nothing was impossible. He struck a deal to fly in Zippy the Chimp, at a phenomenal price. In those days of slower mails, surprisingly, before the month was over, the chimp from Hollywood was flown into Madras with his trainer (Ralph Quinlan) and owner (Lee Ecuyer).

When Zippy, landed at the Meenambakkam airport, the publicity department of Gemini worked overtime so that the chimp got more public attention. He was welcomed with a garland in Indian tradition by Mohana, one of the artists. Zippy responded by kissing Mohana. The welcome function was recorded on cameras and splashed all over the papers. Some captioned their article as ‘Zippy is a loyal lover’.

Other than the buxom actress, Zippy was welcomed by pressmen and the public who had been awaiting his arrival. With close-fitting dress and boots, Zippy delighted the people by shaking hands and his antics. However, it was a shock to Vasan’s team that Zippy was only 18 inches tall.

Vasan wasn’t perturbed. He ordered his technicians to devise stratagems to make up for the shortcomings. Scenes featuring the chimp were shot slightly lower than eye level so that the audience never realised that they were seeing such a small creature.

The scriptwriters burnt the midnight oil and changed the script that was already brimming with two megastars working together for the first time. The comedy track was extended into a parallel storyline which became a common feature in later movies. Vasan even added two song sequences — for Zippy with comedian Agha.

During his stay in Madras, Zippy was treated royally. The cream of society lined up to meet Zippy and posed for photographs which they would proudly display on their living room walls.

The film Insaniyat became a monumental mess but crowd queued to get into packed theatres mainly for Zippy. The chimp contributed much to the movie’s box office advantage but it completely overshadowed the heroes. It had actually filched the film.

“That’s one experience I’d rather forget,” Dev Anand said in an interview later when questioned about his primate co-star.