Gertrude Ada Davies Lintz (1880 – 1968Hahn, Emily (1988). ''Eve and the Apes'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ) was an English-American dog breeder and

socialite A socialite is a person from a wealthy and (possibly) aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having tradit ...

known for keeping exotic animals, including

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative t ...

s and

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four ...

s, in her Brooklyn home. Her gorilla Buddy was sold to a circus and renamed

Gargantua ''The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel'' (french: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais, telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( , ) and his son Pantagruel ...

. Her gorilla

Massa Massa may refer to: Places *Massa, Tuscany, the administrative seat of the Italian province of Massa-Carrara. *Massa (river), river in Switzerland * Massa (Tanzanian ward), administrative ward in the Mpwapwa district of the Dodoma Region of Ta ...

was sold to the

Philadelphia Zoo The Philadelphia Zoo, located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, is the first true zoo in the United States. It was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 21, 1859, but its openin ...

, eventually becoming the longest-living documented gorilla. Her 1942 memoir ''Animals Are My Hobby'' inspired the 1997 American film '' Buddy''.Lintz, Gertrude Davies (1942). ''Animals Are My Hobby''. Robert M McBride and Company, ASIN B002FB4EJK Lintz was played by Rene Russo in the film.

Biography

According to her memoir, Lintz was born in England to John Henry Davies and his wife. The family was of Welsh descent and had 13 children. After spending much of his income unwisely, her father moved the family to the United States when she was young. In 1914 she married physician William "Bill" Lintz (15 July 1883 – 1 September 1969). They lived at 8365 Shore Road in

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn Bay Ridge is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Sunset Park to the north, Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, Dyker Heights to the east, the Na ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

,WorldCat.org
- Description of a photograph in the Brooklyn Public Library, retrieved 17 July 2007 a waterfront "

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Type ...

stoop of a

mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word '' manse'' originally defined a property l ...

of faded grandeur straight out of

Charles Addams Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters, signing the cartoons as Chas Addams. Some of his recurring characters became known as the Addams ...

' macabre cartoons" according to circus executive

Henry Ringling North Henry Ringling North (November 12, 1909 – October 2, 1993) was an American businessman, as a circus proprietor who was the vice president, treasurer, director and operations chief, while his brother, John Ringling North, was the president and ...

. On 21 February 1925 her St. Bernard, CH Hercuveen Aurora Borealis, became the first of her breed to win an All-Breed Best in Show at the Maryland Kennel Club's twelfth annual

dog show A dog show is an event where dogs are exhibited. A conformation show, also referred to as a '' breed show'', is a kind of dog show in which a judge, familiar with a specific dog breed, evaluates individual purebred dogs for how well the dogs ' ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...

. Lintz later became known as an

eccentric Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

exotic animal collector. She owned two

(called Buddy at that time) and

. She was known to drive around Brooklyn with a fully clothed gorilla or chimpanzee sitting in the passenger seat. She treated them as her children, including dressing them and teaching them to eat at the table with cutlery.''Gargantua the Great''
. The Nonist. 17 July 2007. Buddy/Gargantua later became a major circus attraction after being sold to The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1937. He had been frightened by a thunder storm and, having escaped from his cage, climbed into bed with his "mother", Lintz. Massa was sold to the

in 1935 after being severely startled when accidentally splashed with water. He became the oldest gorilla on record at 54 years old and his story, with elements of Gargantua's life, was made into the film '' Buddy'' (1997).Maslin, Janet
"Bringing Up Bonzo"
''The New York Times''. 6 June 1997. One of her chimpanzees, Captain Jiggs, also became a well known national figure. In 1938 she claimed to have taught another chimpanzee, Susan, to talk and demonstrated this on the radio. The only words spoken by the chimp were "Who-who".
''Time'', 31 January 1938. retrieved 17 July 2007.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lintz, Gertrude People from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn American Jews 1968 deaths 1880 births British emigrants to the United States