Transoceanic shipment and first owners Various contemporaneous news stories suggested he was born between 1912 and 1914, and several, but not all, say he came from
Borneo, homeland of the
Bornean orangutan (
Pongo pygmaeus). Research into the history of primate trafficking has found that "while the orangutan was most closely associated with the island of Borneo, by the early 1900s a majority of orangutans on the global market were captured in, and exported from, northern Sumatra." and
Tapanuli orangutans (
Pongo tapanuliensis). Joe Martin's primary trainer told several reporters that Joe Martin could have been as young as five or six months old when he arrived. As with all primates, the mother-child dyad is foundational to infant survival, and young orangutans are heavily dependent on maternal care until at least age eight, "thus obtaining infants requires mothers to be killed in nearly all instances". with an unidentified orangutan, According to
Camera! and the
San Antonio Express, Joe Martin first arrived to the United States in 1911 in
San Francisco via Singapore, in a "
consignment of animals shipped by
Frank Buck" to the animal dealer
Robison of San Francisco. Robison then sold Joe Martin for to a Los Angeles insurance company owner named Sam Behrendt. After a fire at the pier, Saunders relocated with Joe Martin to
Universal's "Old Ranch".
1915–1917: Breakout film and early work in
Detective Duck and Lady Baffles (1915)|alt=Young orangutan and tall woman with hair pulled back sit at a table; holes from film strip partially visible at left With few exceptions, Joe Martin's
short comedies are all believed to be
lost films. As such, most of Joe Martin's film work, like many silent films, is known to film historians only through marketing materials, production stills, and media mentions. A portion of the Universal lot in the
San Fernando Valley housed a wide array of performing animals; many silent-era animal scenes were shot in a central area of the
Universal City Zoo called the arena. Joe Martin's breakout role was a two-reel short called ''
Joe Martin Turns 'Em Loose'' "produced at the famous Universal City Zoo" and released in 1915. The film seems to have been a comedy about opening the animal cages at a zoo and sending a stampede of beasts after bystanding humans. Prior to the success of this film, Joe Martin was known as "Chimpanzee Charlie". Around 1915, an animal trainer named
Curley Stecker began taking care of Joe Martin. According to Frank Buck, Joe Martin was
cross-fostered by the Steckers: "He was taken into Curley's house to be raised...[and] grew up with the Stecker son". Curley is sometimes credited with "discovering" Joe Martin; from the studio zoo, the zoo having been created in part as a "point of interest" at Universal City. The keepers were responsible for introducing the animals to visiting dignitaries; one such visit was made by
Bishop Hanna of San Francisco in 1915. Later, one of Joe Martin's directors wrote of the visit: "A famous old prelate came out to Universal City to see Joe. Joe listened while the old gentleman commented on the wonders of nature. 'You wouldn't catch a monkey taking a drink of vile liquor,' he observed. Joe reached in the hip pocket of his little pantaloons and came out with a
pint of liquor, which he offered to the bishop with fine courtesy." In the first three years of his career, Joe Martin appeared in at least 20 films, including
Rex Ingram's vampy feature melodrama
Black Orchids. (Five years later, Joe Martin later played the same part in the retitled remake
Trifling Women, which turned out to be one of his last on-screen credits.) The article about Beery's films noted that Joe Martin was "absolutely devoted" to zoo superintendent
Rex De Rosselli and never let De Rosselli pass by without a hug; Joe Martin was not as affectionate with Beery. A 1916 magazine feature on "Making Pictures in California" reported of the recently opened Universal zoo: "Here we find Joe, the chimpanzee, who sleeps in a regular brass bed, uses a toothpick after meals, etc." Joe Martin was taught to wear clothes and given a weekly shave, and seemed to enjoy the latter, although if the razor was dull, he was known to throw things at the barber. Meanwhile, human-interest blurbs about Joe Martin were being placed in regional newspapers: "Joe recently received a letter...reading as follows: 'Dear Joe Martin: I wish you would send me your picture. My papa says you are only a monkey, but I think you are an actor."
1918: Influenza epidemic, and night-watchman incident In November 1918, as the
Spanish flu pandemic reached the west coast and Universal and other studios shut down for a month to prevent further spread, Joe Martin was infected with the
virus but was "narrowly saved" from death by
double pneumonia through the combined efforts of Dr. Richard Goodwin and Curley Stecker. A film magazine said that while he was ill, Joe Martin "wasted away to the form of a skeleton." Afterward,
Billboard reported that Joe Martin wore a
flu mask in the hopes of reducing transmission to the other animals in the menagerie. Joe Martin worked with child actors frequently, including in the 1918 film
Man and Beast, where his child costar was likely Curley Stecker's two-year-old son. The outcome of the case was not publicized, but in 1920 actor-director
Al Santell told
Photoplay, "There was a night watchman at the menagerie for a while who always carried a bottle with him on his rounds and now and then he'd give Joe a drink. But one night when he was three sheets to the wind he put
red pepper in the
whisky and oh boy! Joe nearly went crazy trying to get at the man...But he never hurts a woman or a child. When we use babies in the animal comedies they are absolutely safe with him."
1919: Escapes and Al Santell incident Business-wise, in 1919, when other film companies wanted to use him, Joe Martin's rental rate was said to be a day. Universal thought he was worth to . An advertisement in a Canadian newspaper for Universal's two-reeler
Jazz Monkey included a humorous essay about Joe Martin's diet which stated that Joe Martin consumed a
vegetarian diet of carrots, turnips, onions,
corn on the ears,
alligator pears, "
root beer,
ice-cream soda,
coco-cola, or
malted milk, to any extent a friend is able to buy," and "
tobacco in moderation, preferring the
smokeless variety." A later report said that Joe Martin's diet usually consisted of vegetables and a mixture of malted milk and warm water, sometimes supplemented with eggs "to give it more body and flavor." Sunday was a day of
fasting for the zoo, followed by a richer meal than usual on Monday morning. In June, Universal bought a full-page ad in ''
Wid's Filmdom'' for an
open letter to the industry. The letter, signed by Universal's founding
mogul,
Carl Laemmle, called Joe Martin "the only guaranteed star on the screen" and stated: A couple of months later, Universal published an anecdote about the filming of
Jazz Monkey in the "Joe Martin Soliloquizes" ad series, which was written from Joe Martin's point of view. In a scene where Joe Martin was due to confront the lion endangering the heroine, the ad read, "I was afraid the gun wouldn't go off (
property men are merely human) so I gave it an affectionate kiss just before I pulled the trigger and said in an offhand sort of way, 'Sweet baby don't fail me now!'...Well, sir, darn if the
title writer didn't swipe the whole line, word for word, exactly as I said it...I wasn't even trying to be funny, yet they laughed."|alt=Line drawings of orangutan looking comically overwhelmed; orangutan standing atop a Bactrian camel's humps as camel tows a wagon full of barrels|left In June 1919, Joe Martin attended a screening of his own film,
Monkey Stuff, put on by the
Los Angeles Evening Herald as an employment perk for its
newsboys. Martin wore a
Palm Beach suit, carried a cane, and "clapped his hands frequently and laughed monkey laughs whenever anything struck him as being particularly good." The writer also made impressive
primate cognition claims about Joe Martin: "The remarkable animal understands any spoken command, even listens in on private conversations and does stunts that were suggested for him but rejected by the trainer...His mental processes function without command from the trainer, an unusual trait. Upon leaving his cage he will carefully close the doors, slipping the hasp over its staple." Joe Martin then scaled the Universal barn and refused to leave the roof for hours. His trainer placed food in his cage, but when Joe Martin finally came down, he ripped the cage door off its hinges before entering so he could not be trapped while collecting his meal. After some time, Joe Martin was found sleeping in the warm sand of a
dry creek bed from the studio. Curley Stecker was able to
lasso him and return him to custody. While filming a William S. Campbell comedy, Joe Martin was present during a scene in which a "hard-fried miner"
spanked a child. While the scene's choreography prevented the child from being injured, it reportedly appeared realistic to Joe Martin, who confronted the actor: "Stepping down from his chair, Joe rushed the offending player. He grappled him around the ankles and tripped him up with a flying
tackle that would have done wonders for a
collegiate pigskinner. Having upset his victim, Joe stood over him, grinning evilly with long, barbed teeth and gathered the little kid to his hairy breast with his free arm." The
Los Angeles Times published
advertorial photos of Joe Martin behind the wheel of a
Kissel automobile and claimed that he had learned to drive. The content was created by Western Motor Company, Kissel distributors, and was designed to show that driving was easy. As reported in 1920, Al Santell "
remonstrated" with Joe about slamming a door too hard and breaking the set, so Joe Martin caught "him by the ankle...took him over and rolled him down the stairs."
1920: Tarzan incident Joe Martin may have attacked Al Santell a second time, on the set of
A Wild Night (1920). In a 1972 interview surfaced by film historian
Steve Massa, Santell said, "When a chimpanzee bites you, he doesn't just give you one quick bite—he clamps his teeth in, gets set, and then puts on the pressure. And I could feel each tooth mauling into my leg." It took the combined strength of Curley and Carl Stecker to detach Joe Martin from his director. In March,
Popular Science published a photo feature on the animals of the Universal City Zoo, their trainers, and their film performances. Joe Martin and Curley Stecker made multiple appearances in the magazine spread; Charlie the Elephant and Ethel the Lioness were also photographed. The same month, a Connecticut paper reported that Universal was building a "jungle bungalow" for Joe Martin with
indoor plumbing and "period furniture". This building may have been used as a film set for
A Monkey Movie Star, which was released the following year and was said to be Joe Martin's "autobiography". Another article mentioned that Joe Martin's "jungalow" included a bed, a sunken bathtub, a horizontal bar, and a trapeze. In March,
Universal Syndicate distributed the first of the
racist Joe Martin comic strips drawn by Forest McGinn, which were intended to establish Joe Martin as a multi-platform brand.Joe Martin was lent out by Universal to costar in an adventure film,
The Revenge of Tarzan. Charlie the Elephant, another Universal City Zoo animal, was also credited as a performer in the movie. According to Pollar, "We were jumping...from bough to bough. I made a leap and, as my weight released it, a bough snapped back and hit Joe, standing ready to follow me, in the face. He thought I had done it on purpose...and the first thing I knew he was after me and on my back ready for fight. It took some effort to pull him off and it took triple the amount of effort and all the pastry in my lunch box to put him in friendly humor with me again." While filming a scene in which his character was meant to assist the villain in stealing from the heroine, Joe Martin entered the situation to find the villain looming over her: "...Joe seized the villain with his long, powerful arms and pulled his legs from under him. The villain fell to the floor with a startled cry for help, and Stecker had to explain to the trained orangutan that the threatening attitude was all in the picture."
1921: Continuing in show business, Ethel Stecker incident In 1921, an advertisement for
A Wild Night noted, "Mr. Martin has had a longer career on the screen than any other real monkey." His owners reportedly had a
life insurance policy on Joe Martin, and he was said to receive monthly veterinary health assessments. During this period Curley Stecker reported that he sometimes climbed onto the roof of Joe Martin's cage and looked "down at him through the grating to see how he occupied his leisure moments. Unobserved, Joe acts with the same dignified decorum which characterizes his moments before the camera." Two, called
Jiggs and Kelly, had their own enclosure with a "heat plant" and wore "little
pneumonia jackets of
flannel Mrs. Stecker has made for them." while shooting
A Monkey Bellhop, and had his
canines removed or filed down as a consequence. According to a newspaper report, after being startled or confused or hit with a telephone thrown by Curley Stecker, or all three, Joe Martin bit into Ethel Stecker's ankle "down to the bone". The legally prescribed consequence for an animal bite was supposed to be death for the animal, but Ethel Stecker pleaded for Joe Martin's life: "I brought him from a baby, I couldn't bear to part with him." Curley Stecker reportedly "appealed to authorities, promising to saw off his tusks if he would be spared." Joe Martin's second reported assault on a woman took place while he was on loan to
First National. Joe Martin apparently threw a coconut at actress
Dorothy Phillips' head, and laughed about it afterward. Phillips was saved from injury by the density of her wig. In October 1921, the
Los Angeles Herald discussed a possible legal issue related to Joe Martin's mail: The possible legal issue centered around fans sending
money orders to pay for photos of Joe Martin; if "Stecker should cash the money order on behalf of Universal it would take
Edwin Loeb and a whole battery of famous corporation lawyers to keep him out of the clink." When handed a stack of envelopes from his mailbag, Joe Martin would usually pick the one with the "brightest hue" or the one with the most postage stamps; he then would hold it up to the light and rip off the end of the envelope, careful not to tear the enclosed contents.
1922–1923: Behavioral issues, death of Curley Stecker .|alt=Black-and-white photograph of artwork possibly done with pastels, of a climbing orangutan up to a human infant/toddler in a nestIn spring 1922,
The San Francisco Call reported that Joe Martin's film career was nearing an end: "Some think Joe Martin is incurably insane...when Joe showed signs of
melancholia over Stecker's absence, a little monkey was placed in his cage in hopes that the companionship would stop his brooding. Joe beat the monkey to death against the bars." Joe Martin also attacked three substitute trainers while Stecker was elsewhere. Stecker was rehired after an "absence of several months". When Stecker reentered Joe Martin's cage for the first time, the orangutan first verified his identity by checking that this man was missing part of a finger (which Stecker had lost to an accident), and then he "threw hairy arms around Stecker's neck and kissed him." Joe Martin bit his costar
Edward Connelly while they were shooting a scene where Connelly's character put a necklace around La Marr's neck. Emma-Lindsay Squier reported that he had worked all day and "far into the night" and that "the nature of the scene was a constant tantalization to him" as it involved Edward Connelly taking away "a string of pearls given him in play by the heroine". A report in
Photoplay stated that Stecker had told Connelly not to give Joe Martin the water because "he only drinks warm water and it's not good for him." Joe Martin waited until Stecker's back was turned to leap at Connelly; it took Stecker and three property men a full 10 minutes to get Joe Martin off Connelly. Joe Martin drew blood, Cinematographer
John F. Seitz used
matte processing to finish the film's remaining scenes between Joe Martin's character Hatim-Tai and Connelly's Baron François de Maupin. Charlie the Elephant was euthanized in autumn 1923. Stecker died the following year from
leukemia, with "wild animal injury" listed as a complicating factor on his
death certificate. The studio wanted Joe Martin to appear in
Merry-Go-Round (1923) but director
Erich Von Stroheim refused to work with him. After about a quarter of the movie had been filmed, producer
Irving Thalberg fired Von Stroheim for several reasons, including "totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination". Von Stroheim was replaced by with
Rupert Julian.
1923–1927: Barnes Circus and Barnes City Zoo In November 1923, Charles B. Murphy replaced Curley Stecker as head animal trainer at Universal. On December 31, 1923, Joe Martin was sold to the
Al G. Barnes Circus. According to
Camera!, Universal studio chief Carl Laemmle "reluctantly" consented to the sale "on the circus man's assurance that the big
ape would always have a proper home and good treatment." Universal claimed the price was . The studio magazine,
Universal Weekly, reported that the sale was necessary because Joe Martin had "developed temperament and temper...a sudden savage sullenness which made it dangerous for any human actor to work with him." Joe Martin also suffered "
Klieg eyes," a reaction to the brightness of the
sound-stage lights. Joe Martin also suffered
electrical burns to his hands in 1919 after he escaped a film shoot, climbed a power pole, chewed on the rubber insulation of the copper wires, and then began swinging along the lines as if he were in a forest canopy. Universal City shut off the electricity, and
assistant director Harry Burns climbed up the pole and rescued the "partially-paralyzed" animal. Early 20th-century American circus animals were broadly divided into two groups: the performing or working animals, such as elephants that appeared in the center ring and also hauled equipment, and the menagerie animals that had a more passive role as a sideshow attraction. Joe Martin was likely a menagerie animal. In 1924, Joe Martin's first year with Barnes,
George Emerson, who had previously been employed by Universal Zoo, was responsible for his care.
Lorena Hickok described Joe Martin as a "broken and discouraged monkey" in a "narrow cage under the canvas out on the hot, dusty, old circus lot". A 1925 news report claimed that "no fewer than four persons were constantly engaged in looking after Joe's comfort." A later report clarified that Joe Martin's care probably involved three men holding a -thick iron chain attached to a collar around his neck. A photograph of an orangutan with
cheek pads baring his teeth at Al G. Barnes appeared in a March 1925 photo feature in the
Los Angeles Times. Around May 1925,
Billboard reported that Joe Martin was the feature attraction of the Barnes menagerie and that a person named Joe Coleman was in charge of his education. In June, in the presence of a group of reporters, Joe Martin dressed himself in a suit, struck a match, lit his own cigarette, and enjoyed a bottle of
pop at the prompting of his trainer E.L. "Blacky" Lewis. In January 1926, a reporter visiting the Barnes Zoo mentioned that Joe Martin was "trying to tear his cage apart". Joe Martin was still touring with Barnes during the summer circus season in 1926. A Wisconsin newspaper reported that Joe Martin rode in the circus parade route with a guard and a chain around his neck. Joe Martin wore a black suit and a
plug hat for the parade and "he doffed this hat courteously to the crowds." New language in Barnes advance ads of summer 1928 said that Joe Martin was "the most valuable
zoological specimen in captivity today". On January 5, 1929, Barnes sold his operation to
American Circus Corporation. and
John T. Ringling's fortune specifically. Al G. Barnes died of pneumonia in July 1931. (The Barnes brand continued to tour the country by railroad until 1938 when it was subsumed into Ringling.) but the part ultimately went to two ape-costumed humans and, for
close-ups, a chimpanzee from the
Selig Zoo. In 1935, an Idaho publisher printed Al Barnes' memoirs, as told to author Dave Robeson, while Barnes was dying in the desert city of Indio, California. Given the
Time report, 1931 is a conservative estimated year of death for Joe Martin. Joe Martin's estimated birthyear predates by five years the earliest historical record in the International Orangutan Studbook, but even with a most-conservative birth year of 1914 and most-conservative death year of 1927, Joe Martin may well have been one of the longest-lived orangutans in overseas captivity in the era that closed with the advent of modern recordkeeping. ==Filmography==