Reginald von Ravenhorst (stage name - Rex) is an old fish in acting. Police dog chased criminals for 4 years, but his actting career lasted much longer - over 6 years. For his magical popularity and magnifi-cent career he is grateful to one woman - Hollywood`s handler Teresa Ann Miller.
"Dog who playes main caracter first of all has to have nice looking and with advanced playing passion," Teresa said. "We searched for the right dog for a long time before we found the one. Rex was only 6 months old. But already in first lessons occured his abilities for studying. Followed 5 months preparing for the shoo-tings: we practised 4 times per day and 20 minutes every time. The workout has to be resemble to the game. Dog who enjoys the workout will look good in the movie. We never work with hard commands, rather with bladishment and bonuses."
The longest time took the jump into the deep dark well. Teresa started with low dais from which dog had to jump. It was elivated slowly untli 4 metres. by that time Rex lost the fear of hights and accompli-shed magnificent landing technique. Same way was trained first captions jump through the window. The window was actually made from sugar, not glass.
Although the show runs on German, Rex obeyed only on english commands. During shooting TV se-ries Rex was treated as big star. When all the preparing were made on the set was the copy of Rex, but when shooting started Rex came to action. Acting was cool business. Rex enjoyed the attencion, and felt inulted when camera shooted someone else. Favourite time passing where billiard, opening icebox and running bulky men down their feet. Reginald enjoyed challenges and appreciated mental activity. Teresa took care for Rex to get his rest. Long walks, ball games and taisty food were stars favorite free time ac-tivities.
Behind the flashy name of Reginald von Ravenhorst are actually "twin - brothers" Santo and Soho who share their own responcibilities. Inteligent and nicelooking Santo was "acting" and with tuffer cha-racter and discipline Soho was making tricks.
Reginald von Ravenhorst`s fee was 3`000 wieners. Reginalds career as Kommissar Rex which lasted for 4 years ended when Gedeon Burkhard came in the show. By that time Reginald was 7 years old and too old for the TV work, but he was replaced with new dog. "Police dog can work without the problems un-til he/she is 7 years old. Then the first problems appear: hearing might get worse, bones don`t want to listen, etc. Like all policedogs Rex was taken into family and new actor was found," is writen on SAT 1 info page. To bring some joy into "retirement" Reginald attended the classes and watched with professional look all what was going on on the set - it had to be made sure that next actor makes everything right. New Rex was Rhett Butler, who had played "Little Rex" and was actually with darker hair. He got the training from Animal Action Farm, the same place last star got his trainings. For 6 month Rhett Butler was wat-ching the work of professional and only then he took over the action.
"Kommissar Rex" was shown over 60 counties in Europe, has won seve-ral international awards and was more popular than "Derrick". It was the most popular german TV series. Only in Germany 10 mil-lion people watched "Rex". Last years "Rex" was made more with Austrian money and power than Ger-man. Even italinas joined the forses. Meanwhile were talks that show is moving to America, but there people were used to watch movies without the subtitle. Other option was to shoot the TV series all over again. Scenarios were already translated to english for the trainer, main characters were obaying eng-lish commands and Gedeon Burkhard was speacking english perfectly... In 2000 actors contract with the studio ended and he had no desire to extend it. Some more circumstances came out and TV show was stopped. "Kommissar Rex" was real gold mine for the creators. New products are still invented and sold over 80 different things even the show isn`t running anymore. This point makes Rex the most popular 4-legged star beside Lassie and Beethoven. One minute of advertising Rex cost one million shillings for the company.
Karl Markovics
Gerhard Zemann
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Russian Rex page, has bunch of character pics.
Estonian Rex page includes the theme music.