We needed a bear for the film [Swamp Water (1941)], and I heard that a storekeeper in a neighbouring village owned a tame one. The story of that bear is worth telling. A few years previously the storekeeper’s wife had given birth to a beautiful little girl, who was, however, subject to epileptic fits. After consulting all the local doctors the father turned to the last Indian medicine-man in the district. His remedy was as follows: ‘Get hold of a bear cub and bring it up with your child and the epilepsy will go away.’ There were still bears in the Okefenokee swamp. The medicine-man’s treatment was followed and the epilepsy went away. That particular bear was still living with the family. It was remarkably greedy. We drove it about in a van, and whenever we passed a shop selling ice-cream it roared, so that we had to stop and buy some. To its owner’s great disappointment the bear never appeared in the film. On the day before it should have done so, the owner, wanting it to look its best, took it to the barber and had its fur stylishly trimmed. The result was that it looked like a poodle and we had to do without it.