In the 1974 film “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” and the NBC television series of the same name,
Dan Haggerty portrayed a kind mountain man with a lush beard and a bear named Ben. Haggerty passed away on Friday in Burbank, California.The cause was cancer of the spine, his friend and manager Terry Bomar said.
Mr. Haggerty was employed in Hollywood as an animal trainer and stuntman when a producer requested him to reprise portions of the film’s opening sequences, which were about a woodsman and his bear.
Based on Charles Sellier Jr.’s novel “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams,”
it narrated the tale of a man from California who runs away from the woods after being wrongfully convicted of murder. There, he befriends the local wildlife and tames an abandoned bear.
Mr. Haggerty consented, provided that he may do the full film. After being recreated for $165,000, the movie finally brought in close to $30 million from ticket sales.
After that, it was made into a television series, and in February 1977, Mr. Haggerty returned to his environmentally conscious duty as the forest’s defender and animal buddy.
