DISCOVERING OUR VALLEY 2011
In the next few months, this blog of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley will be featuring rare and often fascinating materials from the newly acquired Putney Collection, featuring images chiefly from the once world-famous Bird Wonderland of Van Nuys.
Coulson and Lucile Glick once owned one of the most important animal and bird suppliers for the motion picture industry. Operating from their headquarters at Bird Wonderland (15640 Ventura Boulevard in Van Nuys -later Sherman Oaks) the Glicks took Coulson’s hobby of raising birds and training animals into a profitable enterprise with some of the most famous animal “actors” in movie history.
The Bird Wonderland company functioned until the mid ‘50s.
Standards of importing animals into the United States and their use in films has changed much since the 1940s.
1 comment:
I am related to Melvin Koontz who was the owner and trainer of Satan, the tiger and Jackie, the lion (plus a few other big cats). I am presently researching Bird Wonderland because I am writing a biography about Melvin Koontz. I would be interested in any information that you have about Bird Wonderland 1941-1945. Mr. Koontz boarded his big cats there after returning to California in 1941 from performing at the New York World's Fair 1939-1940. I am more than willing to share information I have about these animals. Thanks.
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