Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 2, 1993 TAG: 9310150366
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
But he doesn't just pull narrator duty for ``In the Company of Wolves with Timothy Dalton,'' premiering Sunday on PBS stations (at 8 p.m. on WBRA-Channel 15 in the Roanoke viewing area). Instead, he becomes an adventurer pursuing his subject firsthand.
And what morelogical pairing than the darkly handsome, slightly dangerous- looking Dalton and a fabled animal of even more menacing mien?
Logical, perhaps, if you're uninformed about wolves. Because what Dalton believes, and what he wants viewers to discover, is that wolves have taken a bad rap over the centuries.
``You see all those movies where trappers are sitting by their fire with rings of red, hungry eyes all round them, and you know the trappers are going to be pounced on,'' Dalton says.
``I was fascinated by that, just why the wolf played such an important part in our culture, and I wanted to find out the truth.''
So he journeyed into the wilderness of Alaska, Montana and Canada and found a far different reality. Wolves shy away from, not terrorize, humans. They form close-knit, caring packs that work hard for survival.
``They're very intelligent; more intelligent than regular dogs,'' Dalton says. ``I mean they have to be. You know, they've got to earn their living out there.''
Out there, for Dalton, meant trekking into icy, remote areas without an entourage; only a cameraman and wildlife expert or two accompanied him. It was grueling, he says - and not because he missed movie star luxury.
``One thing I hate, one thing I loathe, is getting cold,'' says Dalton, an avid fisherman who knows what it's like to shiver for his hobby.
``I made bloody sure I didn't get cold up there. I had lots of socks, and some very good boots.'' He needed them: in Alaska, temperatures dipped to 40 degrees or so below zero.
Obviously, you wouldn't see superspy Bond fretting about the cold. And footage of Dalton dropping to his knees and crawling toward a wary wolf, or grinning self-consciously as he tries to howl like one, are clearly un-Bondlike.
The actor, drawing on a cigarette during an interview, says he doesn't care a bit.
``If I was concerned about my image ... I mean, you can see me (in the film), looking like I got off a frozen floor after four nights of little sleep. Well, that's exactly what you're looking at.
``An actor's an actor. I hope to have the opportunity to play lots of different parts. ... Some people like to create an image and stick with it. And I think that's nonsense. It would be deeply limiting, wouldn't it?''
Typecasting is just what wolves are laboring under, according to the documentary which kicks off a new season of PBS' ``Nature'' series.
In the company of such experts as David Mech of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Dalton learns that there is no record of a healthy wolf ever killing a human in North America.
Mech believes that rare attacks by rabid wolves helped give rise to the animal's deadly image.
An Alaskan Eskimo ``told me he knew of only two instances where a wolf has attacked a human being,'' Dalton says. In one instance, the wolf was rabid; in the other, a hunter dressed in caribou deerskins was briefly attacked before the wolf ran away.
But wolves were hunted nearly to extinction in North America, with some 2 million dying tortuous deaths by poison and steel trap. Small numbers survived in the United States only in Minnesota and remote Alaska.
Old European stereotypes that equated wolves with the devil, coupled with the drive to conquer the American wilderness for farming and ranching, led to the near-extinction.
We see modern-day Western ranchers expressing concern about a new wave of wolves that is gradually recolonizing once-abandoned areas; the Westerners fear for their pets and livestock.
One well-known rancher, however, sticks up for wolves: actress Andie McDowell says she fears mountain lions - which have attacked children - not wolves.
The documentary includes stunning, crisp footage of noble-looking wolves framed against a breathtaking backdrop of barren Canadian terrain (the Queen Elizabeth Islands) and in snowy U.S. forests.
There is also charming footage of young pups cavorting in their first-ever snowfall, and of the youngsters squealing as they try to match their parents' eerie howls.
``There's a great, great bond of affection between them, which when you watch it, it is quite stunning,'' Dalton says. ``It's deeply endearing.''
by CNB