Biography

Bart the Bear

Jump to

Bart the Bear was perhaps one of Hollywood's most remarkable animal stars. The Alaskan brown bear was born in 1977 and was brought in by Utah animal trainer Doug Seus. Bart started to train in acting in 1980 and grew to 9 feet tall, the average for brown bears.

Bart starred in The Great Outdoors (1988), On Deadly Ground (1994) and The Edge (1997). Bart's co-stars included John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Steven Seagal, Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, all of whom were very impressed with how well a bear could be trained to act, and enjoyed the experience of working with animals. Sadly, Bart died in 2000 of cancer at the age of 23 during filming of Animal Planet's Growing Up Grizzly (2001). His namesake is Little Bart. Little Bart's sister is named Honey Bump. Their mother was killed and Doug and Lynne Seus took them in. Doug and wife Lynne Seus started the Vital Ground Foundation in honor of Bart, who was the organization's 1st ambassador. The organization was begun to set up lands to preserve the great grizzlies and other wildlife.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

Bart was of the Kodiak Bear subspecies from the island on coastal Alaska, where many bears grow to be enormous. However, he frequently played inland Brown Bears, among which it is very rare to attain a size as large as Bart's.
Most of the characters he played were simply named "The Bear" or "Bear". The only exceptions were, The Great Outdoors (1988) when he played "The Bald-Headed Bear", The Bear (1988) playing "The Kodiak Bear", and Walking Thunder (1995) where he played the title character. (The original French title of The Bear (1988) (L'ours) translates as "The Bear").
Weighed over 1,700 pounds as an adult.
Bart has the unique distinction of appearing (with owner/trainer Doug Seus) at the 70th Academy Awards ceremonies to present the 'oversized' envelope for "Best Sound Effects Editing" for Titanic (1997) to category presenter Mike Myers (March 23, 1998 / Shrine Auditorium Los Angeles).
His brother's name is Tank.