Randy Miller uses a different method to create stars

12:03 AM PDT on Monday, August 2, 2004

By DARRELL R. SANTSCHI / The Press-Enterprise

BIG BEAR CITY - Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!

They growl, they snap and they charge at Randy Miller. All on cue. And in Miller's movie scenes, commercials and television documentaries, the animals are the stars.

That's not to say that the savvy Big Bear City resident hasn't taken his share of bows. He received the first award ever presented by the World Stunt Academy three years ago for playing a scene in which he was attacked by a 600-pound Siberian tiger in the Oscar-winning film "Gladiator."

Don't recognize him from the movie? That's probably because special effects technicians removed his head after the filming and replaced it with the head of actor Russell Crowe.

Miller and the tigers who appeared in that film live and play at the 55-acre Predators in Action, home to seven tigers in all - as well as three lions, two cougars, two black leopards, a black bear, two grizzly bears, two white tigers and a bobcat.

Their credits include arrange of projects that run from the National Football League's Indianapolis Colts vs. real-live lions Gatorade commercial to scenes in "The Last Samurai."

"He's pretty big in the business," said Elena Berry, a television producer who has used Miller and his critters in three documentaries for The Discovery Channel. "He is versatile with animals. I originally called him for a bear shot and it turned out to be about tigers."

Miller's latest work, and most challenging yet, is "Two Brothers," a feature-length animal adventure that focuses on two tiger cubs taken separately into captivity.

" 'Gladiator' had 90 shots. It was more action," Miller said. "The cats were moving, lunging, snarling and attacking. With 'Two Brothers,' there was that, plus a lot more. The animals were telling the story. Expressions were important. We would spend hours, days on just getting a specific look out of an animal. It was demanding. It was very tough."

A real jungle

The movie was filmed in Cambodia over a 10-month period in 2002 and 2003.

The two Siberian tigers that appeared as cubs are now full grown siblings who share a cage next to 7-year-old Tara and 10-year-old Shirkon, Siberian tigers that portrayed them as adults in the film.

"I brought four tigers over with me," Miller said. "There were 34 tigers total. We were shooting tigers 12 hours a day, six days a week. You can imagine the demand on the tigers."

It was no picnic for Miller, either.

"It was real hot and humid," he said. "We were in the jungle, so there was never a place to sit. We always felt tired. There were killer ants and venomous snakes everywhere. There were a lot of poisonous scorpions."

During the filming of one scene, he said, "I was halfway in a river. My legs were in the water. I was calling a tiger to me and I felt something crawling on my leg. There was a giant spider crawling up my leg."

Lucrative work

Film work can be lucrative. Grizzly bears fetch $2,500 a day, tigers $1,000 and lions $1,250. That's not counting the $37.50 to $40 an hour that animal handlers are paid. Miller collects as much as $3,500 a week as head trainer and more for those wild stunts.

Food and upkeep run $200,000 a year. Each tiger eats seven to 20 pounds a day of raw beef and whole chickens. "They need the bones, the feathers, the internal organs, everything," he says.

Miller, who was born in Anaheim and raised in the Houston area, has been around animals most of his life.

"I would rescue animals from the wild," he said. "I'd find babies that had been abandoned: hawks, raccoons, bobcats, you name it."

He and his father started a soft-drink business in 1982 and Miller began raising exotic animals. In 1994, "the soft-drink business started to fizz out, so to speak," he said.

He moved to Acton, where his movie animal business began. He then moved to Big Bear City.

When he isn't making movies or television programs, Miller said, he performs magic shows.

They're easier, he said. "The animals are used to the same routine every day. I think film work is more difficult because we're put in a position where we have to go to different locations and the surroundings are different for every shot. Every job we get, we have to do a completely different thing. So the animal is always put out of place."

Animal moods

He helped to re-enact the Oct. 3, 2003, tiger mauling of Las Vegas magician Roy Horn for segments on "Dateline" and The Discovery Channel.

"There were conflicting stories on what happened," he said. "My guess is, the cat wasn't acting normal, or quite right. Maybe he was in a bad mood."

Working with wild animals requires careful study of the subtle signals they send, Miller says.

"You can read these guys. They do show symptoms when things aren't right," he said. "If they start looking at you funny, you can catch it.

"Part of my job when I'm doing film work is manipulating the animals' moods.

"To get them to be aggressive, with cats especially, you have to make them aggressive. With the bear, we can do more of a Hollywood snarl and make him look dangerous when he's not. With the lions and tigers, you've really got to make them snarl to show it."

Each of his animals has specialties, he said.

He cues them to perform natural behaviors, although they don't always play strictly by the rules.

Bonding:  Miller hand raises his animals almost from birth.

"He develops an incredible bond with them," said Jennifer Stamness, 32, an animal trainer who works at Predators in Action.

"Some people are animal people from birth and some kind of have to be schooled in it. He was just kind of born an animal person.

"People try to over-train animals," she said.

"They want them to sit up like a dog. He works with their natural instincts. He lets them be an animal, but yet he teaches them that they can be rewarded for doing a natural behavior on cue."

Miller is preparing to branch out, adding cobras and other poisonous reptiles to his business - although they won't be staying in Big Bear City.

Eventually, he says, he wants to open an animal sanctuary, where he can breed and raise exotic animals.

For real.