OSCARS 2024
The story of ‘Vazak’, the dog that was on the Oscar nominees list
Screenwriter Robert Twane, who wrote the original script for ‘Tarzan’, was the owner of the much-celebrated Hollywood pooch.
The 57th Academy Awards featured three nominations for the iconic action-adventure film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.
The movie starred the likes of Christopher Lambert, Andie MacDowell and Ralph Richardson. The latter was one of the three nominees at the 1984 Oscars, along with a little-known creative called P. H. Vazak.
Vazak was given the nod the Best Adapted Screenplay category, alongside Michael Austin. Vazak, incredibly, was a dog.
The Oscar-nominated pet was owned by Robert Towne, who wrote the first draft of the Tarzan script. It took a bizarre series of events to see Towne demand that his dog was credited as the scriptwriter, rather than himself.
Why was Vazak the dog credited for Tarzan?
Towne was a prolific screenwriter, director and producer after his career as an actor. He was a key part of the New Hollywood movement and produced the Oscar-winning screenplay for Chinatown (1974).
He had written the script to the Tarzan movie but opted to sell the rights to his creation in order to finance his own directorial debut, Personal Best. But it was a poor decision from Towne and Personal Best flopped at the box office, costing him a significant amount of money and his reputation.
Warner Bros, who had bought the rights for the Tarzan movie, decided that they no longer wanted Towne as the director for their upcoming big-budget production. Towne was unceremoniously booted from his own production, but he did at least have the opportunity to take a shot at Warner Bros.
He demanded that his own screenwriting credit be removed from the movie and, instead, given to P. H. Vazak, his dog.
Directorial duties were handed to Hugh Hudson, who had directed Chariots of Fire. Decades later he spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the film and the controversy that saw a pet listed as the screenwriter for one of the 1980s’ most iconic Hollywood movies.
“Robert Towne never liked it, of course,’ Hudson explained in 2016. ‘Why would he? It was his baby to begin with, but he sold his baby, to put it that way... And when we did the film, he put the name of his dog on it.”