Famous Cat Fanciers

March 24, 2009 6:09 AM

Which famous people love cats?

I am looking for quotes, photographs, and/or anecdotes about famous people who love (or loved) cats.

For example, the article on Wikipedia about Stanley Kubrick says that "Kubrick brought his cats on to film sets and editing rooms with him in order to spend more time with them."

posted by Houyhnhnm to pets & animals (39 comments total)

Does Muhammad count?
posted by fire&wings at 6:20 AM on March 24

Ernest Hemingway.
posted by amro at 6:21 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

"no, Hodge shall not be shot."
posted by holgate at 6:22 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

Also, Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat flap for his cat, supposedly.
posted by amro at 6:25 AM on March 24

Art Bell
and
John Lennon
posted by watercarrier at 6:28 AM on March 24

The Charles Mingus Cat Toilet Training Program.
posted by suedehead at 6:32 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

Einstein
posted by amtho at 6:38 AM on March 24

Oh, and on the eighteenth-century tip, Christopher Smart's Jeoffrey: "For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command."

(The full recording of Jubilate Agno on Resonance FM is worth seeking out.)
posted by holgate at 6:53 AM on March 24

I was going to say Winston Churchill, but while searching for a link I also found this page of famous people's cats, which is a wealth of knowledge.
posted by LolaGeek at 6:56 AM on March 24

Hemingway! Read Islands in the Stream for a moving description of the bond of trust, love and understanding between the main character (a Hemingway stand-in) and the head cat of his brood. It's the most elegant portrait of the deep bonding between human and feline I've come across.

You can also google Hemingway for quotes and pix from his digs at Key West, where the great-great-grandchildren of the original cats abound.
posted by Gordion Knott at 7:10 AM on March 24

He has many friends, laymen and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
posted by BadMiker at 7:23 AM on March 24

Doris Lessing.
posted by Elsie at 7:29 AM on March 24

Mark Twain. TS Eliot.
posted by jeather at 7:39 AM on March 24

Siegfried and Roy?
posted by hermitosis at 7:48 AM on March 24

Hunter S. Thompson. See Ralph Steadman's book about his cat Jones.
posted by abirae at 7:53 AM on March 24

Edward Gorey!
posted by oulipian at 7:55 AM on March 24

I was going to say Thomas Hardy, for his elegy, "Last Words for a Dumb Friend," and then I found The Quotable Cat Lover.
posted by steef at 8:09 AM on March 24

Do fictional characters count? If so, then there is always Blofeld, who was once given away by his cat.
posted by TedW at 8:20 AM on March 24

She's not super famous, but the woman who plays Six on Battlestar Galactica is, beautifully, a crazy cat lady.
posted by hought20 at 8:43 AM on March 24

James Mason! Here is a picture of him holding the tiny paw of a Siamese.
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 9:08 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

Freddie Mercury adored cats. He had five of them at the time of his death, and his special favorite, Delilah (he wrote a song about her which appears on the Innuendo album) was at his side on the bed when he passed away. The Queen Fan Club used to have an annual convention for fans; the band members never showed up in person, but they'd send used stage clothes or things like that for the charity auction. One year Freddie's contribution was a set of paintings featuring each of his cats which he'd specially commissioned for the event (he also autographed each). Visitors to Freddie's home marveled how he never so much as flinched when his kitties got up on the shelves filled with his very expensive objets d'art and stretched out for a nap. He also sent his driver to a local fish & chip shop once per week to bring a piece of fish each for the cats as a treat.
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:17 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

Baudelaire wrote cats : les chats and +.
posted by nicolin at 9:33 AM on March 24

Andrew Lloyd Webber LOVES cats.
posted by paperzach at 10:29 AM on March 24

Don't forget the Pope and the children's book "written" by his cat.
posted by Ranucci at 10:56 AM on March 24

Haruki Murakami likes cats a lot--they feature in a number of his stories and books, including The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Wild Sheep Chase, among others.
posted by Kafkaesque at 11:02 AM on March 24

Jenna Fischer (Pam on NBC's The Office) has a cat and organizes kitten rescues. Here's a People article, and here's a cat-related entry on her MySpace.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 11:10 AM on March 24

wikipedia: "Famous pets of other famous people" from the "List of cats" page.
posted by nicwolff at 12:22 PM on March 24

Christopher Walken! He's been known to take his cats on set with him. He also wrote the forward to this book on cat care.
posted by fujiko at 12:29 PM on March 24

Freddy Mercury adored cats. He was featured in an article in Cat Fancy magazine. The song Delilah, from Queen's last album Innuendo, was about one of his cats.
posted by kimdog at 12:35 PM on March 24

Or, I could read Oriole Adams comment.
posted by kimdog at 12:35 PM on March 24

Video proof of Freddie Mercury's cat love ('cause only a crazy cat lover would wear that vest!)
posted by vespabelle at 1:13 PM on March 24

Edward Weston, I read somewhere, had almost forty cats at one point. He lived on "Wildcat Hill".
posted by gyusan at 1:27 PM on March 24

I was looking for Steve Martin + cats and I came across this site, which has lots of photos of famous people and their cats.

Also, George Carlin
posted by creepygirl at 3:11 PM on March 24

Compton Mackenzie was a Siamese fan - president of a Siamese Cat Club. Beverley Nichols, mentions visiting him in the Hebrides and meeting four elderly Siamese lined up on the hot stove "thinking lofty Siamese thoughts".

Nichols is a prolific source of arch little cat-reminisces, but I don't know if he counts as 'famous' nowadays.
posted by Catch at 5:23 PM on March 24

William S. Burroughs wrote a book about the cats that he loved
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 6:19 PM on March 24

Lisa Germano has written a couple of songs that feature segments in which she talks to her cat, and her cat meows, and has written at least one piece of music that she named for the cat. Her cat's name was Miamo-Tutti -- this Salon article talks about his death, and the fact that she postponed a tour to take care of him.
posted by Coatlicue at 7:27 PM on March 24

Morrissey loves cats. There are quite a few pictures of him holding or petting cats (but, of course, I can't find them when I'm actually searching for them). He mostly expresses his love for cats (and other animals) through his animal rights activism, I suppose, but there was an extremely touching interview with him in LA Weekly from 2007. The cat conversation starts on the sixth page: 'I'm mystified by cats. I see a cat and I'm in a trance and the union begins.' About half-way down the page there is a very moving bit where he talks about losing beloved pet cats.

For pictures of famous people with cats (everyone from Davy Jones to Audrey Hepburn), there is this blog post.
posted by Mael Oui at 9:19 PM on March 24

Paul Gallico loved cats and wrote fiction about them as well as a manual for them to use when charming humans.
posted by Arqa at 1:47 AM on March 25

Siné.
posted by nicolin at 11:33 AM on April 6