‘Old Yeller’ Star Beverly Washburn Reveals How She Befriended the Dogs

Old Yeller star Beverly Washburn has a secret from her time on the set of the beloved film.

Washburn, 81, opened up about her career — including the over 500 projects she appeared in as a child star, beginning at age 3 — at MidSouth Nostalgia Festival on June 5. “I went on countless auditions,” she remembered, per Remind Magazine.

One of Washburn’s most iconic roles was in Walt Disney’s 1957 film Old Yeller. Tommy Kirk played Travis, a boy who finds a stray dog he names Old Yeller. The pair bond over the course of the movie, but Old Yeller is ultimately bitten by a rabid wolf defending Travis, Washburn’s Lisbeth and his mother (Dorothy McGuire). Travis ultimately puts Old Yeller down. But at the movie’s end, Travis accepts one of the puppies Old Yeller sired before his death.

“I loved working on Old Yeller,” Washburn said at the event. “That was one of the thrills for me because I’ve always been a huge animal lover.” She remembered that Old Yeller was actually a rescue dog they found in the pound. She called the movie, which took three months to make, “one of my favorite things I’ve ever done.”

But she also revealed a secret item they used on set to get the dogs — including the little puppies —  to do what they wanted. “One of the tricks I learned on set to get the puppy to kiss me was to put Gerber’s chicken-flavored baby food on my neck,” she remembered. “It matched my skin color, so the camera never saw it.”

Washburn also remembered her crush on Kirk, who died in 2021 at 79. “We went steady for a week. He gave me a very romantic ring. It was a skull and crossbones,” she said. As an adult, he lived in Las Vegas, where Washburn also lived. “He used to come to dinner all the time. We were very dear friends,” she shared. She added, “There were only seven people in the whole movie. Sadly, I am the only one still alive.”

Other roles for Washburn as a child included episodes of TV shows like Dragnet, Leave It to Beaver, and Gidget, and movies like Shane and The Lone Ranger. In 1967, she starred in the cult horror film Spider Baby.  Washburn also appeared as a guest star on Star Trek, the original series. 

“I was so young, I didn’t know I was being directed by Cecil B DeMille or George Stevens or Frank Capra,” Washburn said of her early career. “I didn’t realize how blessed I was until I was older.”

Washburn told the DeSoto Times-Tribune in an article published June 6 that she doesn’t know why she still gets fan mail or excited fans at conventions, but it means a lot to her. “I’m not really famous,” she said. “But when you touch somebody like that, when they cry because they grew up watching you and can’t believe they are actually meeting me, it means so much to me.”

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She also told the outlet that many fans tell her they still can’t watch the end of Old Yeller because the dog’s death is too sad. But Kirk had a different perspective on the message at the end. “Tommy’s take on it is that it teaches you about love and loss,” Washburn said. “It’s not about replacing an animal when it dies. It’s about giving another one a chance and loving it and being able to love again. He thought it was a good lesson.