Missouri Bicentennial: Marlin Perkins

I remember watching Mutual of Omaha’s Animal Kingdom on television when I was kid. I had no idea that, in addition to hosting the show, Marlin Perkins was a zookeeper in St. Louis.

Richard Marlin Perkins was born in Carthage, Missouri, on March 28, 1905, to Joseph Dudley Perkins, a circuit court judge, and Mynta Mae Miller. Mynta passed away when Marlin was seven. After nursing him through pneumonia, she succumbed to the disease. Joseph sent his three sons, Marlin was the youngest, to live with their aunt in Pittsburg, Kansas, where he went to school through eighth grade. Life on his aunt’s farm gave him a chance to observe animal, and catch small creatures such as possums, mice, frogs, turtles and insects that he kept in boxes in the crawlspace under the house. He attended high school at the Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri. (Wentworth closed in 2017 after more than 130 years in operation.)

Young Marlin’s love of animals showed itself at Wentworth, where he kept blue racers in his room. Blue racers are a nonvenomous snake found throughout the northern Midwest and parts of Canada. They eat rodents, frogs and other small prey. Though they are harmless to humans, they can grow to be large relative to many other snakes in the region—six feet or a little longer as adults. When school administrators found about it, they required Perkins to let them go.

After Joseph remarried, he brought Marlin back to Carthage, where he completed high school. Perkins went on to the University of Missouri to study agriculture before changing his major to zoology. He decided to leave the university in 1926 and took a job as a laborer on the grounds crew at the St. Louis Zoological Park. The zoo traces its history back to the 1904 World’s Fair, where the Smithsonian Institute constructed a large walk-through birdcage. The City of St. Louis bought the cage, which became the first element of the zoo that was eventually located in Forest Park.

Perkins excelled in his work. By 1928, he was appointed reptile curator. He grew the zoo’s collection from six to more than 500 reptiles and designed popular exhibits. The New York Zoological Gardens in Buffalo hired him as director in 1938. He moved on to Chicago to direct the Lincoln Park Zoo in 1944.

It was in Chicago that Perkins made his move into television. Zoo Parade, launch in 1945, was a live show that feature animals from the Lincoln Park Zoo. While displaying the animals, Perkins talked about their behavior and habitat. The program was distributed nationally until its end in 1955. In some television appearances, Perkins would allow himself to be bitten by nonvenomous snakes to show they were harmless—perhaps not deadly is a better is a better description; I’m not keen on anything biting me. While preparing for a segment of Zoo Parade in which he would extract venom from a rattlesnake, Perkins received a bite on the finger. He was taken to the hospital and someone filled in as host for that episode. Some people claimed to have seen the even on air, with some saying it occurred on Wild Kingdom, but the even was not filmed. Even so, that rattler was not the last venomous snake to bite Perkins.

Snakes were not the only dangerous animals he encountered. While working on Wild Kingdom episode in India, Perkins stood in front of an elephant as its driver gave it the order to lie down. He was took close, so the elephant reached out with a tusk and flung him ten feet. He broke his nose and three ribs among other injuries.

Sir Edmund Hillary selected Perkins in 1960 to lead the zoological section of his Himalayan expedition searching for the abominable snowman. He examined a supposed yeti scalp at a monastery and determined it came from a serow, a goat-like animal. He also determined that supposed yeti footprints were the tracks of other animals distorted and enlarged by the melting of snow.

Perkins returned to the St. Louis Zoo in 1962 as its second full-time director, where he worked until 1970. He remained director emeritus until his death from cancer on June 14, 1986. He also started working on Wild Kingdom, which he hosted form 1963 to 1985, shortly after his return to St. Louis. He filmed his segments in a studio at the zoo. Perkins used the platform to introduce Americans to conservation and promote the protection of endangered species. NBC ran the show for nine years. Mutual of Omaha continued to sponsor the show and syndicate it through its own network. The show ran on more than 200 television stations in North America, and its syndication spread to 40 countries.

In 1971, he and his wife, Carol, established the Endangered Wolf Center near Eureka, Missouri. Species conserved by the center are the Mexican wolf, red wolf, maned wolf (a type of fox), swift fox (the smallest wild canid in North American), painted dog and fennec fox (the smallest wild canid in the world).

Perkins published his autobiography, My Wild Kingdom, in 1982. His other books are Animal Faces, Marlin Perkins’ Zoo Parade and I Saw You Afar.

Perkins and his first wife, Elise More, had a daughter, Suzanne Perkins. His second wife, Carol, had three children from a previous relationship, Alice, Marguerite and Fred.

Wild Kingdom won four Emmy awards during Perkin’s tenure. The original series ran until 1988, with Jim Fowler taking over after Perkin’s retirement. Animal Planet revived it in 2002. A statue in Carthage’s Central Park memorializes him. The St. Louis Walk of Fame also commemorates him. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums awarded Perkins it highest award for professional excellence in 1978. He was the first recipient of the award and it still bears his name. He received the American Education Award in 1974. Several universities granted him honorary degrees including his alma mater, the University of Missouri. The Marlin Perkins Society, formed in 1991, recognizes significant annual contributors to the St. Louis Zoo.