Fernando Celis(I)
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
- Actor
After a 50-year career supervising and working with wild animals in
the movie industry in Hollywood and around the world, adding over a
hundred film credits to his resume, and with another similar number of
credits gathered from coordinating and performing as a stuntman also in
Hollywood movies and television serials, it was time for F. Celis
Belina to retire and dedicate himself full-time to a new career as a
novelist. In 1963, Belina's small private collection of wild animals in
Acapulco, Mexico-including several lions, a young Indian elephant,
three young chimpanzees, two leopards, and assorted smaller native
animals-opened the doors to Hollywood, when his collection of animals
and the natural and accessible jungles in the area attracted Tarzan and
his movie crew for the first of several movies and a television series,
to be filmed in the Acapulco area in years to come. The same production
company took Belina and the animals to the jungles of Brazil for almost
two more years. And from there, they all were taken to Hollywood,
California. Being the only person who would wrestle with his own big
cats opened new horizons for Belina when he started doing work as a
stuntman. Very soon, he was wrestling other people's animals. Horse
falls, high falls, and bar fights came next, followed by car chases and
car rolls, and getting blown away by all kinds of weapons, including
those of extraterrestrials. Eventually, this movie career led him to
the idea for writing Land of the Elephants.
