Everything began in late 1917 when Charlie Chaplin decided to find a dog for his new film "A Dog's Life". First he knew what he didn't want : a trained dog. "These studio beasts are too well kept", he told a journalist. "What I want is a dog that can appreciate a bone and is hungry enough to be funny for his feed". Knowing how the mongrels were genuinely funny, he went to a pound and came back with 20 of them. Among them : Mut. Which soon became the star of the film. And the Mascot of the studio. But there was a problem. Charlie and Mut got along too well and, coming from a pound (life is hard folks) Mut really fell for the famous tramp, his master. Even if Charlie made him "whisky drunk" to shoot the famous pillow scene.
In a way, it was love and war who decided of the fate of this smart dog. Maybe because Mut came from a pound, he loved Chaplin too hard, too fast. And because it was World War I, Charlie Chaplin went away around the country to sell war bonds. Mut was so sad about it, he refused to eat and wandered around the studios searching for Chaplin for days and looking miserable. He died a few days before Chaplin's return. The loving pooch was buried on the studio grounds and, on his grave, they wrote : "Mut, died April 29th - a broken heart". "A Dog's Life" was Chaplin's biggest hit at the time. And all the world fell in love with Mut alias Scraps in the movie, the dog who loved too much...
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