London becomes Hobo
London is formally credited as the canine performer in the 1958 feature The Littlest Hobo. He brought the wandering German Shepherd to the screen for the first time, helping to establish the character that later television audiences would know so well. The credit belongs to London, although surviving material does not tell us whether another dog helped with any individual shot.
Chuck later told the story of this production under the name The Miracle of the Lamb. That was his later recollection of the film, not a documented official working title.
A second starring role
Two years later London returned to the screen as Buddy in My Dog, Buddy. The film was made in Dallas and released in 1960, and it took Chuck and London on a publicity tour through Texas. Once again London received the formal dog credit, with Chuck appearing in the film as a patrol officer. Chuck’s later accounts say that Thorn sometimes stood in for London during the production, an early sign of the family of dogs beginning to share the work.
Years later, Chuck described London I as having appeared in two full-length motion pictures. Those two secure credits give the original London a remarkable film career of his own.
The name carried on
By the early 1960s, the screen story was becoming bigger than one dog. Thorn, Toro, London Jr. and other members of the family were taking on work of their own, while the name London increasingly followed the Hobo character as well as an individual dog. A dog named London was credited in Just Between Us in 1961, but we can’t be sure from the information we’ve found that this was the original London. Later television made that distinction even harder, as younger dogs appeared to audiences under the familiar Hobo identity.
The original London’s own screen career was relatively brief. What he began was not. The character he first brought to life, and even his name, continued through generations of dogs after him.