White Dog

The film is based on a true story. While she was living in Hollywood with her husband, writer Romain Gary, actress Jean Seberg brought home a large white dog she had found on the street that seemed friendly and playful. However, when the animal saw her Black gardener, it attacked him viciously, injuring him. Afterward, the couple kept it in the backyard, but one day, it got out and attacked another Black man on the street, but no one else. After this happened a third time, they realized that someone had trained the dog to attack and injure only Black people. Gary wrote a short piece about it for 'Life' magazine in 1970, which eventually became a full-length fiction novel.

Just before the White Dog finally takes the hamburger from his trainer, he looks up at him and, just under his lip, shows the edge of the prosthetics that hold his cheeks in a snarl.

Featured in From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995)