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(Denver, CO) – An alligator who appeared in numerous films and TV shows over a 30 year period has died. Morris the alligator was at least 80 years old when he passed on to the other side — at a gator farm in southern Colorado. He was perhaps best known as the alligator that bit off Chubbs (played by Carl Weathers) hand in the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy “Happy Gilmore.”
The Colorado Gator Farm notes the gators’ growth rate and tooth loss in putting his age near the 80 mark. He was almost 11 feet long, weighing in at 640 pounds. Jay Young is the farm’s owner and operator, and he posted a video in which he tearfully petted Morris’ head during the animal’s final days. Young tells Eyewitness News in New York City that “(Morris) started acting strange about a week ago. He wasn’t lunging at us and wasn’t taking food.”
Morris was found in a Los Angeles backyard in 1975 — where he was being housed as an illegal pet. He launched his Hollywood career in 1975 before retiring from films in 2006. That’s when he was sent to the gator farm in Mosca, Colorado. Morris appeared in “Happy Gilmore” as well as “Interview with the Vampire,” “Dr. Dolittle 2” and “Blues Brothers 2000.” He also appeared on “Coach,” “Night Court” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” featuring the late wildlife expert Steve Irwin.
Adam Sandler, the star of the golfer-hockey player film, paid tribute to Morris in an Instagram video. He said: “We are all gonna miss you. You could be hard on directors, make-up artists, costumers – really anyone with arms or legs – but I know you did it for the ultimate good of the film,” Sandler wrote. “The day you wouldn’t come out of your trailer unless we sent in 40 heads of lettuce taught me a powerful lesson: never compromise your art.”
There are plans underway to preserve the reptile’s body at the Colorado Gator Farm. On Facebook the farm said, “we have decided to get Morris taxidermied so that he can continue to scare children for years to come. It’s what he would have wanted.”
