40 Fun Facts About The Beastmaster

The black panther Ruh in The Beastmaster was really which big cat, dyed black for the cameras?

A tiger played Ruh because tigers are easier to handle on a film set, and the star cat, Kipling, had six weeks of training before the cameras rolled.

In The Beastmaster, a witch magically moves the unborn Dar from the queen's womb into which animal?

A cow carries the stolen prince until the witch cuts him free and brands him. The sequel says this strange birth is what gave Dar his power over animals.

Dennis Miller joked that which TV channel's initials stood for a phrase about The Beastmaster being on?

HBO aired the film so often that the joke stuck. Cable repeats, not its modest run in cinemas, turned The Beastmaster into a cult favourite.

Which future Ghost star did The Beastmaster's director want as Kiri before a producer insisted on Tanya Roberts?

Demi Moore was a newcomer on the soap General Hospital when Don Coscarelli picked her. The executive producer overruled him, one of their many clashes over casting and editing.

Which actor, later the agency boss Zed in Men in Black, played the evil priest Maax in The Beastmaster?

Rip Torn's Maax murders a king named Zed in The Beastmaster. Fifteen years later Torn answered to that very name as the boss in Men in Black.

Which actor, soon to star as Mike Donovan in the 1983 miniseries V, played Dar in The Beastmaster?

Marc Singer played Dar in all three Beastmaster films, then returned in the TV series as Dartanus, a spirit warrior who helps the new Dar.

Kodo and Podo, the light-fingered pair who join Dar in The Beastmaster, are which kind of animal?

Ferrets Kodo and Podo steal belts and keys all through the film, and the production kept twenty of the animals on hand for the shoot.

Which Good Times star, also the adult Kunta Kinte in Roots, played the warrior Seth in The Beastmaster?

John Amos plays Seth as the fighter who gathers the rebel army and, at the end, recognises the brand that proves Dar is a king's son.

Tanya Roberts, who played Kiri in The Beastmaster, was Stacey Sutton in which James Bond film?

A View to a Kill made Tanya Roberts a Bond girl in 1985, in a part first meant for Priscilla Presley.

Critics measured The Beastmaster against which Arnold Schwarzenegger film released three months earlier in 1982?

Conan the Barbarian reached American cinemas in May 1982, and The New York Times judged The Beastmaster no better and no worse than it.

Sharak, the bird whose eyes Dar can see through in the Beastmaster films, is which kind of bird?

An eagle scouts for Dar from the sky. The bird supplied for the 1982 shoot was a wedge-tailed eagle, a species native to Australia.

Which author of the 1959 novel behind The Beastmaster had her name removed from the film's credits?

Andre Norton pulled her name after reading the script, which kept little of her book beyond a hero who shares thoughts with animals.

A TNT programmer said in 1993 that The Beastmaster trailed only which classic as the network's most popular movie?

Gone with the Wind was the only film more popular on TNT, whose programmer put The Beastmaster's pull down to its mythological appeal.

How does the high priest Maax finally die at the top of the temple in The Beastmaster?

Maax falls into sacrificial flames when little Kodo leaps on him, moments after a witch's magic has healed the wound Dar's blade gave him.

In Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time, Dar follows his enemy through a doorway into which modern city?

Los Angeles greets Dar with an arrest, a zoo cage for Ruh and a cinema marquee advertising Beastmaster 2 itself.

Don Coscarelli made The Beastmaster three years after which horror hit about a mortician called the Tall Man?

Phantasm was written, shot and edited by Coscarelli himself; The Beastmaster's $9 million was the biggest budget he had yet handled.

To promote The Beastmaster, the filmmakers arranged for Tanya Roberts to pose for which magazine?

Playboy put Tanya Roberts on its October 1982 cover, too late to help: The Beastmaster had already opened in August.

The Beastmaster's villain Maax was written for which German actor, who was lost in a dispute over salary?

Klaus Kinski, the volatile star of Werner Herzog's Aguirre and Nosferatu, was the first idea for Maax until money got in the way.

Tanya Roberts, Kiri in The Beastmaster, found a new audience as Midge Pinciotti on which sitcom?

That '70s Show kept Tanya Roberts on screen from 1998 to 2004, a long way from the slave girl of royal blood she played in 1982.

In The Beastmaster, young Dar first shows his gift by turning away which attacking animal with his mind?

A bear confronts the boy in the woods and he drives it off by thought alone, after which his father warns him to keep the gift secret.

Hosteen Storm, hero of the 1959 novel that inspired The Beastmaster, is a soldier from which Native American nation?

Navajo veteran Hosteen Storm herds livestock on a distant planet beside his team of altered animals, a space-age tale the film swapped for swords and sorcery.

In The Beastmaster, the slave girl Kiri turns out to be what relation to the imprisoned King Zed?

His niece: Kiri is a cousin to young Tal and so, though neither of them knows it yet, to Dar himself.

The Beastmaster's cinematographer John Alcott won his Oscar for lighting which Stanley Kubrick film by candlelight?

Barry Lyndon won John Alcott the Academy Award for scenes lit only by candles. Seven years later he was filming sword fights in California and Nevada.

In The Beastmaster, Kodo and Podo steal Dar's belt and lead him straight into which natural hazard?

Quicksand nearly ends the quest early, until Dar orders the two thieves by thought to bite off a branch he can pull himself out with.

In The Beastmaster, Maax watches the heroes in his magic pool through an all-seeing eye set in which object?

A ring worn by one of Maax's servants carries the eye. Young Tal ends up wearing it, so the priest learns the rebels' plan before Seth destroys it.

In The Beastmaster, where on his body is the infant Dar branded with the mark that later proves his birth?

His palm carries a spiral burned in by the witch who stole him, and at the end Seth sees it and realises Dar is the king's firstborn.

Which Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star plays police lieutenant Coberly in Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time?

James Avery was a year into playing Philip Banks on TV when cinemas saw him as the cop who has Dar arrested and Ruh sent to the zoo.

Which Candyman star took over as the warrior Seth in the TV movie Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus?

Tony Todd played Seth in 1996, four years after Candyman, as adviser to a grown-up King Tal.

Which Starship Troopers lead played King Tal, Dar's younger brother, in Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus?

Casper Van Dien wore the crown a year before Starship Troopers made him a star as Johnny Rico.

Which future Lost star played the forest demon Curupira in the Beastmaster TV series?

Emilie de Ravin was a teenager when she first played Curupira, years before she was Claire on Lost and Belle in Once Upon a Time.

Which British actor, a villain in Tron and Time Bandits, plays the evil Lord Agon in Beastmaster III?

David Warner's Lord Agon sacrifices prisoners to win back his youth while he hunts an amulet that could free a god of darkness.

Which composer of the Miami Vice theme wrote the music for the TV movie Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus?

Jan Hammer, once the keyboard player of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, scored Dar's third outing more than a decade after his Miami Vice theme.

Which Australian actor, later Cane Ashby on The Young and the Restless, played Dar in the Beastmaster TV series?

Daniel Goddard went home to Australia to film the show's three seasons, then spent twelve years on American daytime television.

The Beastmaster TV series took its demons Curupira and Iara from the folklore of which country?

Brazil's Curupira is a forest guardian who punishes people for overcutting the trees, a fitting spirit for a hero who protects animals.

In the TV movie Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus, Dar's big cat Ruh is played by which animal?

A lion took the part of Ruh for the television film, the third different look for Dar's big cat in three outings.

Which Nevada state park, named for its red sandstone, supplied desert landscapes for The Beastmaster?

Valley of Fire, Nevada's oldest state park, stood in for Dar's wilderness, while most of the film was shot on an oil company's land in California.

In The Beastmaster, which city has the priest Maax seized from King Zed, sacrificing its children to his god?

Aruk is the city Dar crosses the wilderness to reach, and by birth its throne is his, though he hands it to his younger brother Tal.

Which savage horde, allied with the priest Maax, burns Dar's home village at the start of The Beastmaster?

The Juns leave Dar the only survivor of his village, and their chieftain later recognises him and challenges him to single combat.

In Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time, which modern weapon does the warlord Arklon cross dimensions to steal?

A neutron detonator strong enough to lay waste to a continent is Arklon's prize, taken from an Army research centre already armed and counting down.

Sarah Douglas, the witch Lyranna in Beastmaster 2, was already famous as which Kryptonian villain in Superman II?

Ursa was the part Sarah Douglas won over more than 600 other actresses, and it became her signature role.