The Backstory: Famous Cat Lovers

You don’t have to be crazy about cats to be at least a little bit fascinated with them, hissing, murder mittens, and all. Great writers like Hemingway, Twain, and Dickens as well as folks like Lincoln, Churchill, Einstein, and Nightingale adored them. As did music icons like Freddie Mercury and John Lennon. They all felt cats gave them one thing . . peace.

Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, I admit it. I am obsessed with my
four-footed housemates. I have two beautiful 50-pound pups, Luna and Abby,
as well as two fabulous rescue cats, Ozzie and Rose.
But I just got the cats two years ago after
being catless for 20 years, and I gotta admit, they
fascinate me. I love it all, the soft fur, the purr,

(00:22):
and even the dreaded murder mittens. But you know what?
I'm not alone. I'm Patti Steele. Turns out some really
surprising folks in history, some of them notorious tough guys,
have been feline fanatics. That's next on The Backstory. We're
back with The Backstory. You don't have to be a

(00:43):
cat lover to be amazed at some of the folks who,
in some cases, liked cats better than people. I admit it.
When I'm sitting in my office on a rainy day
like today and I hear, as Ernest Hemingway called them,
my little purr factories, I'm totally content. After years as
a devoted dog mother, and I still am, I took

(01:03):
in two rescue cats and realized what I'd been missing.
Got me to thinking about folks in the past who
were devoted to their purr factories. We tend to remember
famous people for the big things they did and the
big positions they held. Presidents, war heroes, great writers, artists, scientists,
rock stars. But sometimes the most revealing thing about a

(01:23):
famous person isn't what they did in public. It's what
they did when a cat walked into the room. Of course,
we've all heard stories of Hemingway's cat fanaticism. His macho image,
big game hunter, fisherman, adventurer, makes his love for kitties
pretty amusing. He had at least 20 at a time
in his home in Key West, Florida, and even more

(01:46):
in his home in Cuba. And the house in Key West,
which you can tour, now has at least 60 of
his cat's descendants living there. In fact, the place is
famous for all its six-toed cats. Turns out, a sea
captain gave Hemingway a polydactyl cat named Snow White, and
they multiplied at the Hemingway home right up until today.

(02:07):
Another cat lover? Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War consumed the
last four years of his life, and one of the
few things that gave him peace were his cats. In fact,
Mary Todd Lincoln was once asked about her husband's hobbies.
She said, that's simple, there's just one, cats. There's a
touching story about Lincoln rescuing three stray kittens while visiting

(02:28):
the front line during the Civil War. He wouldn't leave
them behind. He had to bring them with him, even
for the war meetings going on. Lincoln said about cats,
His first two cats, Tabby and Dixie, were the first
cats to live in the White House as pets. Another

(02:51):
cat lover who had to guide his country through a
huge war was Winston Churchill. His cat Nelson was often
in war room meetings and at important state dinners and
got a lot of attention from their prime minister at both.
For his 88th birthday, he got a marmalade kitty, a ginger,
named Jock, and he adored it. To this day, his

(03:11):
country estate always has an orange cat named Jock on staff.
And Mark Twain, of course, was a superstar writer and
speaker in the last half of the 19th century. He
toured around the world speaking to huge crowds, but cats
were his first love. He didn't merely tolerate them, he
adored them. Twain usually had 20 at a time, but

(03:33):
dozens more over the years. He gave them unusual names
like Satan, Beelzebub, and Sour Mash, saying the cats chose
their own names, not him. When he traveled, he'd actually
rent cats while in various cities, so he was never
without a bunch of them. Twain said, in your relationship
with a cat, you negotiate with them. He had no

(03:53):
problem with that. He had plenty of experience with it.
He said, if man could be crossed with the cat,
it would improve man but deteriorate the cat. When a
man loves cats, I am his friend without further introduction.
Another writer who loved cats, Charles Dickens, who had a
cat named William. Weirdly, after William died, Dickens preserved one

(04:15):
of his paws and had it turned into a letter opener.
True story. And it's on display at the New York
Public Library. While Florence Nightingale transformed modern nursing, her obsession
with kitties is notable. She owned more than 60 cats
during her lifetime and even made arrangements for them in
her will. In the end, the woman who took such

(04:36):
great care of people had this to say... Cats possess
more sympathy and more feeling than human beings. Jumping forward
to the 20th century, genius Albert Einstein, another cat lover, said,
There are two means of refuge from the misery of life,
music and cats. And speaking of music and cats, there's

(04:56):
Queen icon Freddie Mercury. He wasn't just fond of cats,
he was famously devoted to them. At home, cats were
treated like members of the family, and he had tons
of them. One of his favorites was Delilah. In fact,
he wrote a song about her with the lyrics, You're
all claws and you bite. That's right, Delilah, you're the
apple of my eye. But the fascination with these amazing

(05:18):
beings isn't anything new. In the year 889, a 22-year-old
newly crowned emperor of Japan wrote about a new cat
he'd been given. He said, Taking a moment of my
free time, I wish to express my joy of the cat.
The color of the fur is peerless, reminiscent of the
deepest ink When it lies down, it curls in a

(05:38):
circle like a coin. When it stands, its cry expresses
profound loneliness, like a black dragon floating above the clouds.
I affixed a bow to its neck, but it did
not remain for long. In rebellion, it narrows its eyes
and shows its back and extends its needles. Ah yes,
the first documented reference to the infamous murder mittens. I

(06:02):
hope you're enjoying the backstory with Patti Steele. Please leave
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new episodes delivered automatically. And feel free to DM me
if you have a story you'd like me to cover
on Facebook, it's Patty Steele, and on Instagram, Real Patty Steele.

(06:23):
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
Premier Networks, The Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions.
Our producer is Mike Peseglia. Our writer is Jake Kushner.
New episodes are out every Tuesday and Friday. And feel
free to reach out to me with comments and story
suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook

(06:45):
at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to The Backstory with
Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't know you
needed to know.