Co-Stars With Wolves : Bison Lumbering Toward Movie Fame Takes His Cues From Oreos

Rejected by his mother at birth, 3-year-old Cody can be forgiven the identity problems common to some rising young movie stars.

But the 1,600-pound bison, featured in a scene in which he attacks an Indian boy in “Dances with Wolves,” has a personality quirk that the priciest Hollywood psychoanalysts would find tough to remedy.

“He thinks he’s a dog,” said owner Mike Fogel, who raised the abandoned bison in his house with the family’s two Great Danes. “He still comes in the house on occasion.”

Cody’s performance as a frequent target of arrows and spears in the Kevin Costner film recently won him a follow-up role in the movie, “Radio Flyer.”

The shaggy beast has been commuting from a Piru ranch to the Columbia studio in Burbank since arriving last month from the Fogel buffalo farm in Minnesota.

His handlers said Cody has taken to the spotlight for one reason only--his insatiable craving for Oreo cookies. Upon hearing the sound of cellophane, he will virtually turn his massive frame on a dime and lick his lips.

During the busiest day of filming “Dances With Wolves,” he was coaxed through his scenes with offerings of more than four pounds of Oreos, which also boosted his energy level.

“He got a sugar buzz,” Fogel said.

Cody played most of the bison that were shot with arrows and spears, accepting without complaint the fake arrows and spears hung on his body, and the rubber-tipped arrows shot at his sides.

In his biggest scene, Costner shoots Cody as the bison charges an Indian boy who has fallen from a horse. For safety’s sake, it’s a mechanical stunt buffalo that drops at the boy’s feet.

Producer Jim Wilson said Cody was a godsend.

“You put that animal 50 yards away and, standing where I was with a camera, hold out an Oreo cookie, and damn if that buffalo didn’t come racing at you,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s top bovine star also was clearly unlike his peers and would separate from the herd at every opportunity.

“He didn’t have the faintest idea what those other beasts out there were, and they thought he was kind of queer too,” Wilson said. “He’s an incredibly friendly animal. He looks like a mature bull but doesn’t act like one.”

In “Radio Flyer,” Cody is cast as a mystical mentor to a 9-year-old boy victimized by an abusive father and neighborhood bullies. The boy meets the bison at a western roadside attraction. The buffalo reappears to him in ensuing dream sequences, at one point with fabricated tears in his eyes.

For one scene, the film’s producers needed Cody to eat marshmallows, which he refused to do until Fogel created marshmallows from the filling of several Oreo cookies, and then substituted real marshmallows once Cody cottoned to their shape.

Cody is one of the few bison among an estimated 90,000 in the United States that has been broken for a saddle. Fogel’s wife, Robin, plans to train Cody at barrel jumping.

National Buffalo Assn. Director Kim Dowling, who has met Cody, said he still has a wild streak and should not lead people to forget that bison can be vicious. Though Cody has never kicked or gored anyone, Fogel said he no longer will turn his back on the beast because Cody picked him up recently between the horns and dropped him 10 feet away.

For now, Cody can bask in the spotlight after paying his dues, like other actors, doing restaurant openings and school appearances in the Midwest. He now gets conditioning shampoos for visiting talent scouts along with his normal summertime bubble baths, Robin Fogel said.

“If he gets another movie,” she added, “we’ll build him a buffalo-shaped pool.”