Ivan the gorilla smoked, ate hamburgers, sipped Coke and sulkily watched a black and white TV in his small cage as shoppers stared at him.
Thousands of visitors came to see the 500lb silverback at the US shopping centre where he spent 27 years.
But deprived of any physical touch or fresh air, his behaviour was disturbingly unnatural for such a majestic endangered animal.
Despite his years in captivity, Ivan’s story had a happy ending and it has been made into a film released on Disney + on Friday, The One and Only Ivan which features Bryan Cranston.
Born in 1962 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the western lowland gorilla and his twin sister Burma were two years old when they and six others were captured by wildlife traders.
All but Ivan died in the eight-week transit.
Ivan was sold to businessman Earl Irwin, who owned the B&I shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington State, and he arrived in America as a 9lb bundle of black soft hair and skin.
Ivan spent his first couple of years living with the Johnston family, who owned the pet shop at the mall.
Their 13-year-old son Larry became his best friend who slept, ate and visited the shops with him.
Larry said: “Ivan became like a little brother. Gorillas are very family-oriented, and for some reason he chose to bond with me as his alpha.
“The connection I had with this wonderfully intelligent creature. He was very instinctive, loving and trusting.
“Once we bonded, we were inseparable. We rode motorcycles together – he would just hop on top of my shoulders. If he got excited he would tap my helmet and I’d have to concentrate to keep control of the motorcycle. We did everything together.”
After three years as a family pet, Ivan grew too big and boisterous for the Johnston family home, where he would swing from light fittings and curtains.
“There was not a stick of furniture left in our house that was even worthy of re-upholstering,” said Larry.
“Things were literally shredded down to the frames. We had just bought a new house, new furniture, and he ransacked everything.”
Ivan rolled a bowling ball down the stairs into the washing machine. And, unhappy at being left alone one day, he upended a 30-gallon aquarium full of fish, ran down the street and rushed into a neighbour’s home.
“He scared the lady to death,” Larry said. “It’s a wonder we never got sued.”
The Johnstons decided something had to change, albeit reluctantly.
“You don’t cast off family members easily,” said Larry. “And as much as Ivan was a pain in the rear, he was a joy to have around.”
Ivan was transferred to a dim 14ft by 14ft cement cage in the mall, next to a T-shirt shop.
Earl Irwin’s son Ron made the decision not to let anyone into his cage, based on advice from so-called experts who said he could get ferocious and might attack.
It meant Ivan not only had no contact with gorillas, but lost all physical contact with humans.
He could only stare at shoppers from behind unbreakable glass.
The closest thing he had to vegetation was a painted jungle mural on his wall. He was deprived of fresh air and sunshine. He had a mundane existence as a solitary exotic exhibit.
Ivan earned his keep by featuring in mall promotions and ads: riding a tricycle over the Narrows Bridge, holding a baby in his arms and posing for a postcard.
In his early years, he delighted and terrified shoppers by pounding his glass cage with his fist and laughing uproariously as they jumped. But as the years rolled by he became quieter. And as people became more aware of animal welfare, his matted fur and depressed demeanour were noticed.
Bradley Henderson said: “I grew up with Ivan. Every time I went to Tacoma he would be my first stop on my way to my grandmother’s house.
“I used to just sit at the window with him for a couple hours and he was really fascinated with my wheelchair. If someone got close to me he would bang on the window and the other people would freak out.”
Various keepers tried to keep Ivan happy. They organised surprise ways to feed him by dangling bananas on a string. They played with him through the bars and hatches of the cage, like tug of war. They fed him celery, peeled apples and an occasional sip of Coke.
Animal rights groups protested at his “barbaric imprisonment” in 1987 and urged the owners to re-home him somewhere more natural.
But for years, Ron Irwin resisted, saying: “He’s probably the healthiest gorilla in America. Moving him across the country would kill him. Nobody seems to care about that.”
The campaign to release Ivan pressed on. The Progressive Animal Welfare Society, or Paws, collected thousands of signatures petitioning for his re-homing.
In 1991, National Geographic Explorer aired a documentary narrated by Glenn Close called The Urban Gorilla, which put Ivan’s plight in the headlines.
In 1995, after years of legal wrangling, Ivan set foot on grass for the first time in 30 years at Woodland Park Zoo. He soon found a permanent home at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia.
Ivan was tentative about socialising with other gorillas at first. And despite flirting with females, he never fathered any offspring. While other gorillas preferred to stay far back from the glass separating them from zoo visitors, Ivan sat right in front of them, just as he had done at the mall.
He amused visitors with his paternal antics and tendency to cover his head with a sack when it rained.
By August 2012 Ivan had been losing weight and, after 18 years at the zoo, started to show signs of aches and pains. Later that month a large tumour was found in his chest and Ivan died aged 51. He was one of the oldest gorillas in captivity.
Fans sent Ivan birthday cards all his life, and also sent flowers and condolences after his death.
A book called The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, told Ivan’s story through his eyes and inspired the new film.
A 6ft bronze of Ivan was unveiled in Tacoma in 2016. Among the crowd standing in the rain were Jodi Carrigan, who had cared for Ivan at Zoo Atlanta, and Ivan’s first best friend Larry Johnston.
Together the pair fought back tears as they shared stories of Ivan, the intelligent and iconic gorilla.
“His legacy is tremendous,” said Jodi. “And it’s a legacy that will always live to benefit his species.”
