Jim Stockley

Born in England in 1953, Jim is descended from a European circus family whose involvement with trained animals dates back 325 years, to the great "Frost Fair" in London in 1684. His family moved to South Africa in 1964. He went back to the UK in the 1970s but returned to South Africa in 1982 to work with 28 lions on the set of "Crazy Jungle Adventure " (aka "Im Dschungel ist der Teufel los").

He is now based in KwaZulu-Natal where the family owns and run a Zoo as well as two Game Ranches. Jim trains and supplies animals for the South African film industry and has supplied lions, tigers, cheetahs, elephants, giraffe, rhino, chimps, baboons and hyenas to 100s of TV commercials and feature films over the past 25 years.

He married Silvana Taggiasco in 1975 and they have a son, Jamie Stockley (born 1979), who also trains animals for film. Jamie trained some of the cheetahs that appear in Carroll Ballard's film "Duma".

Jim's great-grandfather, James Francis Chipperfield (1849-1917) was one of the first to exhibit moving films inside a circus tent in 1899 "Chipperfields Electric Theatre". By 1903 this had become "Chipperfields Imperial Cinematograph". His son, Richard Chipperfield (1875-1959) (Jim's grandfather) owned and operated one of the first proper cinemas in England and made his own films, including scenes shot in Stratford in 1910.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Stockley