2He was history's luckiest puppy. Abandoned in a German army kennel in the war-torn France of World War I. The town flattened by artillery fire. Only one-week old and still blind, starving with brothers and sisters that a desperate mother had no milk to feed. The German Shepherd puppy's chances of survival should have been zero. Then, an American G.I., on reconnaissance far head of this own unit, happened along. And so the Hollywood--and American--legend began that never faded. Starring in more than two-dozen films, as much a celebrity as any actor, he received the most votes for "best actor" in the first year of the Academy Awards. He kept the name that the G.I., Lee Duncan, had given him--a name taken from a Paris good-luck charm French children used to give to soldiers. It was Rin Tin Tin.