Saw Caboret last night, good musical about herion junky whores/dancers and
nazis.  A guy danced with a gorilla too.
   
                      Thursday February 3 10:04 AM ET
                                      
                     Rags to Riches Gorilla Dies at 41
                                      
   ATLANTA (AP) - Willie B., the gorilla who spent more than 25 years in
    a cage with only a television for company, then gained a new life -
         and fatherhood - in a lushly remodeled habitat, has died.
                                      
     The 41-year-old gorilla had been sick since early January, when he
   caught the flu, then contracted pneumonia, which caused stress on his
                                   heart.
                                      
    Zoo Atlanta spokeswoman Gail Eaton said Willie B. died peacefully in
     his sleep Wednesday afternoon. ``He was surrounded by his gorilla
       family and the zookeepers who were caring for him,'' she said.
                                      
     The average lifespan of a gorilla in captivity is about 40 and the
                               record is 55.
                                      
     The silverback gorilla, named for former Atlanta Mayor William B.
     Hartsfield, was captured in Africa as a baby and spent years in a
      concrete-and-steel cage at the former Atlanta-Fulton County Zoo.
   Besides a caretaker, his only companion was a television on a shelf in
                           a corner of the cage.
                                      
    Troubles at the zoo led it to be labeled one of the nation's worst,
                   and it lost its accreditation in 1984.
                                      
      The zoo began making improvements, including construction of an
    outdoor gorilla habitat, and Willie B. was one of the first gorillas
                      released into it in early 1988.
                                      
     Already famous as the TV-watching gorilla, Willie B. now inspired
                       headlines about his love life.
                                      
     It took him some time to adjust after he was introduced to female
   gorillas. After a couple of unproductive matings, he set his sights on
       Choomba, who was already a mother. Choomba bore Willie's first
                             offspring in 1994.
                                      
    He fathered four other gorillas after that. As one Associated Press
   reporter wrote after his first mating, ``Willie B. has shown there is
         hope for even the most sheltered bachelors of the world.''
                                      
     Back in 1981, an Atlanta TV station handed Willie B. a suitcase to
   recreate a popular luggage commercial that showed an ape bashing - but
   not breaking - the product. Willie ripped the cover off the suitcase,
   ripped the two sides apart from the hinges, then filled one half with
                          water and drank from it.
                                      
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