It won't be hard to fill his shoes, as the big fellow didn't have any feet. But admirers worldwide say the whale of a movie star's heart will be missed.
Keiko, the aquatic star of the 1993 movie Free Willy, whose real-life struggles to become a free-wheeling whale made him the world's most famous sea creature weighing at least five tons, was found dead Friday. He was 27, one of only two male orcas to surpass the quarter-century mark (mostly) in captivity.
The former film giant died in "his winter quarters," as the Norway Post (aka "the doorway to Norway") put it, a Norwegian fjord in the town of Halsa that Keiko had frequented for the past year.
Cause of death was thought to be acute pneumonia. Keiko's private physician, also known as a vet, said the famously friendly big mammal was in "excellent" health until Thursday.
Halsa mayor Margrethe Saether said, per the Oslo newspaper, Aftenposten, that the coddled cetacean "initially seemed to have a cold." Keiko acted lethargic and lost his whale-sized appetite. By Friday night, he had beached himself at Halsa's local pier.
"I think this is downright sad," Saether said, according to Aftenposten.
The Free Willy Keiko Foundation, the nonprofit organization that led the often-fitful fight to return Keiko to open sea, celebrated, rather than mourned, the onetime Hollywood figure.
"Keiko was a champion; the most incredible whale," David Phillips, president and founder of the group said in a statement.
Born in the mid-1970s, the future movie-star mammal began life as a whale of modest means--no vet, no entourage, likely no name. In 1979, he was captured in waters near Iceland, installed in an aquarium and introduced to humans, two-legged primates who did thoughtful things for Keiko such as feed him lots and lots of fish.
The big break came in 1982, when he moved, or rather was taken, to Canada's Marineland in Ontario, and delighted audiences for the first time with a winsome whale act.
In 1985, Keiko was sold to a Mexican amusement park. Then, in 1993, the biggest break: A title role in a major motion picture.
Free Willy was the tale of Willy, a lowly amusement-park whale, who is befriended by a troubled young boy and encouraged to seek his fame and fortune on the high sea. Critic Roger Ebert called the scenes with the whale "very convincing," although Keiko shared the praise with the animatronic devices who eventually took over all acting chores in the franchise's two sequels.
Following the release of the first movie, activists argued that Willy's fin-and-blood portrayer deserved freedom, too. To that end, a United Parcel Service plane airlifted the hefty performer to an Oregon aquarium in 1996 in order to prepare Keiko for life on his own.
After nearly two years, Keiko continued to struggle with the concept of fishing, preferring to be hand fed by his helpful human friends. Undeterred, the Free Willy Keiko Foundation transported its charge to Iceland in 1998, this time, courtesy the U.S. Air Force.
Finally, in 2002, Keiko was deemed sufficiently self-sufficient and kicked out of the nest. He swam 870 miles on his lonesome before heading for a Norwegian inlet where local humans were more than happy to pet him and, of course, feed him.
At least one Norwegian whale expert suggested offing Keiko, but cooler heads prevailed in chilly Halsa, and the codependent creature became a beloved fixture.
The Humane Society of the United States called Keiko's misadventures a success story. "He came a long, long way and showed that returning captive whales to the wild is not simply a dream," Paul Irwin, the organization's president, said in a statement.
Burial plans were unclear. According to Aftenposten, Keiko, per custom, would either be hauled up to land, or "towed out to the open sea and slaughtered."
Happily, local officials told Reuters they would respect the wishes of Keiko's camp. Said a Norwegian fishing official to the wire service: "We understand that Keiko is special."