 The bird was sold to a La Mesa, California couple who shared it with the Zoo.King Tut went on to appear in several films, television shows, and theater productions, and was the "official greeter" of the Zoo for decades, sitting on a perch inside the entrance to squawk at guests Following King Tut's death in 1990, a bronze statue of the cockatoo was placed in the location of its longtime perch and remains there today, its plaque indicating that the bird "was brought from Indonesia in 1925 by Frank Buck".Buck and Boardman divorced in 1927; when she later married a California packing company official, she told reporters "As long as I live, I don't want to see any animals wilder or bigger than a kitten."