Hollywood movie legend's daughter in desperate search for lost cat

The cat - called Teddy - disappeared soon after moving into his new home near Horsham with his owner Beatrice Welles. And distraught Beatrice had to fly back to America just two days later not knowing where he was.

Now she is hoping to track down little Teddy, a long-haired American Tabby, who is microchipped but not wearing a collar.

“I’m desolate over his disappearnce,” said Beatrice. “I know that something scared him and he has run far far away. He has been spotted so I know he’s alive.”

Beatrice, a former child actress, model and cosmetic artist, has long been an animal campaigner.

She spent much of her childhood in Sussex. Beatrice, her mother Paola Mori - a countess from a royal Italian family - and her actor-director father Orson Welles, lived in Sussex during Beatrice’s formative years from the age of 12 - 21.

“I became an avid show jumper, and Hickstead was my second home, literally,“ she said. “Douglas (Bunn) was like an uncle to me. Therefore I have very fond memories of this area.”

She decided to up sticks from her home in Arizona and move to Maplehurst - “it seemed the logical place to move to” - along with Teddy and her four other cats, although she still has a home in Los Angeles.

Now she is concentrating all her efforts on finding Teddy. Of all her cats - at one time she had eight - it was Teddy who “was always the most outgoing with a huge purr and slept on my chest when I was sick and bedridden for 13 months. We bonded probably more than the others.”

Anyone with any information about Teddy is asked to contact 07572 357200

Orson Welles, famed for the film Citizen Kane - described as the best film ever - died in 1985 and Beatrice’s mother died 10 months later following a car crash.