Education
Seiler graduated from the Porter Military Academy, now the exclusive Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1950.
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Sonny Seiler
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Career
He is also famous as the owner of the University of Georgia Bulldogs live mascots Uga, a series of successively numbered English bulldogs. Seiler practices law in Savannah, Georgia where he is a senior partner at Bouhan Falligant Limited Liability Partnership. In 1973 he served as president of the State Bar of Georgia. Because of his and Uga"s role in the story Seiler was cast in the film of the book as Judge White, who presided over Williams" trial.
He has since appeared in two other movies filmed in Savannah, The Legend of Bagger Vance and The Gingerbread Manitoba
His firm"s office, Armstrong House, was featured, along with other locations in Savannah, in the original 1962 film Cape Fear starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Since the 1950s, Seiler and his family have owned and maintained the unbroken line of live mascots of the University of Georgia, English bulldogs known successively as Uga I - X.
He was given the bulldog by a former beau of Gunn"s, intended to insult Mr.
Seiler. The new puppy was said to be the grandson of a white bulldog who traveled with the Georgia football team for the 1943 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
On September 29, 1956 the Seilers brought Uga I with them to Sanford Stadium for the first Georgia Bulldogs football home game of the year, against the Florida State Seminoles. Dan Magill, the Sports Information Director for the UGA Athletic Association at the time, took notice of a picture of Uga I from that game and suggested to UGA football head coach Wally Butts that Seiler have Uga attend subsequent games as the official team mascot.
This began a tradition of Uga or one of his descendants being present at every University of Georgia football game, home and away. His fifth successor, Uga VI, who, like his progenitors, was a pure white bulldog, was the vanguard of this tradition from 1999 until his death in 2008 at Seiler"s Savannah home.
Uga VII replaced Uga VI for the team"s highly anticipated 2008 season, however, officials initially questioned its readiness.
Uga VII died on November 19, 2009, of congestive heart failure. In its April 28, 1997 issue Sports Illustrated named Uga the nation"s best college mascot. Uga has been the only dog allowed in the State building in Georgia, and summer of 2006 was the 50th anniversary of the Uga line.
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He was featured in the bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, as the lawyer who defended Savannah antiques dealer Jim Williams in a notorious murder case.
