John James Audubon

I think this is probably the first time the Franco–American naturalist John James Audubon has ever been accused of being an actor.

He was born in 1785, in what is now Haiti. His father, Jean Audubon, was a French naval officer; his mother, Jeanne Rabine, was a chambermaid. You may not be surprised (having read the previous sentence) that his parents were not married to each other. The child was originally named Jean Rabin, but his mother died when he was a few months old and he was taken in by his father, who already had several mixed–race children.

The younger Audubon learned to play the violin and flute, and to ride, fence and dance. He loved to roam in the woods, often returning with birds' eggs and other natural curiosities, which he would crudely sketch. His father wanted him to go to sea, but he suffered from seasickness and failed the officer's qualification.

In 1803, when he was 18 years old, his father obtained a false passport. This enabled him to go to the United States, thus avoiding conscription into the Napoleonic Wars. His father set him up in business with the son of one of his associates. The younger Audubon found himself living on the family estate in Pennsylvania – an ideal location in which to pursue his interest in natural history. It was here that he met met Lucy Bakewell, and they married in 1808. Meanwhile he conducted the first known bird–banding experiment in North America; by tying strings around their legs, he learned that Eastern Phoebes returned to the same nesting sites each year.

Audubon was quite successful in business for a while, eventually travelling down the Ohio River to western Kentucky (the American frontier at this time) and setting up a dry–goods store in Henderson. He continued to draw birds as a hobby, amassing an impressive portfolio. While in Kentucky, Lucy gave birth to two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, as well as a daughter who died in infancy. But the business eventually fell on hard times, and in 1819 he was briefly jailed for bankruptcy.

With no other prospects, Audubon set off on his epic quest to depict the birds of America, with nothing but his gun, artist's materials, and a young assistant. Floating down the Mississippi, he lived a rugged hand–to–mouth existence in the South while Lucy earned money as a tutor to wealthy plantation families. In 1826 he took his partly finished collection to England, where he became an overnight success. His life–size, highly dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life, hit just the right note at the height of the Continent's Romantic era. Audubon found a printer for the Birds of America – first in Edinburgh, then in London – and later collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the Ornithological Biographies – life histories of each of the species in the work.

The last print was issued in 1838, by which time Audubon had achieved fame and a modest degree of comfort, travelled the USA several more times in search of birds, and settled in New York City. He made one more trip out West in 1843, and this provided the basis for his final work: the Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which was largely completed by his sons. The text was written by his long–time friend, the Lutheran pastor John Bachman (whose daughters married Audubon's sons). Audubon spent his last years in senility and died in 1851, aged 65. He is buried in New York City.

Audubon's story encapsulates the spirit of young America, when the wilderness was limitless and beguiling. He was a man of legendary strength and endurance, as well as a keen observer of birds and nature. Like his peers, he was an avid hunter, and he also had a deep appreciation and concern for conservation; in his later writings he sounded the alarm about the destruction of birds and habitats. His name lives on today not just through his books and paintings, but through the National Audubon Society. Founded in 1886, this has branches throughout the USA and Canada, supporting the study and protection of birds. Much of the biographical detail in this note is from the Society's website (enhanced by some from Wikipedia).

Although The Birds of America is much his most famous work, the Viviparous Quadrupeds should be enough to justify the acceptance of "mammals" as an alternative answer to this question. Although as "birds" and "mammals" comprise the most likely parts of the animal kingdom, it may have been better to ask what was the subject of his best known work, first published as a series in sections between 1827 and 1838.

IMDb does mention an actor called Audubon, who it says is "known for Changing Diego (2012)". But this is literally all it says about him, and Wikipedia doesn't feature either Audubon or Changing Diego. I can find no more information about this actor.