Grumpy Cat showed up in Metro Vancouver in 2014 to film a movie

Nearly five years before the Internet's most famous cat passed away, she slinked through Metro Vancouver for her feature-film debut.

Grumpy Cat, the pussy with the permanent frown who diedthis weekat the age of seven, was in town August 2014 to filmGrumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever.

The Lifetime channel moviecame less than two years after the feline's rise to fame in 2012, when photosof hersurly mug circulated online.

The film features a 12-year-old girl who adopts the cat from a mall pet shop and discovers the cat can speak.

Scenes were filmed at the Coquitlam Centre mall,according to the online film database IMDB.

The cat's trademark sourpuss look likely resulted from her dwarfism, according to the animal's website.

'A very, very happy cat'

But beneath that frown was a "munchkin cat," said Will Braden, director of the Cat Video Fest in Seattle.

"She was,unlike the persona, a very, very happy cat," Braden told CBC on Friday, shortly after her death was announced online.

"She just was one of those cats that didn't seem to be bothered at all."

Braden, the mind behind another famed Internet feline,Henri Le Chat Noir, first met Grumpy Cat at the height of her popularity in 2013 in Minneapolis, Minn.

He later ran into the catat other events in Los Angeles, including one festival that drew a three-hour-long lineup of guests who wanted to meet the viral star.

"It was like a Kardashian. It was crazy," he said.

Braden said he was surprised and saddened by news of Grumpy Cat's death, but said she left behind a good legacy.

"She made a lot of people smile and distracted a lot of people from actual grumpy things in life by giving them a laugh or two."