Sunday, January 08, 2006

Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus 1935/White ticket wagon


After the Buccaneer loss and the unveiling of "Ice Follies" the tone at the Club was a mixture of shock and horror which required immediate passage to the bar.
Were it not for the consolation of Dan Draper and Dale Riker the evening might have been a real downer but such was not the case.
Had a terific conversation with Jim Clubb who identified yesterday's pictures of the elephants playing cricket as those being responsible for the accidental death of George Lockhart in 1904 during a runaway at a train station. So this would date the pictures to 1905-06.
John Herriott told a fascinating story last night regarding Joe Hayworth whom you may recall worked a cat act on both the Dailey Show in the 1940's and Gil Gray in the 1950's.
When Clyde Beatty left the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus to go with the Cole Show in 1935 he was replaced by Blackaman as seen on the ticket wagon above. What I didn't know was that he was brought up from Mexico and his two cage boys were Hayworth and Franz Czeisler the owner of today's Circus Tihaney.

I've got a glitch in my computer. I'm not being alerted that someone has posted a message and the only way I become aware is when I scroll down. This is OK for the items posted this week but anything further back I have no way of knowing.
Shannon says the problem is on the other end and should take care of itself. If not he will contact the Blog people Monday.

Posted by Buckles at 1/08/2006 07:34:00 AM

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mornin' Buckles, How well did this guy do, and for how long, I remember him from the W.C. Fields movie "You can't cheat an honest man" along with Edgar Bergan. The movie , to me is hysterical, one liners really flying. L.S.

08 January, 2006 08:00
Buckles said...

I'm sure he was equally sensational as the Alligator guy with Ken &Nicole.
Johnny continued that after several seasons working the cat act, Gil Gray wanted somethinbg different and Hayworth immediately came up with a Blackaman theme.
Gil sent to New York for a fright wig but in winter quarters when Joe did a dress rehearsal and revealed a concentration camp type torso Gil almost fell off his chair. I guess things worked out OK tho.

08 January, 2006 08:26
Anonymous said...

Joe Horowrath(sp) or Hayworth, if we're talking about the same guy, was the one sent by D.R.Miller in January 1970 to pick up some of the St. Louis Zoo cats when Jules left. Robert Baudy was the dealer/broker. Joe got 2 lions and 4 tigers from the Dick McGraw act and 3 lions that belonged to Jules. The McGraw act didn't bother him but working Jules'lions were a challenge. They had been pets or other experiences in life that made them a little unusual. The McGraw animals were already older and weren't around to long. I would see an occassional photo in a tabloid about some trainer on C-B getting hit by one of Jules' old lions in the early 70s.

08 January, 2006 10:10
Anonymous said...

I wondered where the "AFRO" came from, I heard stories that he used to rub Lion urine in his hair to make himself more accepted by the cats.

08 January, 2006 10:49
Anonymous said...

Jim A Was Okie Carr one of the men who got nabbed by these lions? He was my cage boy on Kelly Miller and almost got killed when he tried to be a lion tamer on the Carson Barnes Show. You can be around wild animals for years and think you know what to do. It does not work that way. Either you have it or you don't. I had never seen a wild animal or a circus before I joined one. I had the greatest teachers in the world [ FOR ME]. At nineteen you can learn wonderful things if you want to bad enough and are wiling to work at it.

08 January, 2006 11:41
Anonymous said...

Rebecca, can't say. I met Okie several years later when he was doing the cat act and the elephants. I remember one of the pictures of a charge. The trainer, Count Somebody, was dressed like Damoo, turban and all, and had an understandible look of fear. Some of us that worked with Jules recognized the lion as David, a small cat who did several tricks. He was a former pet that worked at his own pace, if you tried to speed him up he'd climb right up the stick. All of this would have occured in the mid 70s. Several of the props were around longer than the cats.

I don't remember the exact prices for the cats. I'm sure the Zoo was eager to unload them. It was at a time when Lion Safari parks were popular and lions were more expensive than tigers.

08 January, 2006 12:21
Anonymous said...

I bought my two baby lions from the Hattisburg Zoo for $10 a piece. Three months old. Sarah and Babe, names after Buckles Mom. The Zoo could not afford to feed them. My Leopard from on top of Smokie Mountain Petting Zoo for $400. Sheena, from Queen of the Jungle TV series.

08 January, 2006 13:14
Anonymous said...

You just never know about cats that have been raised as pets -- and god knows there are a bunch of them out there in so called sanctuaries now. When I was around tweleve my grandmother died and we ended up with her ocelot. Nasty cat that had always ruled the roost. She would lay in doorways forcing you to try to step over her to go from room to room, then go for your lower legs when you did. My dad had a puma then that wouldn't so much as blink if he told her not to, and it used to frustrate the heck out of him that the ocelot wouldn't listen to him at all except on a leash. Of course it lived to be way older than it should have. The only thing that scared it were my mother's Jack Russell Terriers, who lit into it as a gang of four the first time it tried stalking them around the house. I think they kept her treed on top of a china cabinet for a whole day.

08 January, 2006 13:54
Anonymous said...

My Jack Russel scares me.[Spot] Smartest pet in my group, if he wants to do what you ask him to. He will take his sweet time doing anything else. He rooms with my Beagle and tries to drive her nuts. The Beagle [Saprano] is nuts to start with. She forgets everything she learned the day before. Its always training, training, training every day with her. Its been two years now, so I guess we will just live with it.

08 January, 2006 16:11
Anonymous said...

Roger and I were trying to remember the name of the female lion CHUBBY is as close as I can come to remembering her name. The finish of the act was her being drug by her tail out of the arena. She was some bitch. She was in season when getting ready for our first date in Michigan. Gene Garner had no problem with her. Jules had died I think and Paul and Dottie got these lions out of a basement they said. A man of color had tried to work them. I do not know what happened there. You hear so many stories and it is nice for someone who knew something about these animals to comment. Do you know anything to add? This man may have worn a turban, and called a Count???/

08 January, 2006 18:28
Anonymous said...

Does anyone know what became of Patricia White who worked the Carson And Barnes cats in the mid and late eighties? Lance

08 January, 2006 18:58
Anonymous said...

Rebecca,I don't if there's any connection or even the right time frame but Hoxie Tucker had a black man
working lions in the 1970's. He wore a turban and was billed as Prince Bogino.It seems I remember reading he left Hoxie to be canvas boss on Vargas.

08 January, 2006 19:21
Bob Cline said...

Lance,
The gentleman you refer to is in real life called Manual Ruffin. He was working with Universoul the last I heard in management, He called me about leasing my tiger act for their first year out and they even came out here but I was scared to death about someone else working them when I had two hot heads in the act to start with.
Bob

09 January, 2006 05:46
Anonymous said...

Rebecca and Lance: The female lion from Jules act that did the tail pull was named Cubby, the comedy cat -- you were close. She also could roll a globe without a track. The Zoo sold 15 lions and a tiger to Jules in Jan. 1956 and he took them to Paul Kelly's WQ. They divided the act, males and females. Jules comment on the business arraingement with Kelly was, if you don't own the truck you're not a full partner. Jules left around 1958 and worked at Jungleland until he returned to the Zoo in 1962. He died in Jan. 1971.

I saw Pat White last week in Davenport, FL at the Horseshoe Creek Sanctuary working with big cats. I know she worked a Cuneo tiger act for awhile and has another training job coming up.

09 January, 2006 07:47
Anonymous said...

Manuel Ruffin was known as Junior when he was Clyde Beatty's Gun Boy for many seasons. He was highly respected on the lot in those segregationist days. As is noted here, he was famed as Prince Bogino with the Hoxie cat act, and was featured with a photo in the feature article in no less than National Geographic. I enjoyed visiting with him twice when he visited the Beatty show, and later on the phone. He's a man who sure as hell knows circus.

10 January, 2006 03:39
Anonymous said...

Poor Joe. It's like the long-decided family pronunciation as BAY-tee, and others insisting on saying Bee-tee. Joe told me his name was correct in programs as Horwath, pronounced HOR-vath. Good enough for me. He was at World Jungle Compound long before my time (when it was Jungleland), and cut a fine figure with, in one photo, as many as 12 pumas on the Big Stage Arena. He was an accessible and friendly gentleman when I first met him visiting around Gil Gray. I was 14. Forget about what year.

10 January, 2006 04:31
Anonymous said...

JIm A: Dick McGraw was one of my mentors when I apprenticed in Thousand Oaks. We became fast friends and running buddies. Dick and Shirley's children and mine were being born in those days, and I named my son Richard Bennett for he and Uncle Ben. Dick enjoys his retirement now in New York. Do you have any shots of his work in St. Louis you could publish?

10 January, 2006 13:57

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