Thursday, March 09, 2006

Bill Ballentine drawing #1


I got to know Bill pretty well since we both enjoyed the same type of bull-shit stories. I used to have several copies of his book "Wild Tigers and Tame Fleas" but gave them all away except one. The best thing he did was paint the Side Show banner line when the show was under canvas, it added a nice touch on the midway. He was sort of a fair-haired boy briefly around the Felds during his Clown College days but I don't remember how that turned out.
You know, Irvin Feld used to give all us department heads nice Christmas gifts. One was a framed mirror with the well known leaping tiger pictured and the Ringling-Barnum title, in fact I am looking at it right now.
Another gift was a copy of the Gunther painting done by the artist Rivera which is awful, looks like he has child bearing hips. They used another version of it on the program cover, I now hear that since the artist is dead it is worth a little money.
I'm not big on modern art, Big Apple once had the drawing of an elephant rolling a ball on the program cover and I honestly thought that it had been the prize winning entry from a Grade School contest. I like Alexander King's remark to Jack Paar "most of it looks like they backed a diahrretic cow up to an easel".

Posted by Buckles at 3/09/2006 06:26:00 AM

13 comments:

GaryHill said...

Buckles, did he paint the wall in the Big Tent at CW? It looked alot like the prints you have posted. I remember at CW there was a little boy taking a pee. Thousands of people walked by and never noticed I'd bet.

09 March, 2006 08:03
Buckles said...

That's a good question, I had forgotten all about that mural. Maybe someone can help us on that subject.

09 March, 2006 08:58
Anonymous said...

Buckles, that bar mirror featuring the Strowbridge tiger that Irvin Feld gave one year as a Christmas gift is great. It hangs over my fireplace. Another year, the circus gift was a large clock with Lou Jacobs and his dog, Knucklehead as the bacground. That's on my wall too (although I did recently replace the battery apparatus because it was no longer telling time.)

09 March, 2006 09:13
Buckles said...

You're right I have the Lou Jacobs clock on the wall at my back and it stopped working about the same time yours must have and remains frozen at 12:40.

Also another clock that lays flat on the table with a round lid bearing the GSOE logo that slides to one so the dial can be seen.
Another time a bunch of towels and wash rags with polar bear imprints that have long since vanished.

09 March, 2006 11:27
Anonymous said...

I still use some of those now-raggedy circus towels as dust rags etc. You mentioned you didn't remember how Bill Ballantine's tenure at Clown College turned out. His book, "Clown Alley," goes deeply into the gory details. And his relationship with the Felds gets pretty gory toward the end. "Clown Alley" has some great ink sketches of then-current Ringling clowns by Bill. I always greatly admired his drawing of Otto Griebling in the book. Bill hand-colored that sketch to take along on a book-promotion interview on The Today Show. Happy to say that I now own it: Otto occupies a place of honor on my living room wall.

09 March, 2006 11:46
Anonymous said...

that previous anonymous was me. Oops!

09 March, 2006 11:47
Anonymous said...

I will get this right. Eventually!

Jack Ryan

09 March, 2006 11:48
Buckles said...

In those days to show to what extent things were ruled by paranoia, if you didn't receive a gift it might mean you had fallen into ill favor.
Irvin Feld always held a party at his penthouse when the show played Wash. D.C. and a failure to receive an invitation was the first clue that you were out.
I had no idea where his penthouse was hesitant to ask anyone to avoid embarrassment should it be an excluded party, Charley Baumann finally told me how to find the place.
While there (and beginning to fall under the spell of kaboobleism)I beheld a framed letter on the wall written by P.T. Barnum to the Editor of the New York Sun. I asked Kenny about it and he said he had purchased it from a Circus fan as a Birthday gift for his father.
As we know Barnum"s handwriting was almost totally illegible and for some reason I shouted "This regards a Clown College application from Duane Thorpe!" and to my surprise a number of people rushed over to check it out. At this point I received a sharp kick on the ankle from my lovely wife accompanied by a dirty look so we left shortly thereafter.

09 March, 2006 12:13
Bob Cline said...

I'm trying to quit laughing long enough to hit the right keys. If you only got a kick in the ankle, you must have done alright.
Bob

09 March, 2006 14:44
Pat Cashin said...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! "Uncle Buckles", we've been good. PLEASE tell us a story about Duane "Uncle Soapy" Thorpe?

09 March, 2006 17:18
Buckles said...

I only met Duane one time and that was when he was Asst. Performance Director for Bob Dover.
By the time I came around the Ringling Show myself we were on different units and he was being pretty much being shown the door already.
Fred Logan once told me that he and Dover joined the Ringling Show the same day in 1943. They put Bob on ringstock taking care of ponies and Logan worked for Alfred Court moving props in May Kovar's cat act.

09 March, 2006 17:46
Anonymous said...

About three weeks ago I checked on the out of print circus books at the Ringling Museum Gift Shop, Sarasota...At that time there were two "Wild Tigers and Tame Fleas" for sale...Both books were in great shape.. .No doubt a great book that many of us have had in our collection.

09 March, 2006 18:55
Anonymous said...

Buckles...I loved Alexander King on the Tonight show. I guess it was Parr who found him. I would have never guessed then, what I know now, that you would have found his fast wit and caustic insights, enjoyable.

By the way I always thought that Robert Lewis Taylor's book, Center Ring, a composite of New Yorker pieces on great circus topics, a terrific non history circus book. I hated Ballantines cartoon side show banner line. Paulring

10 March, 2006 09:26

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