Monday, May 01, 2006

Ringling-Barnum Circus 1941 #3/ Alfred Court

Posted by Buckles at 5/01/2006 06:07:00 AM

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Note the two screens on either end, between the sit-up leopards and the tigers on stretch. Mabel Stark had them on her pyramid prop. She opened the screen, Goldie would top-mount, then Mabel reached up with her hand, and closed the screen like a little door. Not enough for real protection from Tiba and Toby coming in for the stretch, but just enough for a little psychological barrier.

01 May, 2006 12:07
Anonymous said...

I've noticed several screens in old Court photos. As Roger mentioned, probably more psychological than physical. A bear could have moved them easily.

In more recent times I remember the plexiglas screen Eloise had in her mixed cage act. She would enter with the large aoudad on a lead and he'd jump to the top pedestal. She would close him in with the barrier and then the tigers would enter, seated close to him. Bob Moore (dog act) refered to it as the "Guardol Shield" after a popular toothpaste of the time.

No insult to Eloise' training Rebecca. Anyone who could work with an aoudad, much less all the rest, got my respect.

01 May, 2006 13:01
Anonymous said...

Jim, Its real funny, that today while working on the new lyni I had to move three sheets of Plyixi Glass. My worker ask me about them and I explained that I used them almost everyday in training animals. To keep dogs from running around the jumps instead of over them,or under them.. I also used them to make the dog do returns in a straight line. Eloise is a very important part of my life even after all these years. I never forgot the little tricks.

01 May, 2006 15:26
Anonymous said...

Roger, I use a screen in the grooming tub for cats. It gives them something to hold on to besides my arms. Works on rabbits while trimming nails.

01 May, 2006 15:58
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - -

I was absoutely in awe when I first saw the the great Court act presented in three rings simultaneously. That was in its debut season of 1940. My favorite was the center ring with Damoo Dhotre and those black and spotted leopards, black jaguars(2) and pumas. Alas the snow leopard had been killed in the Garden so I did not see it. Court himself did not perform the day I saw the '40 show. He was in a tuxedo outside the center cage sort of like an equestrian director.

Besides Court, no one save Mable Stark has ever presented a black jaguar in the ring in USA.

I well recall my disappointment when the higly adversitesed 1938 Jacobs black leopard act could not work here or anywhere for that matter. It was said that they were untrainable. Thus, I knew for sure that Court was better.

In fairness to Jacobs he was given a near impossible task, a cage full of adult black leopards, wild as banshees, and little time to get them ready for the 1938 tour.

01 May, 2006 20:54
Anonymous said...

There was a Black Leopard in my cage act."WILD ANIMAL FANTASY" "SATEN" He just posed on top of the alter most of the act. He made one leap to the center of the ring before the DOGS exit. He is seldom mentioned in print. He was very mello.

02 May, 2006 07:55
Bob Cline said...

When it comes to leopards, my hat goes off to LilliAnna ( Kristensen I believe is her last name, my apologies if I'm wrong Lilly ) and David Tetzlaff at Jungle Larry's. David patterned his act after Gunther's and it was as fine a leopard act as ever assembled with a couple Black Leopards including his shoulder carry cat Missy. Granted he never traveled the circus circuit, he had the luxury of being in a permanent animal park but giving credit where credit is due, he did a great job.
Bob

02 May, 2006 11:11
Anonymous said...

To Jim A: You're so right. A bear would tear hell out of anything it wanted, and no barrier such as this would have meant a thing.

Eloise was with us on Castle, in Indianapolis, in '73. We had by then become great friends, and I hope this is because she knew how much I respected her. We shared many long jackpots over coffee.

Dutchess: I'm never averse to work, but I might find a beer to drink while you're bathing your cats and manicuring your rabbits.

Richard: I would have killed to have seen those acts of Courts. I wasn't born yet, and missed a lot. Let me defend Capt. Jacobs by noting that His Emminence, JRN, who was by no means a cat man, got a buy on 8 black leopards, and told Jacobs to make an act. The crucial mistake was not consulting the trainer first. If Jacobs had been first informed of the assignment, then the time to carefully select the animals, things could have been far different. It's not that Court was superior, it's that he owned and controlled what he did, and owed no ear to a circus president.

Let us not forget that the very next year Jacobs worked, according to my friend, Judy Jacobs Kaye, between 35 and 52 mixed lions and tigers for RBBB's 1939 opus.

02 May, 2006 20:16
Anonymous said...

Actually, there have been tons of acts with black leopards, so I doubt they're any harder to train than spotted. Dickie Chipperfield had quite a few in his act , Gunther had that mixed act, Lilli, of course, Robert Baudy - just a few off the top or my head.

03 May, 2006 00:41

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