Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Ringling Circus Park 1976/ Lion Act

7 comments:

GaryHill said...

Monarch, Travis , Lancer and Jewell

Bob Cline said...

Gary,
Did Jewell put this act together himself before he came to RBBB, did someone train it for him, or did he break it after he came to RBBB? Didn't he call Tennessee home?
Bob

Anonymous said...

wasn't it 1973 when Jewell brought an elephant ,Hugo?, from Mesquite World of Animals with a sidekick baby lion named buddy ? and didn't he take over a group of young lions that had been collected to be trained under the supervision of Charley Baumann,and Jewell,with no circus experience,got the job of training those punks?
I remember meeting Jewell and his groom Mike Aria,at about that time,1973,it was my first year around circuses
after starting these lions in Venice he followed Buckles and the Elephants to Circus World
and set the arena near the merry go round keeping the lions in what I be lieve were old hippo wagons ? I gave Jewell a lion named Reggie and wen to work for Buckles.
Sound about right,Buckles ?

GaryHill said...

Larry, we shipped Hugo out from WOA with Ringling. We brought the lion Buddy with us when we came to Winter Quarters. When Buckles and the herd left WQT's I went on to Great Adventure in NJ and Jewell stayed at WQT's and soon after Kenny Feld bought him the young cats to make the act. Charlie Baumann had alot of influence and helped Jewell put the act together while he was in QT's with the Blue unit. Once he got the act going he came to CW and performed as a Act in Training. The old cages were old cat cages as they had sliding dividers. Mike helped Jewell then his cousin Kenny and after two years I came back. Reggie was used in the Magic show for awhile. Funny because the first day I was back with Jewell at CW, he had Reggie on a lease and he got away from him and I ran him down in that deep sand in the backyard, I caught him by the tail and he dropped like he was shot-just out of breath.

GaryHill said...

Just noticed that during this trick I always stood at the door and had a whip ready to toss to Jewell because he would often catch the whip in the spindles so I would toss him another so that he never missed a beat so to speak. Anyway I look kinda ghostly standing there in the picture. Kinda like
Wheres Willard?

Anonymous said...

When I look at this picture I can hear the music in my head.

Anonymous said...

Gary, When I was learning my cage act, I had visions of wearing my hair down. The first time {only} time I did that the whip got caught in my hair and I had to stop the act for OKIE to use his pocket knife to cut my hair to get the lash out. Yesterday {National Turdle Day} I had to cut my hair. I cried all day. L.J. I can still after all these years hear the music.