Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Cheerful Gardner and "Blanche" (Hagenbeck-Wallace)

4 comments:

Bob Cline said...

More recently, Burma on the Mills Bros. Circus did the head carry her entire 25 years on the show. Who trained her to do the trick since she went all the way back to the Sells-Floto show when she was called Virginia?
Bob

Anonymous said...

Am loving your series of "head carry" shots, as {when I was young and foolish} I used to do the head carry with Burma on the Mills Show. When I look at these pictures, I feel it explains an awful lot about me now!!!

Anonymous said...

The elephant wpould have to press half the body weight of the performer for it to carry the man.
A 150 pound man would have 75 pounds of pressure on his skull.

Anonymous said...

Elephant man Eddie Allen considered
the "head carry",to be the most dangerous elephant performing act.
He states in his 1941 book,that every one he knew who did it was either killed or seriously injured.
Major Unger(aka Arthur Huff retired in 1933 after part of a trapeze fell while performing the act ,he fell from Yasso and tore off his left ear.