Monday, August 07, 2006

Jim Cole Collection #3


This is the Ringling Show about 1942 showing Alfred Court with his trainers for the three ring wild animal display, Frederick Olsen, Damoo Dhotre and Joe Walsh.

Posted by Buckles at 8/07/2006 06:04:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have never seen a picture of Joe Walsh. Was this ZEKEs husband?

07 August, 2006 08:11
Buckles said...

Yes it is.

07 August, 2006 08:50
Anonymous said...

Joe Walsh substituted when Mr. Beatty left the show to begin filming Commodore's PERILS OF THE JUNGLE, in 1953. He was a most gifted trainer--but then again, imagine the animal training talent represented in this one photo. Walsh had asked Charlotte what brand of smokes she wanted, then stepped off the running board of the truck into the path of a speeding car and died instantly, according to the story told me by JC.

07 August, 2006 14:55
Anonymous said...

One of my favourite pictures. I am sure the trainer on the left is Fritz Schultz. Maybe he worked under the name of Olsen. I know he was enturned during the war because of his beliefs at the time. I am sure he is still alive in Australia. I used to correspond with him at one time, particularly when I trained my first mixed group. He came from Sarasani before he worked for Alfred Court. The last act he trained was a small act of 3 male lions and a lioness (what a combination!), which I have video footage of. They did every trick in the book. This was about 15 years ago.

11 August, 2006 05:43
Anonymous said...

I believe it was Fred Bradna, in his book THE BIG TOP, who told the story of Mr. Schultz being arrested in the dressing top by G-Men, and taken off for this internment.

There likely is no connection here, but my dad's company laid the pipelines at the camp outside Waco, Texas, which was a POW center for captured German officers. After the war, they opened the camp and all but had to chase the prisoners out. They were quite content with conditions over here and didn't want to face war-ravaged Europe at home.

11 August, 2006 20:47

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