Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Jim Cole Collection


It is fashionable today for certain trainers to knock the fighting lion acts of yesterday and Clyde Beatty in particular. Might I remind you, his fame was such that for nearly forty years after his death, Mr. Beatty's name remained in public view and appeared on circus wagons.
Some of his detractors have already been forgotten.
Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 9/20/2006 06:24:00 AM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Truer words were never spoken. It's appalling the way people who never even saw him perform talk about him today. when i was growing up in the 40s and 50s, his name was the most exciting name in the world for me, and his act was just as exciting in the early 60s for circus audiences as it was 40 years earlier. If you read his books, you will know that he was ahead of his time in treating animals right, and the way he presented animals was showmanship, not the animals rebelling against him or his traing methoods. as far as i know, he was the only person to ever train a lion and a tiger to perform with an elephant at the same time, even riding side by side on the elephant's back. The circus has never had a super-star like clyde beatty; in his day his fame and appeal equaled that of presidents, royalty and the biggest movie stars. even gunther never achieved the everybody-knows-who-he-is fame of clyde beatty. the only other circus person i can think of whose name brought an instant mental picture to the average person was Emmett kelly in this century, pt barnum, tom thumb and jumbo 100 years ago. if anyone can ever find another performer combining all the elements that made beatty such a super-star, we would see a re-birth of the circus, bigger, better and grander than ever as the press agaenst always said. i know from personal experience he was never too busy to visit with a fan and when i talked to him about my dreams for a future in the circus world in 1957, he took the time to offer encouagement and gave me advice that i still follow today.I'm not getting into a debate over the merits of a fighting cat act vs a european style act, though none of the european style acts has ever captured public attention the way beatty did and nobody has ever filled circus tents like he did. remember - when he was with hagenbeck wallace, hagenbeack wallace made more money that ringling. and when he was brought to ringling for the garden dates, his name was above the title on the marquee- something unheard of at that time. and it was his decision not to switch to ringling full-time; john ringling often offered him the opportunity. if you don't like fighting lion acts, that's your right as an american; if you knew and worked with beatty and had a personal reason to dislike him, again, that's your right. but if all you've heard has been criticism from people who never knew him or never saw him, you should think twice before you say anything. the american people told everyone how much beatty was loved by audiences from the 1920s to the 1960s. sorry for rambling on, but i think people need to show more respect for the only man in circus history to stay at the top for so long.

20 September, 2006 08:02
Anonymous said...

Before I saw the name of the poster here, I thought Roger S wrote this piece. He also worshiped Mr Beatty.

20 September, 2006 09:36
Larry allen Dean said...

whenever I saw this poster It made me think"anybody underneath a lion in flight/attack was in a world of trouble"
p.s.: I always have been a Clyde Beatty fan and I only knew him through oldtimers,books & films
My mother got to see him work and was a big fan

20 September, 2006 10:43
Anonymous said...

Dick McGraw gave me this poster when we were at Jungleland. I mounted it, and it hung above my son's crib from the day he came home from being born. I have it still.

To Buckles and henryedgar: Excellent words, and I've said the same all along, almost verbatim.

Also,Ringling was known at times to have to borrow money brought in by Beatty's drawing power on Hagenbeck-Wallace, in order to move the Big One.

He said his decision not to take up Mr. John on the RB offer was one of pure showmanship. He knew in a top the size of H-W, his act had a greater impact on his audience. In the larger Ringling top, his power of projection could have been lessened. He knew what he had working for him, and he wasn't about to have it diminished. And as Buckles and henryedgar noted, it never was.

20 September, 2006 17:19

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