Monday, October 23, 2006

House acts #1


Another of John Goodall's Ringling Press Picturtes. When the situation arises that for some reason, the show falls short on a three ring display, you can usually manage to put a "house act" together to fill out the number.
In this instance we see Axel Gautier in 1976 with "Targa" and a scruffy little pony getting the job done.

Posted by Buckles at 10/23/2006 06:21:00 AM

10 comments:

Buckles said...

Mr. Munakata,
A pleasure to hear from you, feel free to offer the blog to anyone you like.
Buckles

23 October, 2006 09:56
Anonymous said...

Axel's pony dog training, etc. came about because of his family background in circus biz. In the late forties as a very young boy his father was the principal horse trainer of liberty and high school along with his mother. Hecame down with cancer and shortly passed on. His mother returned to Europe and she and Axel's older sister con-tinued in the circus equestrian arts. Had he not died so young I am sure Axel would have become a fine circus horse trainer. His mother, Edith would remarry Count Beketow and would come to Mills Bros. as horse trainers. At the time Hugo Schmidt, afriend of the family, was there and when he returned to Ringling took Axel with him to be a very fine assistant to Hugo and on his retirement would become a fine elephant trainer in his own right. His sister would marry Trolle Rhodin and would come to America and star with the GSOE with her Lippizan stallion ,Baby, and work liberty as well. Hugo always had a mixed animal act with the show of elephant, zebra, llama and pony and naturally Axel would always assist him. Its fun to recall the animal walk in those days of the pony , zebra and llama all tied together on Targas tail going down the street. Afrter Hugo Axel always liked having a similar mixed act as well. He enjoyed doing more than just elephants but had never really had much education in that field but he did quite well. At Circus World I would, for various reasons, change the programming almost every show due to the multiple daily shows seven days a week and Axel would ask me to fit his dog and pony thing in and I would accomadate him as much as I could. Now bear in mind that the Gautier name is synbolic with some of the world's great dog acts. Gautier's Bricklayers, Steeple Chase,Tally Ho, Plus Madam Woolfords Daschunds and the great Alf Loyal to name some. Oh yes remember Gautier's Excess Baggage. Two Gautier brothers did a hilarious comedy hand balancing act with two giant poodle dogs as part of it. So you see there is more to it that meets the eye. Unlike Gunther and other Ringling trainers Axel enjoyed the comraderie of all of us, Rex, Buckles, Smokey, Myself and others. Axel and I drank alot of beer together and had some fun times. I miss him.

23 October, 2006 10:26
Anonymous said...

Thanks John for your contribution about Axel. It's pieces like your's that give us more insight to circus people we've seen but don't really know.

23 October, 2006 11:10
Anonymous said...

Well said, Johnny. I too, cherish my times spent with Axel. I have always felt he was one of the most underrated trainers of my generation, and feel that his death is one of the greatest tragedies to befell our industry. Wade Burck

23 October, 2006 11:20
Anonymous said...

I am inclined to believe that Axel's mother was probably Swedish in that she did go back to Sweden and they spent the war years there. Also that his sister married s Swede [Rhodin] and that Hugo was on the Rhodin circus with the Hagenbeck elephants before coming with them to Ringling. Also Axel had a very Scandnavian look about him. The name of the great comedy handbalancing act with big poodle dogs was The Gaudsmith Bros. Does anyone who played Barnes-Carruthers fairs remember them. Oh well I guess i'm getting too old. I am sure Uncle George Hubler would recall all those acts if he is listening in. Thanks Wade for your additional comments and I couldn't agree more.

23 October, 2006 12:02
Anonymous said...

i remeber axel as being one of the most down to earth human beings clean raul

23 October, 2006 12:08
Anonymous said...

The pony is Dusty a dapple gray. The two dogs were a spitz named Henry and a shepard named Smokey. Targa the elephant adopted Smokey as her pet and would only let people she liked around the dog. She would pull his leash in under her on the picket line and swat anyone who tried to get at the dog. At CW Axel added Karen to this act as well and also started two cougars riding on the elephants. Axel was one of the best people I've ever got to work for and learned alot more than how to work with animals from him. A truely great man and an even better friend.

23 October, 2006 13:01
Anonymous said...

When we see "comment deleted", such as this one, I'm given to conclude some misguided activist tried to enter something about Axel's tragic death. Like those with their derogatory signs at Gunther's funeral, and the guy caught desecrating his grave. Not to forget those who celebrated Alan Campbell's death, but held a candlelight vigil for the elephant. They are truly representative of the extremists' movement, reminding us we are a nation fighting extremists on more than one front.

23 October, 2006 16:55
Buckles said...

No Roger, I understand where you are coming from but in this instance I received an eMail from Mr. Munakata in Japan (even included a picture) saying how much he enjoyed the blog and could he have permission to present it world wide. Included, for some reason, were a series of eMail addresses.
When Shannon saw it he said it was probably spam and anyone using the messages might be bombarded with solicitations,he added that the picture was probably phoney as well. I got rid of it before someone fell victim.

23 October, 2006 17:25
Anonymous said...

One can sence the entusiastic , robust , zest for life , Axel propeled at all times just from this exelent photo of him .

I also enjoyed the previous naration of Axels background & somehow felt there was a distinct similarity between him & Hugo Schmidt etc..

Keep it flowing folks !

24 October, 2006 09:31

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