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Monday, November 27, 2006
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7 comments:
Wolfgang claimed to be more French than German and spoke with a gutteral french accent. He had been with, I believe Jean Richard, prior to coming here and was a company manager as well. When the German grooms were riding herd and bullying our ringstock American boys, [the tent was one side German and one side American, we got Wolfgang extra money to be the boss. He straightened that situation out. He was a sharp guy and after one season I believe he bought the lion act and now got the contract price rather than a salary. He couldn't pass up a crap game, even if it was two minutes before his act and he was in wardrobe. He was an excellent presenter of liberty horses. He was good buddies with Roland and Tao Schnmitz and would come to visit them on Vargas each year. I believe he had some kind of resort in Europe. I haven't heard about him lately.
When Wolfgang worked his lions Gunther would stand at the arena door in a red smock with a stick and on the back of the smock in huge letters were the words, Animal Trainer. Kind of left the audience confused. Wolfgang seemed oblivius to the whole thing.
when I presented the Clubb lions on GSOE Charly Bauman was outside my cage when I worked.I thanked him for the courtesy and could not have cared less if his jacket had said Lions for sale !
I also was honored ,while touring Japan with the GSOE to have John Herriot outside my cage,he was and is very good counsel.
As to John H's statement that Wolfgang "claimed to be more French than German" --- Wolfgang came to America in 1970 from the Circus Amar in France. (It billed itself as "The Circus of France.")
Wolfgang always had a great deal of respect for one of the show's owners, Mustafa Amar. Wolfgang talked about him as a great teacher, a great employer, a friend, and (in my opinion) as a terrific 'father figure.' --- ToddP
Charlie was Performance Director when we were on the show and that kept him at the other end of the arena. Only time he came around was when Murphy was on Jewells lap doing his little act and he actually had Jewell pinned down. The band kept replaying the music, Charlie told me to tell him to "hurry up" and finish. Wasn't until Murphy grabbed Jewells head when I stepped in and shouted his name and he was up,off, and out of the cage before Jewell could get to his feet.
It was said via the grapevine that for some months thru a series of telephone calls via Charly and Jewell that Charly would advis Jewell in how and what to do in regard to his training of the lion act at CW. It was referred to as Long Distance training. Would the recent commentor have any info about that?
Holzmair bought a restaurant in Cahors, France, in the late 80s, and I think he is still there.
He was recently involved again with circus: a couple of years ago he worked as a coach for Frederic Edelstein (son of the owner of Cirque Pinder) to train him and help him to select cats for his new cage act. It seems that they bought about 50 lions and tigers.
This was the origin of the two actual cage acts of Pinder (lions and tigers).
Holzmair started his career in the 50s with the Franz Althoff hippodrome big top, with liberty horses and roman post, before going to Cirque Amar and swithcing to elephants.He first entered in the big cage in 1961 at Amar's to incidentally replace Henri Dantes. He became the lion trainer at Amar, occasionally working winter seasons in Italy for Togni or Orfei in the late 60s. After his Ringling esperience (1969-76), he was back to France. Meanwhile, Amar bankrupted in 1973, and the name was bought by Firmin Bouglione's family. Holzmair stayed with them, acting also as general manager and organizing a beutiful menagerie. At the time (late 70s), it was one of the best european circuses. He finished his career around 1980, as manager for Jean Richard. I think that his last appearance in the cage was in 1983 in a gala show in Paris.
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