Comment related to Hartford fire from Richard Reynolds

Richard Reynolds adds - - To Bob Cline - - Bob you are right. James Edgar did have the Damoo leopard act on his 1946 Sparks truck show. At the time RBBB had no other wild animal act in its inventory. The leopards had been on RBBB in 1945 which was the last wild animal act framed by Court himself. It was called Ladies and Leopards and was presented by Damoo as soon as he got out of the Army. When it was framed and ready to go, Court went back to France and into retirement. Before then RBBB had bought his animals. Edgar had an “in” with Aubrey Ringling. She even put him on the Board of Directors of the GSOE. Through her he arranged the lease of the Sparks title [They never let anyone else have the use of one of those ACC titles except for H-W in 1937-38 but those lessees just took over an existing circus that had sat out 1936 in the barn.] Edgar also got the use of the Damoo act for’46. For whatever reason, RBBB did not have a wild animal act that year though its ’46 program had on its cover Pat Walsh (one of the ladies from ‘45) with a leopard around her neck. She was a real looker. From 1945 through 1947, RBBB was tying to figure out how to stage wild animal acts without using those chutes or tunnels that went across the hippodrome track to cages outside the big top. They had proved deadly barriers in the ’44 fire. For ‘45 they used those small Court animal cages that had roofs of the clerestory type we see on RR passenger cars. The brought them into the tent and spotted them at the big cage. Then they did without in ’46. For 1947 they built some conventional sized wagons and brought them into the top and spotted them so they abutted the arenas. But they blocked the view from a lot of seats. Finally, they devised those low silhouette all barred cages. They went into service in 1948 and were used for the remainder of the under canvas days.