 Thanks Penny. This is the "Anna May" that our elephant was named after and she was indeed with the Beatty Show in 1952. No idea who these guys are but they look like beginners. You may notice that "Anna May" is wearing the howdah for the riding tiger and I can't tell if that is a fence behind them or the chute for the cats. Roger or Dave might know. Buckles  |
Saturday, March 31, 2007
From Bill Strong
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8 comments:
Yeah, that's the iron chute; you can see one of the divider panels open against the side of the chute. Prior to that Beatty had used a wooden chute throughout his career.
Harriet died in late 1950 but the riding tiger was continued on the show another couple of years, sometimes worked by Albina, sometimes by Dorothy Herbert.
I have a close up of the chutes that I will send you by snail mail, along with a couple of pictures of Clyde. I bought these from a postcard dealer and there is no date, but they include a picture of the band which someone may be able to date.
i may be prejudiced - i knew the first anna may much better than any other elephant -- and i only know your anna may through reputation and from watching her perform but i believe the two anna mays were overall the two best elepephants in the american circus.
I believe "Hilo" was a haiwaian boy that joined out with Beatty when he booked his act over there. Seems like he became an allaround animal hand on the Beatty show for a time. George Emerson introduced me to him in "54" when he was training and or working a young punk elephant at one of those small animal parks in the L.A. area. Maybe some of you Calif. animal people could shed more light.
That Beatty iron tunnel was a chapter in itself. Looking at it from here, you have the panel with the top hinged onto it. You stood it up, reached down and pulled up the top, as the guy across from you held up the corresponding wall. You and he laid the top down on his section and you held the assembly in place by hand while a third guy climbed on top to drive down the long irons on either side. Six stakes were driven for each section, from the up-&-down chute at the cage trucks to the tunnel door at Center Ring. The sections themselves were lashed together end-to-end with ropes. The procedure promised skinned fingers and cracked knuckles on both set-up and tear-down, and generated more exasperated cussing than from the butchers unloading their bibles.
Worse than this, the 21 arena sections were loaded high onto 76 Truck by the Prop guys. But the tunnel loaded on top of that. I got promoted "to the top" my first week. Up there, the boys brought the heavy tunnel sections on end. I'd get a grip and haul them up and over to stack them atop the arena. After two sections, the load would begin to slide, and I had to keep my footing with a section in my hands, trying not to let it drop back on the guys below. Old George Scott then ascended to tie off the load, but getting it stacked correctly was a nightmare. On rainy nights, a horror.
When Dave Hoover acquired this equipment, upon Beatty's death, he eventually paid to have it hauled off for scrap. I didn't send flowers when the old iron tunnel was gone forever.
He's my grandpa
Who was your grandpa & who are you
Charles"Hilo" mayo was my grandfather. I grew up hearing a story or two about his life and love of the elephants. Unfortunately he passed away in 2002.
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