Thursday, November 01, 2007

Arky Scott #1


Scan000010336, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Terrell Jacobs and Arky Scott with Sells-Floto Circus in 1924.

Posted by Buckles at 11/01/2007 06:22:00 AM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quite an interesting photo. At that time I would calculate that both would be in their e4arly twebties. Terrell appears to be older. You can sure see how he came by the nick name of "Arky". In later years I recall him to be a handsome guy with curly blond hair.

01 November, 2007 09:56
Buckles said...

My dad once told me that he, Clyde Beatty and Arky Scott were all born in 1904.

01 November, 2007 10:00
Anonymous said...

I believe that in 24 Terrell was with Christy. I could be wrong but the guy sure looks older than Terrell would have been. My Dad, your Dad and all those guys would have been pretty close to the same age.

01 November, 2007 10:10
Anonymous said...

Well lets see now thats about a 2 1/2 year old male bear by the looks of him has had some fine care. This photo I would say has been taken around Aug/sept,also by the tips of his ear's has been housed with an older female,and it should not have been to much longer that Mr.Arky would find out you should not stand next to a bear like that?

01 November, 2007 22:26
Anonymous said...

According to Mr. Beatty's mother, Margaret, he was born on Wednesday, June 10, 1903. Latter-day researchers might be a little surprised to know she outlived her son by 5 years, dying in 1970.

Terrell Monroe Jacobs was born 2 months earlier. One date has it as April 3, 1903, and another source lists it as April 23. He was 54 at his death on Christmas Eve, 1957, so this would be about right.

Arky told me he had no idea how old he was. His assistant, George A. Young, told me there were two stories about Arky's origins. One held that he was orphaned not long after birth, while another says he was abandoned. Both yarns placed him in an orphanage, from which he ran away to join out. The photo of him with his mother brings both stories into question. But after Arky's death, I went to the Ventura County death records, and somewhere along the route he was given the birthdate of August 8, 1905, meaning Arky was around 62 years and 8 months at his death on April 11, 1968.

Some of these legends may never be correctly documented.

To prove the point, even with Beatty's mother giving the year as 1903, on his plaque at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, sure enough, his birthyear is stated as 1902.

If "a little mystery becomes the proud", points such as these are nonetheless vexing to the serious researcher.

As a sidebar about George Young. We had 7 elephants on the place, and George's barn was GI'd to perfection all day long. You could have made sandwiches off that floor.

03 November, 2007 22:35
Anonymous said...

Another example of continued research: Fred D. Pfening, Jr., gives the Terrell Jacobs birthdate as Wednesday, September 16, 1903, in Marion, Indiana. This in his 2-part bio of Jacobs, THE LION KING: HIS CAREER AND HIS CIRCUSES, in BANDWAGON, Nov-Dec 1985, and Part II in March-April 1986. I'm on Fred's side on the birthdate. He did a hell of a job with this article.

JOHNNY: Fred has Capt. Jacobs on Sells-Floto, working the fighting lion act in the side show for 1923, remaining there on the door for 1924. The lion act was cut after a Humane Society fine of $10, in Pennsylvania. In '25, he went with Christy's Lee Bros. He made his debut as a performer working a pony drill and riding menage. In '26, when Allen King left for the Corporation shows, Jacobs worked his first arena act of 9 lions, and was made superintendent of animals on the Lee show.

We were all pretty close.

04 November, 2007 00:05

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