Thursday, November 01, 2007

Arky Scott #4


Scan000010398, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Lee Bros. Circus 1925-26
Arky Scott with "Rubber" and "Babe".
At this point Arky doesn't seem all that comfortable with animals.
Kenny Feld once referred to an act he wouldn't hire as a "pull and tug" act. I think this is what he had in mind.

Posted by Buckles at 11/01/2007 06:09:00 AM

7 comments:

David said...

I've noticed on your blog that the names of the elephants are usually mentioned, but not often that of the other animals. Is that because of your background, or do circus folk in general tend to remember more the names of elephants?

01 November, 2007 08:14
Buckles said...

I never worked around anything other than elephants so I leave the identification of other animals to those more qualified.

01 November, 2007 08:53
Anonymous said...

I doubt if "circus folk" in general would know names or much about any show elephants other than principle ones like, Burma, Opal, Anna Mae with the exception of showgirls that would be in the elephant acts and compare on "their" elephant. Mostly the animals would be known by the trainers or handlers because they were around so many shows in their long years of life expectancy.I used to be able rattle off the names of every horse, pony, dog, exotic and elephants that I every worked with. I am getting a little rusty of late, but not too bad.

01 November, 2007 10:36
Anonymous said...

I aways thought that Elephants names are remembered because they were larger than Bobby Gibbs?

01 November, 2007 11:44
Anonymous said...

Not having been born in the circus, I too, noticed the social position given to elephants and elephant trainers in American circus.
I believe it dates back to a time before modern transport, when a circus' route was more dependant on how far an elephant could walk than the population of the towns. And even untill much more recently the circus was dependant on elephant power to put up the tent,pull the stakes and pull wagons and/or trucks out of the mud.And I remember,one had to be in the good graces of the elephant trainer and his family to not be left being last one pulled off the lot.
I have allways believed that European circus societal structure was more oriented to horses and horse trainers. But that's a story for another day.

02 November, 2007 09:06
Anonymous said...

I had the great pleasure of interviewing Joanne Wilson last March when she had her "Panda" Act on Cindy Migley's Shrine Dates. I brought along a number of notebooks of 8x10's of various acts, and Joanne & Pee Wee were nice enough to ID a lot of folks in the photos. Joanne was really emphatic that the animals in the photos should also be identified, especially the elephants and secondly the horses. She was pretty good at identifying most of them from the 50's right through today- so I think there is something about knowing both elephants and horses! Neil Cockerline

02 November, 2007 16:25
Anonymous said...

Hey Larry,
Maybe the reason that elephants get remembered is that they are bigger than anything else.

03 November, 2007 20:05

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