Friday, April 25, 2008

Clyde Beatty (From Buckles)


Barbara and Clyde Beatty, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

As an adult, my trouping with Mr. Beatty was limited to several appearances at the Detroit Shrine Circus in the early 1960's, when the above picture was taken. Our conversation was pretty much confined to, "I need to get some information from your father. They plan on writing a book."
Such was his fame, even at that late date, when Mr. Beatty arrived from the hotel each day, it was similar to our recent visit from Pope Benedict. Shriners, visitors, building people, and even performers (myself included) lined up on each side to view his procession.
On the subject of who trained his cats, Mr. Beatty was well aware of the derision he received when he hired outside trainers. He told my dad that at one point it was purely business, he was in such demand to make personal appearances the matter of hiring a first class trainer to add a few cats was of little consequence.
Later as the owner of a Railroad Circus he had more important affairs to contend with and turned some training over to others but to claim that he couldn't train a lion or tiger was ridiculous.
I might add that over the years I also heard my dad tell many stories about William P. Hall, Jerry Mugivan, Cap Curtis, Jess Adkins, Bert Bowers, Fred Buchanan and Zack Terrell..........I never once heard him mention the name McKennon.

Buckles

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obviously one of Mr. Beattys

" GREAT MOMENTS "