Thursday, May 08, 2008

George Emerson #6


Scan000011193, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

These are the three MGM elephants "Happy", "Sally" and "Queen" imported in 1941 and trained by Emerson. The last two named in memory of the two elephants lost in the fire.
My dad wrote on the back "The Whitbeck Elephants (Elephants Inc.)" and then added "Frank Whitbeck- Louis Goebel- George Emerson". Rather confusing.
In any event they went right to work, appearing in "Tarzan's New York Adventure" in 1942 as well as many other movies until they were sold to Polack Bros. Circus in 1947.

Posted by Buckles at 5/08/2008 06:31:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I beleive these elephants ended up on the James E. Strates Carnival, under the command of SteveFanning. Correct me, if I am wrong, Buckles.

08 May, 2008 14:43
Buckles said...

Right, Louis Stern sold them to Strates in 1958 bringing the herd to six since Strates had purchased "Alice", "Mona" and "Margie" from the defunct King Show the year before.

08 May, 2008 14:58
Anonymous said...

The Besalou baby elephants debuted in 1952 (I think). Was Polack still operating two units or what happen to this act between 52 and 58?

09 May, 2008 06:58
Buckles said...

The Polack Show had two units (Eastern and Western)from 1947 thru 1957.
The MGM elephants were purchased when they expanded to two shows and sold when they went back to one unit in 1958. They were always with the Eastern Unit.
During this period the Western Unit had the Powers elephants, the Tom Packs elephants (leased) and the Besalou elephants starting in 1954.

09 May, 2008 07:17
Mike Naughton said...

Bill Kay of Wm Kay Productions, 3001 Pony Lane, producer and Irish-American extraordinaire told me the following when he was a promoter for Pollack.

The show had the two units, each with solid routes, one had 4 or 6 weeks more than the other.

An act, who's name I forgot, was being moved to the shorter unit for the upcoming year. This act was all nervous and upset that they might have done something wrong (they did not) and were being punished by being banished to the unit with 35 weeks!

Bill told this story all time time, perhaps someone remembers all the details.

09 May, 2008 13:15

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