Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Joe Metcalf #6


Scan10209, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Tony Gentry and his new elephant "Burma" in 1953 with Mr. Metcalf at right armed with "dukies".
Mr. Gentry eventually wound up with three elephants, two of which "Burma" and "Gypsy" were sold to Bob Snowdon (Acme Circus Corp.) in 1961 and eventually to CB-CB where Rex Williams promptly changed their names to "Bee" and "Gyp".
Interestingly, years later with Circus Vargas, Rex changed the name of "Colonel" to "Colonel Joe" in the memory of Joe Metcalf.

Posted by Buckles at 5/27/2008 06:23:00 AM

4 comments:

Bob Cline said...

I believe that Mr. Gentry also had a male named Moulan or something like that. What ever happened to him?
Bob

27 May, 2008 13:21
Anonymous said...

Gentry had Burma performing in Frank Sennes "Moulin Rouge" in Hollywood and Sennes liked having a little elephant and he bought this little male and named it Moulin. Gentry took care of it and in the final scenes in "Jupiter's Darling" its at the end of Hannibal's elephants. Don't have any idea where he ended up.

27 May, 2008 15:22
Roger Smith said...

My journal reminds me that we played Bridgeport, Connecticut, on June 12 & 13, on the '64 Beatty show. Tommy Napoli and I were returning from a lingering liquid lunch, to find the elephants lined up, watering at the barrels. Suddenly, Bee had Billy Cox down. He was scrambling like mad to get out from under her, and Little Bobby Cline was screaming, "Bee! Bee!" She was dancing determinedly to get a foot on Billy, and she damn near did. He must have had this experience before, as he nimbly kept away from those stomping feet. Quickly, Benny White and the crew got down the line and rescued Billy relatively unscathed. Tommy and I both had half a load on, but we sobered up in a hurry. It was my first experience to see an elephant really go for a man, and it remains indelible to this day.

Roger Smith

27 May, 2008 19:52
Wade G. Burck said...

Roger,
Seeing an elephant "really going after a man", remains indelible until the day you die, and then I question if you might not take it to the grave with you. If you have experienced it it is impacted through eternity.
Wade

28 May, 2008 13:06

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)