Sunday, June 29, 2008

No. 150- RBBB in Chicago 1951


P04993, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

July 20, 1951 "Ringling Bros. barber shop"

Posted by Buckles at 6/29/2008 06:21:00 AM

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is that Duane Thorpe with Paul Jung?

-Greg DeSanto

29 June, 2008 08:58
Mike Naughton said...

Greg -- didn't Duane start out in the chorus on RBBB? Or is it possible that he clowned and danced?

I was told that Duane was the lead dancer of the Latin section ahead of girl dancers in the movie the GSOE, but I have never had that confirmed.

Do you have any info?

29 June, 2008 10:10
Pat Cashin said...

I don't think it's Soapy, but it could be.

Look at the close-up of Jung and the Barber Shop float in the GSOE again and we'll know for sure.

~P

30 June, 2008 05:51
Anonymous said...

I know Duane did start out as a dancer on the show, and he does lead the Latin section in the movie (he himself pointed that out to me). I don't believe he was clowning when the movie was shot, but he might have been within a year or so. This make-up looks like his established face, and not the earlier version that Pat Cashin has posted on his Clown Alley site.

Need to get Jackie LeClaire involved here to solve the mystery.

-Greg DeSanto

30 June, 2008 09:28
Anonymous said...

I was a clown on the Red show with Duane in 1970, and we talked about it. He was a New York dancer who was hired by Ringling as a chorus boy. Don't know that year, but he was a contemporary of Patsy Kelly, and other young theatre hopefuls of that era. When they dropped the boy dancers, he went into clowning.

30 June, 2008 10:00
Anonymous said...

I recall during rehearsals, Duane would sometimes work with a performer having trouble with Dick Barstow's choreography. As Michael pointed out, He obviously had a dancing background.

It's surprised me lately to hear Duane called Soapy or Uncle Soapy. I knew him for ten years or more and never heard him called that. Guess I missed something.

Sat at the bar of the Myakka Bowling Alley in Venice many nights with Duane, Bill Bradley, Joey Hodgini, Barstow and other of the usual suspects.

Wonder if the Myakka still exists. One night, the management refused to serve Charlie King and several other African-American members of the King Charles Troupe. At that point, many of the regulars -- myself included -- went elsewhere for our evening libations.

--Jack Ryan

30 June, 2008 12:02
Mike Naughton said...

To Michael Newton-Brown...I remember your walkaround with the basket and the snake, wasn't the shirt yellow?

01 July, 2008 12:16

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