Sunday, August 03, 2008

Frank Buck Classic Comics.2


Frank Buck Classic Comics.2, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 8/03/2008 06:14:00 AM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Richard J. Reynolds, Does this look like a clouded leopard to you too?

Did Court really have them in one of his acts or were they just an "extra added advertised attraction".

03 August, 2008 07:06
Anonymous said...

Jim - -Yes, I think that is the artist’s effort at a clouded leopard.

They have been quite scarce in circuses.

I have uncovered only a few references to them with circuses, perhaps as menagerie animals.

A squib in an early 1920s Billboard stated that Al G. Barnes had recently acquired one in a shipment of Far Eastern animals.

Then in advance of the John Robinson Circus date in Ashtabula, OH on May 27, 1924, the Star Beacon ran a photo of animal trainer John “Chubby” Guilfoyle with a clouded leopard on a leash. The caption read, “Guilfoyle has been nurse and trainer to this leopard since its cub days.” I do not know whether he used the c. leopard in his act or if it was only a menagerie animal. It should have been easy to bring into the ring uncaged and on a leash.

Alfred Court once had a clouded leopard according to what was told me by his nephew, the late Wilson Storey. It never appeared in the ring, however. I do not know just when this was but have the impression it was while Court was in the USA from 1940 to 1945. I have never seen a reference to its traveling with RBBB.

RBBB’s descriptions of Court’s acts also mention ocelots, but , again, I have seen no evidence that these small cats ever appeared in the Court acts - -certainly they do not appear in any of the hundreds of photos I have seen of the Court acts.

Moreover, the lists of Court animals in official RBBB files do not mention either ocelots or a clouded leopard.

I would think it difficult to use either clouded leopards or ocelots in a big cage routine with other big cats that would dwarf them.

There has never been a clouded leopard on RBBB as far as I can ascertain.

The only one I have ever seen in a circus was with Ron and Joy Holiday in their “Cat Dancers” act. Ron (Ron Guay) and Joy (Doris Gagnon) were ballet dancers who became circus animal trainers. They had a clouded leopard in their show in the 1990s. Chuck Lizza presented the animal after he joined the troupe. This was a very gentle animal, but he was spooked by other animals. To keep from stressing him, I saw Ron put a tarp over his cage when elephants came by.

03 August, 2008 16:27

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