I was told to report to Venice in October of 1973 since they wanted these elephants out of winter quarters by Thanksgiving so as not to interfere with the Blue Show rehearsal. As it turned out we camped out at quarters for a few more months due to construction problems at the park.
When I arrived these seven elephants were named (L to R) Matsho, Patna, Assam, Sheva, Sandry, Mala and Minyak, mostly out of vanity I immediately changed most of their names with the intention of leaving my stamp on Ringling elephants that would be around for the next half century.
By the time this picture was taken in the Venice Arena their names were "Hope" for my sister in law, "Josky", "Babe" for my mother, "Barbara" for my wife, "Sophie" for Chappie's wife, "Lalea" for my mother in law and I kept the same name for "Minyak" since I liked the name.
Over the next few years as the result of bartering "Hope" went to Rex Williams who renamed her "Gyp" and "Babe" wound up in the Columbus Zoo.
Nobody could remember my mother in law's name so it reverted back to "Mala".
When we finally arrived at Circus World, I proudly announced to Sophie Fox that I had named an elephant after her and said, "Oh, really" she was underwhelmed. |
5 comments:
This photo shows how Venice WQ
appeared just prior to my being
asked by Irvin to completely redo
the building with new lighting
sound fully painted interior and
a proscenium with enclosed band
multilevel platform that remained
in place until the circus left
Chic
The old speaker cluster hanging
cockeyed and the assortment of
a variety of bull tubs certainly
adds to the "look of quality"
Chic
You're right about that. I had to scrounge around behind Charlie Smith's shop to come up with enough discarded tubs for this act.
Regarding elephants' names.
Would an elephant have a "working name" on the show and a "legal name" for paperwork.
I would imagine changing the elephants' names would cause mucho confusion with paperwork.
The identity of Babe has me very curious. Babe was a 1967 born elephant purchased by my grandfather and trained by my great grandfather until his death. She then went to a wild animal park in LA county, which later closed. Because of the name and birth date, we had believed that the Babe at the Fort Worth Zoo, who came through Ringling Brothers, was our Babe. However, this indicates that the Fort Worth Babe was given that name in 1974, rather than 1967. Can anyone clarify where the Ringling Brothers/Fort Worth Babe came from?
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