Saturday, December 26, 2009

More on Rudy Mueller elephants!


Scan12492, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

From Janice:
My Dad (Ray Chandler) purchased a baby elephant from Rudy Mueller in Thousand Oaks in the 60's. My Dad sold her to Johnny Cline. Her name was Princess. I believe my Dad was still working for Holter at the time.

From Buckles:
My dad wrote on the back of this picture, "Ray Chandler elephant Princess, with Capell Bros. Shows 1960.

Posted by Buckles at 12/26/2009 10:08:00 AM

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Could Princess be the same baby as in the picture with Rudy?

26 December, 2009 10:16
Anonymous said...

While conducting research for a story on Beatty's winter quarters at Deming, NM, I came across some information which may shed more light on Johnny
Cline's purchase of a baby elephant--in 1958.

According to a story in the Feb. 27, edition of the Deming Headlight, Cline stayed overnight with a Deming family while he was en route to a season-opening stand at Palisades Park in New Jersey, a Beatty-Hamid venture. (Junior Ruffin, who made his performing debut at Palisades--presenting elephants, not lions and tigers--does not remember Cline being in the lineup.) Quoting from the 1958 account on Cline's brief visit at the Finley Dunigan home in Deming:

"The baby elephant, named Dell, is 20 months old and was purchased from the Jungle Compound at Thousand Oaks, Calif., for $4,000, after arriving in this country from Burma by airplane. Her traveling companion from Burma, another elephant about the same age, was purchased by a broadcasting company to take the place of Bimbo in the TV show 'Circus Boy.'"

Lane Talburt

26 December, 2009 11:00
Unknown said...

Johnny had Dell before he purchased Princess from my Dad.

26 December, 2009 12:40
Buckles said...

According to my files, Johnny bought his first elephant "Dell" in 1958 (source unknown).
His second "Princess" from Ray Chandler in 1961.
The third was a young male "Toto" from Stan Kramien in 1964 but was sold to Circo Bells in Mexico two years later.
He was replaced by "Molly" purchased from Morgan Berry in 1967 and ten years later 1977, these three sold to a circus in Brazil.

26 December, 2009 13:12

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)