Wednesday, June 15, 2011

1951 GSOE #26

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Posted by Buckles at 6/15/2011 05:49:00 AM

1 comments:

Roger Smith said...

This feature, credited with being a first, involved Harold controlling the bicycle, his wife Minnie behind him, with sisters Hilda and Elsie striking simultaneous poses on front and back traps. The trick premiered in 1946, on the Black Tower Circus, in England. The next season, the Alzanas were on Ringling, where unaccustomed one-night stands and long jumps proved challenging to performers used to showing one location for weeks at a time. Sure enough, the grind took its toll--on the last day of the '47 season, in Miami, the act fell. Harold's father, Charles, broke the falls of his son and Hilda, but both suffered broken backs. In 1948, Hilda married French aerialist Andre Pincemin, who took her off to another show. Elsie quietly retired, and Minnie supported her husband's new single act, which proved no less a sensation. The DeMille footage of the 4 Alzanas may signal the last reconstruction of the act, shot in 1951.

The Great Alzana was inducted into the Circus Hall of Fame in 1991.

Harold Davis Alzana was born September 19, 1917, in Malta, Yorkshire, England, where he grew up working in the coal mines. He died on February 23, 2001, in Sarasota, at 84.

Check the excellent Dale Shaw article "Alzana--The Accident-Prone Aerialist!", in the May 1961 issue of ARGOSY magazine.

16 June, 2011 20:03

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