Wednesday, May 09, 2012

More Cat Acts! #5

!cid_X_MA2_1217095116@aol by bucklesw1
!cid_X_MA2_1217095116@aol, a photo by bucklesw1 on Flickr.

As Parley would say....."Your friendly neighborhood wild man."

Posted by Buckles at 5/09/2012 05:22:00 AM

11 comments:

Chic Silber said...

Pat must have been in the Navy

as he swore like a sailor

Old ladies in the 1st few rows

would cringe & cover kids ears

09 May, 2012 08:54
JIM ELLIOTT said...

He lived about 2 miles from me, here in Riverview. His old cat barn is now used for boarding horses.

09 May, 2012 13:44
Darryl said...

Went to the compound on GI bill.

09 May, 2012 15:21
Harry Kingston said...

I met Pat on Circus Vargas and what a cat act he had.
Every time they run Samson and Delilah on TCM I think about Pat in there dubling for Victor Mature.
I sure wish we had cat acts like his today.
Harry in Texas

09 May, 2012 16:41
Wade G. Burck said...

U.S. Marine, one of the great's of my profession, swell pal, and I miss him.

Wade Burck

09 May, 2012 19:36
Chic Silber said...

Holsters on both hips so he must

have been a 2 fisted gunslinger

A truly exciting fighting act

09 May, 2012 21:53
Roger Smith said...

Anthony Patrick Vitanza, our Pat Anthony,or Pat Agony to Gee Gee, was an Army Paratrooper in WW II. Indeed, he got his congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, to assist him getting paid through the GI Bill to become the program's first lion trainer. Chet Juszyk was 2nd.

This is what I meant in Chet's picture by making something singular about your wardrobe. Pat wore two pistols for a number of years.

You're right, Harry. DeMille's cameras lingered on Pat enough to clearly see his face, as Vic Mature's "Samson." And yes, we need another act like his, and I'd sell the farm to create it. I think Jimmy Cole knows where Pat's arena might be.

No one in the cage cursed a bluer streak than Wild Dick Clemons. Story is, one year some date had Professor Keller speaking gently to his cats over a microphone, and the kids ate it up. The next year, they hung a microphone on Dick Clemons and all but hurt themselves scrambling to turn it off.

10 May, 2012 06:37
Buckles said...

I can't remember who told me that once Daring Dick charged out of the arena during the act to smack a candy butcher who was making too much noise (ala Hubert Castle) then returned as tho nothing had happened.
Couldn't be true but it made a good story.

10 May, 2012 06:53
Harry Kingston said...

Roger,
I guess peta screwed it all up for a real fighting act anymore and the cost today.
I just am not into the European cat acts.
I guess if had seen Alfred Court I might change my mind.
I talked to Wille Storey about Court and his act.
I helped Pat Anthony here in town get meat for his cats and what an act it was.
And getting to see what went on behind the scenes up close.
First saw Pat in Houston, Tx when Miller-Johnson aka Circus Vargas was just starting playing out doors
Pat was very nice to this young fan and working for a tv station I helped Vargas get tons of FREE publicity.
Like you Roger I miss the heck out of the american fighting act.
Well with Pat and Dave Hoover both great performers and teated us fans the best.
Many great memories of the way it was that will last a life time.
Harry in Texas

10 May, 2012 07:48
JC Hall said...

What a well earned crack from Parley Baer.For all of you who did not know Mr.Anthony, just think of a cross between Victor Mature and Cosmo Kramer from the Seinfeld TV show. Driving around in his Black Lincoln pulling an Avion and threatning to replace Bill Johnson while he was unloading the cats over Bill's venimous pet snakes getting lose in the crummy.A guaranteed show in itself.
A thumbs up on the fun characters list to have known.

10 May, 2012 18:28
John Herriott said...

Bill Johnston spent five some years with me when I had the big top circus and he was the one man canvas crew after those years with Pat. He was the most loyal, honest, hardworking, cantankerous , bull in a china shop that I ever worked with. He told me that with young Pat who had backing from Geo. Hamid put Pats first act of his own of young female lions right on a vacant grounds on Whitfield Ave in Sarasota right across from what is now Circus City Feed store started by Willis Lawson. Pat brought from Calif. famous old one armed cat trainer Chubby Guilfoyle to help train the young cats.

Pat would over the years send Bill out all alone with the full cat truck on long jumps with a couple hundred bucks and Bill always made it. After alot of frustrating breakdowns Louie Stern came up with the scratch for a new tractor that Pat was supposed to pay back.

Bill had two sets of clothes. The khakis he was wearing and the khakis that were soaking in a bucket of water. Bill was a Chicago boy and said he once won Illinois state wheightlifting competition.

He loved the days he worked on RBBB under canvas in the huge menagerie dept. He wrote bgreat papers on Giraffe, zebra speciias that were published in zoology journals. He was a big fan of elephant and cat trainers. I could write more about him. He was quite a guy

11 May, 2012 08:35

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