Wednesday, August 28, 2013

From Buckles



The elephant with Durante was named after this lady, silent screen actress Anna May Wong.
This happened in 1925 at Hall's Farm when after taking delivery on a group of young elephants my father, being an admirer of Miss Wong (he referred to her as having hair the color of the raven's wing) talked Hall into naming one after her.
Others well remembered from that group were "Sidney", "Wilma" (named after Hall's daughters) "Nellie" and "Tessie".
25 years later Kelly-Miller bought three small elephants from the Polack Show, due to ill health Cheerful Gardner was unable to continue their training and the show decided to hire the MGM Elephants instead.
On their delivery to Hugo, Cheerful told my Dad their names were "April", "May" and "June" and of course before long "May" became "Anna May" who would eventually came into our ownership

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

....and the rest is (wonderful) history!

Paul

Roger Smith said...

Anna May Wong is another whose movies are available on YouTube. Check her bio on IMDb, which will include her complete filmography. These bios, like the ones I wrote for Parley Baer and Clyde Beatty, are held out as vetted for accuracy. The first one you see for Beatty, written by Jon Hopwood, is rife with incredibly incorrect data, typical of the superficial fan. Regrettably, IMDb left it posted, but thankfully posted mine also.