Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Further comment....

......in 1956 we were playing a Shopping Center parking lot with our elephant act when one morning I noticed a Newspaper rack with the Headline "Ringling Folds It's Tents!" and took it back to my Father wondering what his reaction would be.
He simply smiled and started typing out a letter to D.R. Miller asking, "How does it feel to own the biggest circus in the world?"


Posted by Buckles at 5/03/2016 05:12:00 AM

8 comments:

Harry Kingston said...

I asked D R Miller about that in 1956 after Ringling folded it's tents and he said we jammed them.
I am sure it was Art Miller that came up with, Last of the circus, see it now or miss it forever.
A real smart move on K M's part.
Harry in Texas

03 May, 2016 05:57
Bob Cline said...

Up until the Carson and Barnes Circus got this new top a few years ago, they still had the largest show on the road. They have dramatically reduced the size of the show now, trying to keep the nut down and remain on the road.

I don't think anyone that saw there five rings and two flying act sections big top will ever forget it.

Bob

03 May, 2016 10:24
Roger Smith said...

Someone on RBB at the time noted the turnaway crowds that night of July 16, 1956. The viable suggestion was, "Keep the Big Top and take this thing out as a Farewell Tour. We'd turn 'em away at every show--maybe for years." But John North wasn't thinking as a showman. He folded, and found out overnight his sense of self-importance hardly represented the lasting circus men.

03 May, 2016 15:47
Bob Swaney said...

Much less the 20 elephants! I once booked it on Langley AFB, VA. Elephants and F-15s, side by side.

03 May, 2016 20:28
Harry Kingston said...

An old time circus fan friend of mine, Mike Piccolo and his brother Silvius was there to see the last show in Pittsburg.
Mike said they just cut the ropes and let the big top fall to the ground.
What got me is that John North stayed in his private car and let Rudy Bundy do the dirty work of telling the circus folks that was it for the season.
Fred Pfening told me he flew to Pittsburg to see the last performance.
I read where the Clyde Beatty Circus that had closed also started again under McClosky and made money.
Harry in Texas

04 May, 2016 07:34
Chris said...

I have heard that theory that maybe a "Farewell Tour" could have filled the big top for the remainder of the season, but there were still tremendous issues moving the show from town to town. It has been well documented that the management on the lot in '56 was having a helluva time getting the show put up. When North and Michael Burke met with Jimmy Hoffa before the season started the Teamsters boss said "I'm going to put you out of business." The International Brotherhood of Teamsters did their part that season to make his statement a reality through pickets and vandalism. The Teamsters never did put the show "out of business" and they never did organize the circus - but they were an instrumental factor in North's decision to close the show mid-season.

04 May, 2016 14:16
Roger Smith said...

Clyde Beatty went bankrupt out here in Burbank, on May 20, 1956. The judge allowed him to take the show back to Deming, NM winterquarters. The ex-Ringling contingent, whom I call the Gang of Four, McClosky, Kernan, Collins, and their lawyer Randolph Calhoun, bought the show at the sheriff's auction, in Macon, Georgia. Unverified rumors say they walked off with the title for $80,000. They re-opened on August 30, in Las Cruces, and closed a very successful 2nd half of the season as the last under-canvas railroad this country was to know.

04 May, 2016 16:20
Mark said...

All the working men on the Ringling Bros. Circuses are members of Teamsters local 688 out of St. Louis.

04 May, 2016 21:20

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