Saturday, March 03, 2018

#11 Aerialists!


6 comments:

Chic Silber said...


Bobby & Dorothy Yerkes

Rose & Fay Alexander

Chic Silber said...


I believe that Bobby still

maintains his training yard

for circus & film stunt folks

in Northridge California

Roger Smith said...

Yes he does, and still goes in for stunt work in his 80s. He consults more now than performs.

The bandage on Fay's left shoulder is covering the badly festering reactions from vaccinations everyone on the Ringling had to take before entering Mexico, which dates this photo as 1957. This was my first time to meet Fay and Rosie. He was freshly returned from filming TRAPEZE, at the D'Hiver, in Paris, and the movie made him a lasting and influential hero to all flying act fans.

Chic Silber said...


Bobby trained & assembled

quite a few flying acts

Some from folks he found

on Muscle Beach including

The Flying Apollos with

Francine & Phil Schacht

that started on Beatty

Phil died not long ago

Their elephant Dondi died

in 2010 at age 36

Roger Smith said...

Doubt I could count the flyers who told me they took to the rigging after seeing Fay doubling for Tony Curtis in TRAPEZE. After cutting the film and getting it into distribution, Burt Lancaster wrote a letter to Fay, saying whatever success coming from the film would be owed to him. Some film folks, including TCM's late Robert Osbourne, credited the flying work to Eddie Ward. No, Ward wad decked out in drag, doubling Gina Lollobrigida--who, incidentally, felt poor Eddie was "too ug-lee to play me!" Willie Krause doubled Burt Lancaster in the catch trap. It was Fay who got named in the screen credits as Technical Adviser - Flying Sequences, and he who was the main leaper for Tony's Tino Orsini.

Chic Silber said...


In later years Fay bought a comedy car

(maybe from Cook) & updated it with a

number of reliable gimmicks & titled

it "Al's Lemonzeen" with which Rosie

doing all the hard work & Fay working

it very well as a tramp clown wowed

the crowds for several years