Saturday, November 19, 2005

Dignity in the Circus Ring


For some reason I have to enter my password each time I send out a picture and somehow it got lost but now I am back in business and pleased to report that while the machine was down yesterday, I remained dignified and stately.

I think this might be a good time to explain to all young people who plan on making the circus their career the importance of establishing a good rapport with costume designers. Bearing in mind that they are in a position to make you look very foolish as this Paul Gutheil photograph proves. The same applies to the unidentified artist in the background.

Posted by Buckles at 11/19/2005 06:25:00 AM

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice to see you sharing your dignified photo with another icon of elegance, "AliBaba Bobby" Gibbs in his camel act attire. Bobby showed me a review of that act from an elementary school student -- "A man in a tent made the camels dance."

19 November, 2005 06:43
Anonymous said...

Is that hat the one worn by John in an earlier photo of him with his camel act? Barbara looks like a fashion plate as usual. Wardrobe was one of the best things about the circus to me. Covered a lot of natures mistakes for the men.

19 November, 2005 07:27
Anonymous said...

Mr. Woodcock,

Would you also have in your collection,films and video tapes of the various elephant acts over the years.Particularly acts from over 40 years ago that were filmed.
I did some web surfing and found out that the Ed Sullivan show
had elephants acts every once in a while on the variety show.
Here is what I found.

Heintz's Elephants
(Toast of the Town ,aired March.20.1960)

Rex William's Elephants
(aired September.25.1960)

Bertha and Her Trained Elephants
(aired October.29.1961)

The Sembach Elephant's
(aired December.19.1965)

I know some of the Ed Sullivan show's are available on video and DVD.
Anyone here,seen these shows?

19 November, 2005 14:30
Buckles said...

Over the years we did "Super Circus", "Sealtest Big Top", "Ed Sullivan", "Hollywood Palace" and "Circus of the Stars" but the best of the lot were the Ringling Specials. Ours featured Dick Van Dyke which I still enjoy watching.
The others are still kicking around and being sold by various parties but for me they are an acquired taste.

19 November, 2005 14:53
Anonymous said...

I got this info over at IMDB(International movie data-base)
The Pollack Trained elephants also appeared on the ABC -TV variety show"Hollywood Palace"
December.10.1966
and May.13.1967(possibly a re-run)
Also BerthA the dancing Elephant (and Tina) appeared numBer of times on the Hollywood Palace".
march.14.1964
January.18.1964
June.13.1964
January.9.1965
September.18.1965
February.5.1966
Either Bertha the Dancing elephant was really popular or half of those listings a re-runs.

19 November, 2005 15:13
Anonymous said...

I remember seeing Tony Samaha(?) on Ed Sullivan a couple of times. The son that had the elephant at baraboo for a while. The father was on the Tom Packs dates with horses when I was in training. There was also a younger son I think. He was too old to have been Ben who might have been there as Barbara was there also. I can confuse myself more then anyone I know.

19 November, 2005 15:46
Anonymous said...

Speaking of Ed Sullivan, I still can feel a scar on my chin that I got from my first of many stitches. I was watching the Sullivan show about forty-five years ago and I saw a man stand on his hands on a tower of blocks. As the act went on the blocks grew higher and higher into the sky. I was about five years old at that time and standing on my hands was just something that our family had just always done. Do you remember the blocks that had the alphabet on them? Well I was about four blocks high before I fell on my face; somewhere there is a bloody alphabet block with my DNA.

More interesting to me is how I came to “be a star” in my twenties at in my neighborhood Ringling Circus Amusement park, but most interesting is that I only recently found out that my great uncle William F. Seitz in 1928 built a Vaudeville Theater in Sandusky Ohio, and his son Earl kept the place alive during the forties with the help of his brother inherent savvy. None of their business sense rubbed or on me, but my blood is truly part sawdust. I don’t think that my uncle’s venue has the pleasure of elephants, but if it did I’m sure that Buckles would know.

21 November, 2005 01:15
Anonymous said...

We had a very nice, decent guy on Castle, working for Bert Pettus, who was subjected to awful wardrobe. Dreadfully designed by Mary Castle, it belonged on a Prisoner of War. He looked foolish and he knew it, and went in the ring feeling foolish. The comments he took in the backyard were merciless, so I'll withhold his name. Hubert and Mary wanted to do away with my traditional tropical whites, and dress me in a turban and bloomers, like Damoo Dhotre. It never happened, but they kept insisting. I told them if they truly needed to make fools of their performers, to go get my predecessor back--and I'll withhold his name, too.

21 November, 2005 13:28

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