Sunday, March 26, 2006

Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus/ Five Graces Bandwagon


John Herriott's father Milt told him that the great Alfredo Codona having finished his career as a flyer served as performance director with Hagenbeck-Wallace. The show made parades irregularly and one of his duties was to post a notice near the back door saying "Your presence is requested tomorrow at 10:00 for a tour of beautiful downtown ................ Ohio!".
Which meant there would be a parade in the morning and you had better be there. Only feature artists were excluded and a super star might even get out of making Spec.

Posted by Buckles at 3/26/2006 06:17:00 AM

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

All that beautiful art work gone forever. It seems to me that THE STAR of the show should have made parade and Spec. Their name was used as a calling card to draw the public in. Maybe the idea was to keep them a mistrey. My contract with Kelly Miller stated that I did not do all these things. I did not know this and did them anyway. Except Spec as I was on first and had to be ready to perform when the last of the Spec exited. I was having so much fun I did everything they would let me do. JC had the contract written up. I did not know I even had one.

26 March, 2006 08:40
Buckles said...

These wagons still exist, check out Jim Peterson's Blog Site.

26 March, 2006 08:46
B.E.Trumble said...

I think I've read that jess Adkins was behind the Hagenbeck parades of the 1930's. Since he was making money he got his own way on it with Ringling and could select parade wagons from all of the show under Ringling control. I suppose Mr Beatty was the biggest name not required to parade, but he was paid so little, he desrved some kind of "perk" April 26 marks to the 100th anniversary of the Hagenbeck-Wallace title -- not that the prop builders will even think about it.

26 March, 2006 10:47
Anonymous said...

The 5 Grace is still in your part of the country at the Ringling Museum. The evil empire didn't get to steal this one!!!!

26 March, 2006 14:49
Anonymous said...

The Two Jesters wagon and the Five Graces wagon are in the Ringling Museum in Sarasota.

26 March, 2006 15:12
Anonymous said...

Buckles: I've always heard it said that the two most astute wagon historians among the men there at the time were your father, and Terrell Jacobs.

26 March, 2006 15:55
Anonymous said...

Kim Baer and I have photos of her grandfather, Ernest Clarke and the Hannefords on Hagenbeck-Wallace. Codona once called Mr. Clarke over to Center Ring, and announced,"I have often been given credit for being the first to perform the triple. Here is the man who caught it before I learned to fly."

26 March, 2006 16:01

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