Friday, November 03, 2006

Titans of the Tigers #3


Guy Gossing 1975

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

He played a number of dates for L. N. Fleckles both at Medinah Temple (Chicago) and Milwaukee Summerfest.

Anonymous said...

In my younger days, I worked props on many of the dates that Guy Gossing was on. His new cable arena was very light and easy for the prop crew to up and down.

However this was a "fighting tiger act" and the light weight circular arena was often egg shapped by the end of the act.

Guy Gossing retired in the late '70s and sold his act to Eddie Schmitt. Guy passed away about 5 or 6 years ago.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Gossing had lions before got tigers and upon retirement sold the tiger act to the Schmidt family for Eddie to work. Roman had elephants. Hugo when with Hagenback had also trained tigers, so it was foreign to them.

24-HOUR-MAN said...

On the Texas dates once the prop boys started to bragging about how many pices they could carry. Guy grabbed a coulple, stood them up and said bring me another, and another, etc. the result was he carried 7 pieces at once.

I remember someone talking about feeding by raising the door & throwing the meat in, this is how Guy fed too. On George Hubler's show on the fairgrounds got out & Guy rounded them up & put them back in.

When Bill Golden was leaving Cuneo, I suggested that Guy's act was for sale, his reply, "I wouldn't go in that cage with a bazooka"!!!!

24-HOUR-MAN said...

A question for Jim Clubb.
When Trudy worked the Christmas Circus in Rohrmond(sp?), Holland we met Alexia Caselly who's father is Guy's brother, who also did a cat act. Can you elaborate on that.

Anonymous said...

Guy's was the only fighting tiger act I've ever seen. I was on the Garden show with the Cuneo elephants when Eddie bought this act and Guy was teaching him how to work it. Being a young animal man I offered my services as a door man just to have a front row seat. A very exciting time was had by all, especially the tigers.

Anonymous said...

This arena ended up at the Tetzlaff family's park in Naples Florida and I presented a group of lioness in it in 1988. Don't know what became of this arena after they built a new show area in the late ninties. Maybe Bob would know.

Bob Cline said...

Hey Darryl,
The arena was gone by time I was there. I think it was the arena that was set-up at the back end when that was the main gift shop. The permanent ring was there but that was all. The main cat barn up front had a rectangular performance area built in front of the barn for the cage acts and a cleared are in front of that for the Chimp, Macaws, and elephant acts. There was another barred arena up front also as a training area with animals housed on opposite sides of the arena.

Bob

Anonymous said...

Thanks Bob.On more thought, I think Eddie may have bought this arena back from David. After they biult the conservation canyon show area. We worked chimps, cats and the elephant all inside the arena in 87 and 88. Summer of 88 I got to do three shows a day on weekends working chimps, lioness, and the elephant. Fun getting lions to work in 95 plus degrees three times a day.

Bob Cline said...

Darryl,
Weren't the lions the ones that John Illig trained before he went to work for Albert Rix and then Jim Clubb?

Anonymous said...

To Darryl:

Rgarding the old Guy Gossing arena, I believe I saw it stacked up in a storage barn at the Circus Hall of Fame in Peru, Indiana.

How it got from Jungle Larry's in Naples, FL to Peru would be interesting to find out.

Anonymous said...

Yes this was the group train by John.

Anonymous said...

I bought the Guy Gossing arena from David
and donated it to Circus Hall of Fame when I retired my own cat act
I always had to remember to duck to get in the man-door

Anonymous said...

Ah mystery solved. Yes that man door was a killer, but then Mr. Gossing was almost as wide as he was tall. In the same vain as Pat Anthony.

24-HOUR-MAN said...

Nothing to do with cats, Guy always reminded me of Henri Kimris, they were about the same in size, both soft spoken, and two of the finest men I've ever known.