Thursday, June 07, 2007

Daniel Suskow Poster


Daniel Suskow Poster.1, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.


Speaking of former Ringling Brothers' trainers, Daniel Suskow, who served as Charlie Baumann's understudy and occasionally presented his tiger act, seems to have done well since leaving Ringling Brothers and moving on to Europe. There was a small news item on a European circus web site about Daniel Suskow. Accompanying the picture (attached) of what appears to be a poster of Daniel Suskow was an announcement that he would be appearing with or at the Museum of the Circus and Illusion from June 16 - September 3, 2007 with twenty tigers. I am not familiar with the Museum of the Circus and Illusion. Are you?

Stay well,

Henry

Posted by Buckles at 6/07/2007 06:01:00 AM

12 comments:

Bob Cline said...

I may be incorrect but I believe that Mr. Suskow worked the Tiger Act that Tarzan Zerbini had bought for a while after the Ringling years before returning to Europe.
Bob

07 June, 2007 09:02
Buckles said...

You are right, he worked elephants and horses as well while with Tarzan, a very talented guy.
Mr. Suskow did some outstanding training while with the Ringling Show but blew one night without a word, a feat usually accomplished by American trainers.
I got word that the trailer the show had provided for him was for sale so I called down to Venice and after being shuttled from party to party I wound up talking to Bill Misiura who seemed unfamiliar with the subject and abruptly gave me the old "Don't call me, I'll call you!" routine and that was that.

07 June, 2007 09:28
Anonymous said...

Mr Suskow i think trained a lion and horse act for RBBB, he has 20 tigers but at the moment works 7 or 8.

07 June, 2007 09:28
Anonymous said...

I would hardly describe Mr. Suskow as being an 'understudy'. He was brought fom Europe as a highly successful animal trainer to indeed take over the Baumann tiger act and to do other training as well. However Charly was not ready to completely divest himself from the tigers, even tho his Perf. Dir. job would remain, so it became an uncomfortable situation with the tigers, however he did train, during that same time, from scratch a magnificent act of four camels, four Arab horses and four Zebras in what I would suggest was the finest exotic animal act that has ever hit our shores. He also trained an Apaloosa horse act presented by his beautiful daughter in the same display. After alot of political backstabbing from various people in RBBB animal dept. He left Ringling and served a couple seasons with Tarzan Zerbini where he put together the liberty horses that have maded Slvia Zerbini famous in the equestrian field. He did also routine and present three of Tarzan's elephants in a nice European routine. He did return to Ringling and was down in Venice training and routining a tiger act to be presented by his daughter, plus a group of horses for a large Big and Little routine. Once again the political backstabbing started and he just up and went back to Europe with a sour taste in his mouth.

When he was replaced by someone to work that big exotic act, the powers that be hired an American cowboy, who had never been in a circus ring in his life to present one of the finest exotic acts in the world. It was a disaster. This person was injured by some other animal while with Ringling and his career as a circus trainer-presenter was short lived.

The act kind of petered out and Gunther Gebel was quite pleased to take the well trained zebras and incorporate them into his elephant number.

Thru Axel I got to know Danielle and we visited often. I am a pure American animal trainer and am quite proud of my roots. However I have the greatest respect for those accomplished trainers who come to our shores and do not any pangs of envy. I have known Wolfgang Holzmaier, Dannielle Suskow and Sacha Houcke and rate them extremely high. They were a plus as part of the rINGLING animal trainers and am sure each would have an interesting tale to tell about their times with RBBB. I hope I have set the record straight to some degree, but I am sure some out there would not agree with me, buy having been in the Ringling stew I can well understand how events unfold even to this day.

07 June, 2007 09:43
Anonymous said...

I caught up with Daniel, by accident, in Paris in 2003. He was delivering meat for the tigers of Diana Moreno Bormann's Circus. I believe he trained their original group of tigers. He made the comment that he had 3 semis he was moving on, and quite a group of tigers to feed. As with everywhere, he said it was a struggle to make ends meet. Erik Jaeger

07 June, 2007 11:05
Anonymous said...

I had wondered who trained Sylvia's act. I thought it had a very European look to it. Another act I wondered about was the act that Nellie Hanneford works (worked) That too seems more like a European liberty number.

07 June, 2007 23:57
Buckles said...

You are absolutely correct, Nellie's act was trained by Col. Otto von Herriott.

08 June, 2007 06:31
Anonymous said...

Speaking of Nellie, is it true she sold some of those horses and broke up the original act?

If it is true, what a shame.

08 June, 2007 07:13
Anonymous said...

Col. Otto Von Herriott, You describe the Mickey Bohanan debacle quite well. In what was perhaps one of the worst personel decisions in GSOE's history,(and there have been many), a truely great animals act was destroyed. Ringling purchased a bison from Mickey which had worked only on dirt and in rodeo's(the trailer took him right onto the arena, he unloaded, and did his routine, loaded up, and was driven out. When he was brought to Cleveland for Daniel, and saw concrete, elephant's, and a sloped 200 yard entrance ramp into the coliseum, he transformed into a rabbit. Daniel did a great job with Geronimo, and even put him in the exotic act, but he would bolt in a heart beat, even anchored to Tommy Henry. The vet of the show, at the time, who, as you are surely aware, knew nothing about the dynamics of the art of animal training, convincided Ringling that Mickey was a better trainer than Daniel, as the Bison never ran in the rodeo arena. When Mickey was hired this same "animal expert", convinced them that if he was that great with bison, he should be able to work wonders with a rhinoserous, and black leopard. When that plan "blew up", they tip toed over to Europe and cut a deal with the Togni's. Mr. Suskow is a superb, underrated trainer, who is my friend, and was my dressing room partner for many years. Wade Burck

08 June, 2007 09:04
Anonymous said...

After Mickey Bohanon's accident
David Polke was brought in to work that exotic group and did a very credible job,and also headed up the hoofstock dept.
and shared a dressing room with Tahar and myself

08 June, 2007 10:36
Anonymous said...

The lions that Daniell started on horseback went to Mike Hackenberger at the Bowmanville zoo and had a long and productive career doing shows at the zoo and assorted film and TV jobs,most notably they worked on the movie "Ghosts in the Darkness"

08 June, 2007 10:41
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - -

I met Mickey Bohannon here with RBBB Blue in 1988. He seemed a likable, country guy though perhaps a bit naïve as to the circus business. He had with him a 6-month old male white rhino that the show got from Dave Hale. It had been born on 14 July 1987 at the Lion Country in West Palm. From there he went to dealer Henry Hampton in Mt. Eula, NC , arriving there on 17 July 1967, only three days after his birth. Hampton in turn sold him to Hale. Hale had it for a time in one of his petting zoos. I have a photo of him there. Hale delivered the little fellow to the show in St. Petersburg.

RBBB named the rhino “Mkhombe” but the show guys called him “Tank.” He had only just joined out when I caught the show in Atlanta in January. Astonishingly, Tank was handled as led stock. He rode in stock car #133. I went inside and scoped it out. There was a wooden stall for the rhino, plus ones for 4 zebras (the ones trained by Suskow) , 4 dromedary and 2 Bactrian camels (also Suskow trainees) , a llama, and the bison. Mickey had a zebra of his own that rode in stock car #132 with horses.

Bohannon was supposed to work the little rhino into the performance in connection with the Zulu-themed spec that year. And I watched him take it into the ring between performances. The rhino walked around with Mickey’s young son riding him. They also tried to get him up onto a low stool but had little success with that. I do not think the rhino appeared in but one show, a walk-around later in the Garden.

I learned that Bohannon got hurt by the rhino. The story I was told is that Bohannon was leaning over Tank when the rhino suddenly tossed his head upward and his horn, though only smallish caught, Bohannon in the face breaking his glasses and driving shards of glass into him.

I think they carried Tank for the remainder of 1988. He was then sent to David Meeks for his Little Mountain Zoo in Inman SC. I visited Meeks there on May 11, 1989 and saw Tank. He was quite large by then and a nice animal. Meeks’ place was by then called “Hollywild Animal Park.” Tank was still there as of November 1995.

Two of the Suskow zebras were delivered to RBBB Blue in Atlanta in Feb 1983. They were wild as hell (nothing new in that), and one of them promptly kicked the stuffing out of a handler. The late Doc Fitzpatrick from Atlanta (former CFA President) treated the guy. Doc was always around the back door to help out with bumps and bruises.

There was a little wiry RBBB animal man who looked after the Suskow zebras. I cannot recall his name but he was around the show for years - -may still be for all I know. He told me one of the original zebras was deaf (or was it blind?). Anyway, Suskow made a fine group of performers out of the zebras which debuted on the Blue in 1984. He had already done so with the camels. I agree that he was one of the finest animal trainers in the history of American circuses.

09 June, 2007 15:27

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