I’m assuming that the Joe Walch who presented the wild animal act in 1949 is the same Joseph Walsh who presented one of the Alfred Court acts on Ringling for many years. (If this assumption is correct, does anyone know if these were former Court animals?) |
Friday, May 29, 2009
1949 Grotto Circus-3
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5 comments:
Looks like a Court arena. Also the big barrel in the back looks familiar. I await RJR or others related the history of this act.
Just a guess but sometimes these winter dates conflicted.
Mr. Davenport might have brought in Joe Walsh (from Benson's?) while Clyde Beatty was in Detroit.
The Detroit Shrine and Cleveland Grotto dates usually came back-to-back in that order though not always. Beatty played each of them for Davenport many times.
Early in 1949 however he played Honolulu for E K Fernandez and was unavailable for these two dates.
Incidentally while he was gone Buster Cronin, his then manager, bought the Jimmy Edgar Sparks wagons and by the time Beatty returned to the states the conversion was well under way. Tom Parkinson related the above to me.
Dave,
So the Clyde Beatty railroad Circus used the old Beckman and Gerrity carnival wagons in 1946, 1947, and 1948, right????
Then the new Sparks wagons came in in 1949??? right.
Jack Painter related to me that he and Hank Frazier were talking to Beatty in about 1950 and Hank asked Beatty about the carnival wagons, and Beatty said they never had any.
Harry
Right, Harry, in 46-47-48 the show had mostly the old Beckman & Gerety wagons and even one or two semis from the Russell truck show that had been converted into wagons, and of course the old Russell (Springfield) office wagon which stayed on the show as long as it was on rails.
Beatty just didn't make an effort to keep up with what wagon came from where. He may not have even known where those B&G wagons originated; remember it was Concello who bought them, not Beatty.
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