Wednesday, September 29, 2010

1969 RBBB #14


1969 RBBB-14, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 9/29/2010 06:02:00 AM

8 comments:

Lane Taburt said...

The King Charles Troupe was, amazingly, the only all-American-born routine in the entire Red unit performance roster. But it took a Hungarian trainer's tutelage to prepare the troupe from the Southeast Bronx for their center-ring debut on RBB&B.

29 September, 2010 09:50
Chic Silber said...

A great bunch of "lively" guys

I believe that Charlie King may

have died a few years back

1 year I built some tall shaft

halberds that Don designed for

the troupe to carry in spec

Anyone that knows me is aware

that my stuff is built to hold up

Well you should have seen how

those guys destroyed them while

"play" fighting (not intended)

I must have made at least 7 sets

over the 2 year trek

Which "Hungarian" Lane

29 September, 2010 18:26
Chic Silber said...

I know that it was mentioned some

time back about the attempt at

assembling the "Queen Charles"

troupe & the folly that came along

with that failed endeavor

I believe it was Baker that joked

that he wanted the X on the linens

29 September, 2010 18:30
Anonymous said...

In this edition, Thr Boskays were in center ring. The King Charles Troupe, in their debut season, occupied rings one and three.

Yes, Chic. Charlie King was killed in an auto accident while the act was performing with Siegfried & Roy at the Frontier Hotel in "Beyond Belief."

29 September, 2010 19:40
Lane Taburt said...

Alec Sebasyian was the Hungarian performer assigned (by Irvin Feld, I was told) to teach the King Charles Troupe acrobatic skills. Donald "Keywash" Stewart, one of the original members, recalls the first time the troupe made a public appearance, at the Red Unit's dress rehearsal in Venice on January 6, 1969. "Once we finished our act--this was not yet really an act, but they didn't know that--the circus fans started clapping," Stewart told me last year. "Alec was crying, and we were saying, 'Why is Alec crying? Was our act that bad?" And Alec said, "No. The circus people liked you."
Without exception, the guys enjoyed appearing in the specs. The only downside was that some troupe members had to interrupt the crap games in their dressing room at the various arenas, which were very popular among performers. And Floyd "Sweets" Harrison was notoriously late getting to the curtain when the troupe's routine was announced. As one troupe member, Albert "Cuts" Owens, who died in June, explained, "We played basketball on unicycles. And we got paid while having fun."
Charlie King was one of three troupe members killed in September 1991 when a van in which they were riding overturned as the troupe was returning to Las Vegas from an engagement at the California State Fair in Sacramento.

29 September, 2010 20:20
Chic Silber said...

Thanks Lane

Wasn't Alex married to Diana

Stephenson for a while & then I

recall some single routine with

a dog (or something) Alex & my

cousin Mike Bourbon were friends

I made some spending money in

those crap games having learned

from games on the Beatty show

run by Benjamin "Banjo" Contrata

but I mostly stayed out of cards

29 September, 2010 23:06
Lane Taburt said...

Chic: Alec was indeed married to Diana Stephenson. It was the crap games in their dressing room (which was separate from white performers) that won them over to most performers. Since the troupe's dressing room was an all-male bastion, a goodly number of performers' wives had to send someone into the KCT room to summon their husbands, who were busily engaged in various games of sport. The troupe also encouraged working men to use the KCT dressing facilities to take showers on site. The troupe's patron, Jerry King (Charlie's father), didn't want the guys to bet money on any competitive match-up. So when they challenged other performers to baseball games at various lots, the wager usually amounted to several buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken and cases of soda.
Anonymous: As I recall from my various interview notes with the troupe, the guys started out in rings 1 and 3, performing European-style unicycle routines--including headstands on bars on a rig designed by Alec, But then, after the Boskays completed their Ring 2 routine, the King Charles Troupe moved into the center ring where they wowed crowds with their razzle dazzle, basketball-playing act on unicycles. I personally saw them perform for the first time in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1973 when they were on the Blue unit.
Jack Ryan has some great jackpots about publicizing the troupe in their first year on the Red unit.

30 September, 2010 07:43
Frank Ferrante said...

Share with us, Jack - pretty please with sugar on top! ~frank

30 September, 2010 09:29

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