Wednesday, December 29, 2010

"The man of a thousand scars!"


Buckles04, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

From Dave Price

Posted by Buckles at 12/29/2010 05:54:00 AM

7 comments:

Jim A. said...

I've long heard from my training mentors that getting bit or clawed usually means you screwed up -- you weren't watching the animal and "reading" it correctly. I know that's not always true but it's often the case. Jules Jacot told me scars aren't anything to brag about unless you got attacked enough to get in the paper, then you can write it off to publicity.

29 December, 2010 11:03
Wade G. Burck said...

Dave,
I have never heard of Klauder. Do you know how long he was around. Given the thousand scars, would I be wrong in assuming, not very long? LOL When was this poster made? I wonder if it was a shot at Terrell Jacob's ineffectiveness with the much publicized black jaguar act, given the odd depiction of a leopard/jaguar. I only ask because the lion on the left, on the low pedestal looks remarkably like Jacob's hermaphrodite, Sheba.
Thank you for sharing this.
Wade Burck

29 December, 2010 11:27
Roger Smith said...

The lions upper L, Center, and R, are not that bad in terms of artwork, but the depiction of the trainer is reminiscent of pinhead Schlitzie, plus the gun and chair are badly placed and his off-balance posture likely invited some of the scars. If, of course, we take circus artwork literally.

RE: scars, as a subject. I'll eliminate the names of the trainers involved, since they may be incorrect anyway. But it seems some show booked three cat acts, and sent all the trainers down to the local TV station for this great publicity coup. A PR man's dream--his three trainers on one set. First trainer claims, "Ah, yes, I have a thousand scars.." Second trainer sniffs, "My animals gave me TWO thousand scars", and of course, the interviewer is rolling her eyes already, so she turns to our third trainer and dreads the question, "OK, how many scars do you have?" And the third guy says, "Well, I must be the best trainer here, since I worked like a pro instead of a dare-devil. I only have a dozen scars and never wanted the first one."

29 December, 2010 19:45
Ole Whitey said...

Wade: This poster and his mention in the route books is the sum total of what I know about Klauder. I doubt that he was around very long.

I imagine the poster was just cobbled up at Central Show Print in Mason City without any thought about getting shots at TJ or anyone else. Seils-Sterling died in 1938 so this poster was probably made before the TJ black leopards or jags business took place.

Regarding the scars, Roger has a story about what Beatty said to him about not bragging about your scars. Jump in, Roger.

Some press agent probably came up with the "Thousand Scars" line without Klauder even knowing it.

Of course all this is just my guess seventy-some years after the fact.

29 December, 2010 20:03
Wade G. Burck said...

Ole Whitey,
Thank you for the insight. Along the line of "scars or no scars" as an indicator of your skill, I have heard all of them. Similarly a young, up and coming horse trainer declared to a much older horse trainer, "I have never been bucked off a horse in my life." To which the old timer responded, "Ah, so you are the the one who got all the good horses."

Wade Burck

29 December, 2010 23:06
Roger Smith said...

By the time I joined Beatty, I had been delayed two months for healing from two operations needed to repair injuries from my first male lion, Duke. Everyone over there knew about it, and nothing much was said until one day, Don Hayman ran up to me, all excited, wanting to see the scars. Don was a long-time friend of Beatty's, and a major figure in the Levittown, PA, paper, so I figured all was legit. But Don ran back to Beatty about it, enthused as if I'd flashed the guy.

That night, in the Cadillac, Beatty expressed his impatience. He didn't see it that I had accommodated the request of a friend of his.

"Gee, boy! You don't go around showing your scars to ANYone. These old trainers, they all resent it. If you stay in this business, you'll get plenty more than this, and you'll find out quick, like me, 'Boy, I don't want any more of this!'"

I took his point. My god-mother saw him torn up in Texarkana, in 1925, and his bad leg from the jungle fever episode of '32, and the other leg scarring from the discharge of that .38 blank, earned him hard-won viewpoints.

30 December, 2010 00:22
Anonymous said...

Well however awful the art work is, they got the chair correct.
The seat protecting the guts. It was months before Okie told me that I was holding it wrong. I forever wonder, what took him so long to tell me ? Dennis

30 December, 2010 02:49

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