Sunday, April 24, 2011

From Frank Ferrante


269_Tai[1], originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Buckles -

I didn't see a place on the blog where this list would have been appropriate, but there are a few familiar names on the cast list of circus performers.
Hope that all is well with you and Barbara! Have a Happy Easter with the kids. ~frank

"Water For Elephants" Cast of Circus Performers
There are more than a few familiar names here
Tai - Rosie (Owned by Gary & Kari Johnson - Picture attached)
Uggie - Queenie
Ice - Silver Star
Major - Rex
Sita Acevedo - Circus Performer
Danny Castle - Circus Performer
Michael Coronas - Circus Performer
Aloysia Gavré - Circus Performer
Chobi Gyorgy - Circus Performer
David Hunt - Circus Performer
George Landkas-Coronas - Circus Performer
Kerren McKeeman - Circus Performer
Rebecca Ostroff - Circus Performer
Bianca Sapetto - Circus Performer
Katia Sereno - Circus Performer
Vladimir Sizov - Circus Performer
Russell Stark - Circus Performer
Sebastien Stella - Circus Performer
Lee-Anne Telford - Circus Performer
Dreya Weber - Circus Performer
Tara Ferguson - Showgirl
Shannon Freyer - Showgirl
Kelsey McNamee - Showgirl
Molly O'Neill - Showgirl
Jackie Zane - Sideshow
Aaron Bloom - Clown
Chris Grabher - Clown
Eddie Medrano - Clown
Stephen Simon - Clown
Jon Weiss - Clown
Tom Weymouth - Clown

Posted by Buckles at 4/24/2011 06:20:00 AM

15 comments:

tanglefoot said...

I NOTE tHREE names of circus people I am fasmiliar with on this list. tanglefoot

24 April, 2011 08:59
tanglefoot said...

Plus Kari and Gary. Both bonafide circus folk to be sure. Tanglefoot

24 April, 2011 09:02
Anonymous said...

Gary told me that he really had to do some soul searching before getting involved with this movie. So he was concerned and I am glad he did it or Hollywood would surely have gotten a knot headed Hollywood African in the role. I am sure Reese would have faqllen love with it as well. Tanglefoot

24 April, 2011 09:06
Anonymous said...

I'm with you Col.

The Ny Times was less than enthusiastic in its review beginning with, "Water For Elephants", Sara Gruen's lightweight page turner..." and closing with, "The film is so bland that it made me long for "The Greatest Show On Earth", the 1952 DeMille extravaganza that used the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. That movie left you feeling as if you'd enjoyed at least one roll in the sawdust."

As "the man" said, "You can't please all of the people all of the time.

On another note we invested a few bucks and got the May issue of Vogue Magazine. Some great photos that show just how photogenic the lovely Tai is.

Frank: Thanks for posting the photo (great shot) and the Circus cast list.

Happy Easter Happy Spring Happy Happy Everything...now let's all go to a LIVE CIRCUS!

Paul Gutheil

24 April, 2011 11:21
Larry allen Dean said...

that's a bigger cast than most circuses touring today

24 April, 2011 12:28
Anonymous said...

The AP review panned the movie also.
Bob Kitto

24 April, 2011 18:08
Anonymous said...

Seems like th CFA endorsing Water for Elephants would be like the Italian- American Club endorsing "The Godfather"!

24 April, 2011 20:31
GaryHill said...

Is that George Coronas from CW days?? I am going to see it again and see if I can spot him?

24 April, 2011 21:24
Anonymous said...

Tanglefoot, I don't know who you are for sure, but I am sure you meant to say that Kari and Gary Johnson were bonafide elephant trainers, instead of bonafide circus folk. I don't recall hearing about them or seeing them on too many shows. Or did I miss them.
James

25 April, 2011 07:29
Anonymous said...

Anonymous...

Seems like th CFA endorsing Water for Elephants would be like the Italian- American Club endorsing "The Godfather"!

This might be a good point, except with rare, rare exception The Godfather is always pointed out as a very small segment of the Italian-American culture as a whole. The same respect is not afforded to the circus culture. Every abuse, confiscation, questionable movie, is accepted as the way it is, that's the circus. Never is a particular incident, poor show, or individual referenced as an isolated case or a very, very small segment of the circus culture as a whole. For the most part that is the fault of the circus culture. If the Italian-American culture endorsed, embraced, and held up as respected members of their culture, The Godfather and the Costa Nostra, of which many have, or have had brothers, uncles, cousins etc. involved, they would have no valid ground in their claims that it isn't what an Italian-American or a Sicilian is as a whole.
Thank you for your time.
ns

25 April, 2011 08:01
Anonymous said...

don't forget Dave Twomey and Happytime circus

25 April, 2011 11:19
Anonymous said...

I didn't want to see the movie because I thought it would be a circus movie based on the book! Peggy and I were given the book by a friend and as we "picked" through it Peggy began to laugh so we wound up reading it.
I enjoyed the movie; seeing some performers, the elephant (forgive me I came from rep) and the essence of a circus. I liked the cast.
As for the book all I can say is, "Any book that can make a dying person laugh.....!"
Billie

25 April, 2011 12:58
Anonymous said...

The only performer that I could recognize in the whole thing was Rebecca Ostroff doing her iron jaw swivel on a single trapeze. Filmed from above, it was one of the best shots in the whole flick! As far as I am concerned that brief appearance and Tai were the only real circus in the whole affair! Rebecca was afraid she would end up on the cutting room floor, but some tech must've realized real circus when they saw it! Great for Rebecca, who is a real professional! The rest of the performers were unidentifiable and hardly any performing was actually shown. I recall 2 girls on web, but that was over in the blink of an eye. For being a movie about the circus and specifically a performer not much of a performance was shown anywhere in the entire 2 hours! The elephant "abuse" was left behind a stock car door, which left the actual beating to the audience's imagination, which usually is much more vivid than actually showing such a violent act, so maybe that was better? I'm not sure... CWM had sent wagons out for the filming and staff people had to go out there to "oversee" them (i.e. act like Big Shots), but I heard the museum people were such a pain in the ass, I wonder if that is why CWM never even appeared in the credits??? Or if they did, I certainly missed it. The real winners in the flick are Circus Vargas, who also weren't listed in the credits, but they received millions of dollars worth of free publicity as their title was all over about 20 minutes of the film and in every scene with Hal Holbrook. Good for them too! As a collector of wardrobe, credit has to go to the costume designer, who really did her homework. The costumes were historically accurate right down to the small head gear that Ms. Witherspoon wore in some of the scenes. Her main performance wardrobe was quite brief, which is reminiscent of wardrobe from the teens and 20's, even Leitzel's wardrobe was quite risque, in some instances practically see-through. The costumes deserve an Oscar if everything else fell flat, but for the average movie-going public, I think they'll enjoy the movie even with all of the professional critiques, and putting butts in the seats is the bottom line. If this film is a financial disaster, it will be a cold day in Hell before another circus movie shows up. How long has it been between Water for Elephants and the last big Hollywood Circus Movie? Maybe 50+ years since "Trapeze"? Yikes, most of us won't even live long enough to see the next attempt, so I hope this film makes 100's of Millions, or our chances for seeing another circus movie are slim or none!
Neil Cockerline, Minneapolis, MN

26 April, 2011 17:43
Buckles said...

I got a call from Clyde Beatty Jr. a few years ago in regard to the use of his fathers name by a certain Circus Producer.
I can't quite recall how this came about but during the course of the convesation he mentioned that he has always wanted to have a movie made about his father.
He had approached several movie producers including his friend Ron Howard but the answer was always the same, "Making a movie is easy, getting the money is the hard part. It was unlikely that anyone would fund a movie that might have Animal Rights people picketing out front.
When this cicus animal flick went into production I remembered what he said and wondered if he was right.

26 April, 2011 18:06
Anonymous said...

Actually, a couple of years ago there was some research going on concerning another circus movie that as I recall was being financed and directed by Jodie Foster. I think it was based loosely on Alfredo Cadona and Lillian Leitzel. Russell Crowe of Gladiator fame was scheduled to play the lead male role and supposedly he was going to do his own flying trapeze stunts, but then a shoulder injury in some other flick cancelled his appearance. A good friend told me that the production research team showed up uannounced at the Parkinson Library at CWM and the library was closed, so the staff told them that there was no way they could do research in the library. So the team ended up at the Tegge Circus Archives on the other side of town to research historical wardrobe and other aspects for the production design. I never heard anything more after that, so I wonder whatever happened to that project. I can't recall whether the film was based on another written source or not, but that as it may, apparently the whole project was scrapped, so we'll never see a single frame of it.
Neil Cockerline, Minneapolis, MN

27 April, 2011 15:48

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)