Saturday, May 21, 2011

Hagenbeck Wallace 4Paw Sells CLYDE BEATTY (1935)

From Chris Berry

On an earlier post, Dave Price offers up a suggestion that one of the Al G. Barnes lithos seen on the blog earlier was clearly based on a Hagenbeck Wallace photo of Clyde Beatty, and that perhaps it was originally planned as a new BEATTY litho for Hagenbeck Wallace had he not joined Adkins and Terrell on the new Cole Bros Circus in 1935. Here is another footnote to that season. During late April of 1935 both Cole Bros and Hagenbeck Wallace 4-Paw Sells day-and-dated each other for an identical run - Apr 20 through May 5 - in Chicago (Cole Bros at the Chicago Stadium and at the same time Hagenbeck Wallace 4-Paw Sells at the Chicago Stadium). Despite the fact that Beatty was heavily billed as appearing with Cole Bros on the South Side, this outstanding daub for Hagenbeck Wallace 4-Paw Sells uses a familiar CLYDE BEATTY litho, left over from 1934, to promote that show at the Chicago Stadium on the West Side. No attempt was made to cover up Beatty's name or replace it with Bert Nelson's. No doubt confusing to the casual Chicago circus fan of 1935.

Posted by Buckles at 5/21/2011 11:10:00 PM

13 comments:

Roger Smith said...

Also confusing is our copy here placing both shows in Chicago Stadium.

Joe Bradbury's epic work, "The History of the Cole Bros. Circus 1935-1940", beginning in the May-June 1965 BANDWAGON, has the show opening in Chicago Coliseum, then at 1513 South Wabash, for the April 20-May 5, 1935 opening.

Hagenbeck-Wallace (etc.) played the Chicago Stadium, as this daub notes, at 1800 West Madison, on the city's Near West Side for the identical run. But along Madison Avenue, at Franklin Street, opposition billers had tacked up 514 cloth banners heralding Cole Bros. Circus with Clyde Beatty, which the author claims was "the biggest single hit tacked in Chicago in many years."

The Cole show replaced them there for 1936, opening at Chicago Stadium for 23 days, April 11 through May 3rd. Source: Bradbury's article, continuing in the September-October 1965 BANDWAGON. 1936 was the premiere season for Harriet Beatty's Primba tigress and Simba lion, riding Anna May.

22 May, 2011 05:40
Buckles said...

We showed the Coliseum with our elephant act in 1963 I think it was a 4th of July show but I'm not sure. By chance the Ringling Show was appearing at the Ampitheater.
John Cuneo was working the date with his horse act, very impressive.
We got settled into the building the night before and my folks and I decided to pay a visit to the big show.
By chance John came by as we were waiting for a cab and while chatting, we were suddenly accosted by a lady from the neighborhood, completely nude from the waist up who immediately draped her arms around John's neck and inquired if he was interested in a good time.
I must say, John remained cool and collected, disentangled himself and said, "I think not! Good Day Madam!" shook her hand and left as tho nothing had happened.
As for the Ringling Show my dad said he never enjoyed a show anything more, particularly the music.
I have mentioned before that we were invited back to the office during intermission and while there Jack Joyce held up a newspaper and said, "Look at this! D.R.'s boat sank!"
My dad died 5 months later.

22 May, 2011 07:07
Buckles said...

I might add that my dad was delighted with Hugo's number with "Targa", zebra and llama.
Especially the big dog in the basket and the little dog up on "Targa's" cloth headpiece.
My mother in awe of Moroski's horses in the "Luck be a Lady" menage display.
Everything seemed to make sense in those days.

22 May, 2011 07:32
Buckles said...

I might add further that the big dog's name was "Window".
Axel later told me that he showed up one day in Qtrs. and hung around the elephants.
So much so that he would follow them right out onto the floor during rehearsals.
They locked him in the tack room and he immediately crashed through the window, hence the name.
The little dog's name was "Flea"
and as "Targa" turned on the spidle he would grab the cloth headpiece and shake it like a rag doll.
Got a big audience response.

22 May, 2011 07:44
john herriott said...

In my years around the Cole Show bull hands and later around the one and only Jimmy Reynolds I heard so many jackpots regarding that day and date of those two big shows. Especially the Elephant dptmnts. Seems alot of hands would blow back and forth between the two shows and agitation between Cole "johnny come lately Eddie Allen" and the "old man" Gardener I believe it was. The new guy was not too popular, but times were tough and they needed a job. The old pro hands if they were not on the payroll could still eat in the cookhouse and wait until some guy blowed or got run off.The assistant in every dptmnt. would get meal tickets for every meal and you couldn't eat without turning one in at front of Cook tent. Now the asst. knew who the gpood hands were and the time keeper would give him more ducats than the alloted number, so it was a good javckpot, bullshit time. Seems like Allen and Wife Jean , presented the Ranch herd act, but he couldn't get around the tough stuff including the Arican named I believe "Safari".Reynolds was an awful agitator and his wife, Andrea Gallagher" was a principal <" menage rider" so it would be hard to run himm off and Jimmy knew it. Anyway it was quite a time. One show came from Rochester, Ind. and the other Peru. Adkins and Terrel were well likje show managers from thos Ringling owned shows and were now on their own, but they acquired the best show help.What a time. johnny herriott

22 May, 2011 09:06
johnny said...

Bert Nelson being a nice guy certainly was not close to Beatty and I believe they invented "Maria RAPUTAIN" TO COUNTER bEATTY PUBLICITY. Along with Beatty was Allen King who was no slouch at the time. There was no love beteen Beatty and Gumpertz, so Beatty was pleased with his arrangement with Adkins-Terrel.

22 May, 2011 09:11
tanglefoot said...

For the record. Just think of how great Beatty was when the two biggest circuses had to compete for him.Never before, my friends and never again. case closed tanglefoot

22 May, 2011 09:15
Anonymous said...

Tanglefoot,
Wait a minute, you can't close the case without considering that by 1965 there was only "one" big show and they contracted the services of Gunther Gebel Williams and Charly Baumann for decades because there was no competition. Now you can close the case.

22 May, 2011 13:00
Harry Kingston said...

Ok Beatty was on Cole and advertised that way.
HW used the old bill with Beatty's name on it and Nelson did the cat act.
Why didn't Akins and Terrell and Beatty rasie hell about HW advertising Beatty that was not on HW.
At least HW could have pasted over the Beatty name with Nelson's on it.
Or was HW playing two ends against the middle.
Or was Gumpertz trying to get back at the new Cole show and Beatty for leaving HW.
Thats flase advertising on HW's part.
Harry in Texas

22 May, 2011 13:25
Anonymous said...

Gumps had John Kelly in his corner in all legal matters and would have slow-walked any claims against H-W from Akin's and company. But the press would have been good for Cole Bros. in Chicago if they had at least filed suit against them. Maybe, they just had too many other things going on to worry about it.
p.j.

22 May, 2011 15:43
Anonymous said...

Didn't John Kelly get disbarred?
Bob Kitto

22 May, 2011 17:02
Dick Flint said...

John Kelly, who prepared tax returns for the circus as well as John Ringling, was one of six circus officials who served prison sentences for tax evasion in a case that dragged on from 1933 to 1938. Many of the charges were typical failures to report full ticket and concession sales but in the “center ring” of the case were write-offs for abandoned inventory, especially many animals they never owned. In 1927 alone, for example, when they moved from Bridgeport to Sarasota, they wrote off 46 elephants, 800 horses, hundreds of monkeys, etc., as abandoned at the old quarters! It was never shown, however, that John Ringling himself engaged in any fraud. These were years when John Ringling was not well and wheelchair-bound having suffered a heart attack in 1932. Increasingly withdrawn, he died four years later, before the trail was concluded.
Dick Flint
Baltimore

23 May, 2011 08:27
Dick Flint said...

In the last line of my response to Bob Kitto, I meant to type "trial" and not "trail."
Dick Flint

23 May, 2011 11:46

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