Buckles, In answer to your question, I've attached a few more Wenzel images. The one you posted with Wenzel being chased by a skeleton is from the Glasier collection. There were no copies of that one in the images I got. There was one large 11 x 17 mounted photo of the horse walk-around. Paul also had a couple of other versions of this . . . both were dinosaurs. The dino walk-around photo with the big top in the background has this writing on the back: "Subject: Paul Wenzel Prop Artist Ringling Bros. B & B Circus Wash. D.C. May 20, 1952 Photo by Dr. L. C. Holland Suffolk, VA." Have also attached a scan of his letterhead, probably from the 1920s. The Ringling Circus Museum has a different version of this letterhead. Their letterhead has the identical four drawings on the bottom (Horse, Stork, Skeleton & Walking Cats), but the top has different artwork and the text "Wenzel and Hart producing New Clown-Walk-Arounds |
Saturday, September 15, 2012
From Larry Kellogg #1
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This is best looking walkaround prop
that I have ever seen
For your information, Dr. L.C. Holland, Suffolk. Va was a denitst and great circus fan. I have photos in my father's old albums of Doc. Holland, as he was know, visiting the Ringling Show and Felix Adler would make him up as a clown in one of Felix's own costumes, and he would walk around the track with the other clowns. He did a lot of dental work for the clowns when the show was in that area of the country. He used to either make or have made gold jewelery from the gold he removed from the teeth of his clients and give them to the circus people. I have a lion tie pin still that Doc. gave my father. He was very well liked by all. I have one of his business letter heads also that you show later in the blog. Paul was a genius. Broadway was always begging him to make props for their shows, because of his use of piano wire and silk that would compress, but he would not. In later years he lived in a boat some place near Tampa and built most of his stuff there. He was from Milwaukee I think I remember and we called him on the show, "The Professor". He did a lot of camera work and always has different phylosophies he would share with everyone. Still remember him as if was yesterday. Dwane Thorpe took care of him on the show in his elder years. Dwane told me that one time Paul had to go into the hospital. He, by the way had had a pace-maker in him for years. While he was in the hospital, he asked Dwane to look in his berth on the train for his false teeth which he had fogotten and needed. Dwane said that in the search he came up with a box of all his pay checks for the year to date that he had never cashed. What a great character, everyone loved "The Professor". Jackie LeClaire
Post a Comment