Friday, January 25, 2013

Hunt Bros. Elephants #5


Capt. Roy Bush

Posted by Buckles at 1/25/2013 05:19:00 AM

6 comments:

JIM ELLIOTT said...

I have a raincoat and short bullhook, that were Roy Bush's, at one time. Given to me by an old friend, that used to live in Gibsonton, Fl and aquired them from a flea market, back in the late 1970's.

25 January, 2013 07:09
Ole Whitey said...

They never made but one Roy Bush. You know he suffered from this syndrome that caused him to blurt out the most shocking language at the worst possible times.

Everybody overlooked this on the theory that his benefit to the show was more important than this problem. But it did cause some laughs and occasional chagrin.

25 January, 2013 13:09
Roger Smith said...

Roy Bush suffered from Tourette's syndrome. The victims are helpless to control the most outrageous verbal tics. What actually erupts from them, sometimes, can be devastating and impossible to ignore, even when more tolerant listeners realize the sufferers are usually harmless people.

26 January, 2013 01:05
Anonymous said...

CAPT. Roy Bush was a familar sight in my boyhood. The first show we would see every year was the Sphinx Temple Shrine circus in Hartford, CT. April every year. held in the anchient Hartford Armory,the show was for decades produced by Frank Wirth, then Wirth/Wallenda , then L,N,Fleckles into the 70's followed by Hamid Morton for years. Every major cage act, Tarzan Zerbini,Robert Baudy, Hawthorn Tigers, even the legendary Swede Johnson lion act, right before Prince Bogino took them to Hoxie in late 1968. And like clockwork, they would bring in the Hunt Bros Elephants from their NJ WQ UP until they sold out to Bartok in 67' when Paul Kelly Elephants came in. There would be Capt. Roy in full military regalia and his very nice act. They went with a lot of the Hunt equipment to Bartok and like Hunts had a short road tour of six months, doing Shrine dates the rest of the year. Then when Bartok folded in 72' big Chandra and Capt. Roy went to Royal Hanneford, to mix with INA and other young asians, while Carden Johnson bought Danu, Sita and Muna to be worked for years by Larry Rucker. When he passed they sold the three to Vargas, who in turn sold them during a business slump in the early 80's to the wonderful Fuentes Gasca family of Mexico. they went to the huge Big Apple sized Circo Gigante Modelo DE Mexico touring Columbia South America, run by el Tarzan Mexicano, Juventino Fuentes Gasca and his young family. THEY WERE IN A 5 ACT WITH TWO recent asian import females
(no retrictions on importing asian babies") all you needed was the money to feed them, buy them from Thailand (the 10 k each with the airfrieght ) and a small forest to be cut down to make the paperwork, but that is very doable down there.
They had a fellow, very talented Elephant Trainer Carlos Hugo Guillamine aka "CHE" from Argentina that broke the two new ones in three weeks and had them ding a good 5 act soon after. Those old Elephants mothered up with the babies, and they were a herd unit in no time. Each Elephant had it's own groom 24 hrs a day with extra guys to help with shoveling. Nice vynal stable tent, where posssible they'd let them swim or roam in pastures, always got top availible feed for them. Once, I recall a time they sent a semi 500 miles roundtrip to get the riht hay bales. Another time hay was coming and we needed a couple days cushion so wew hired (that is where it helps to speak fluent Spanish if you are ging to work down there.) an army of straw hattted machete weilding cuttters and had three huge semi truck loads hand cut. It was straight out of a Frank Buck movie all those shoeless campensenoes cutting the foddder singing all the way. Besides those five asians we also had a HUGE Economy sized Asian bull elephant named Bongo. "Bongo" came from Daviso Cristiani and was a gentle giant. He did his own single o act or "pickout act" as we used to call it.,He also did a turn in the huge airplane cable arena same as on RBBB units He carried a huge male lion on his back and a tiger after the main cage act. They also had a big Belgian horse with saddle pad and it was a super fast act finishing with Tarzan Mexicano doibg a victory lad Elephant back with the lion. Lots of good memories, hanks Buckles. MIKE CECERE








28 January, 2013 23:43
Marsha said...

This makes me happy to know that the elephants went to a good home. I have wondered about them many times. I just wish that had been the case for all of our old elephants.

05 February, 2013 15:05
Chic Silber said...


Terrific detailed reflections Mike

When I had the opportunity to see

Marsha & Don up in Land O Lakes

about a year ago I mentioned that

I had 1st met her when we were both

about 12 or so on the Hunt lot in

East Meadow on Long Island & spent

a few minutes chatting but I told

everyone I knew that I met a girl

with her own elephant WOW

05 February, 2013 21:56

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