Sunday, September 07, 2014

Elephant Acts #5


Rudy Mueller and "Rosie" of  Broadway Jumbo fame.

4 comments:

Chic Silber said...


That Rogers & Hart musical only

ran for 233 performances over the

winter of 35-36 & included in the

cast were Grace & Poodles as well

as Barbette & directed by George

Abbott with John Murray Anderson

At the long gone Hippodrome

Chic Silber said...


Barbette appeared on Broadway in

2 shows other than "Jumbo" in 35

The more well known was an early

Cole Porter "Around The World"

Based on the Jules Verne novel

"Around The World In 80 Days"

that also didn't run very long

Chic Silber said...


Her credit in the Playbill was

"Big Rosie" portraying Jumbo

Roger Smith said...

Rudy Mueller was long retired when I knew him in Thousand Oaks. He was the Groundskeeper who kept the foliage thriving. By then,few knew what his career had been, and thought little more of him than the man who dragged 300 feet of water hose around. On December 20, 1949, Rudy entered the arena to fight off an attacking male lion who had already killed May Kovar by snapping her neck. Rudy drove him off to prevent him from further mauling the body in front of Kovar's two children. Holding the lion away, he pulled Kovar's body from the cage. Upon his death, the News-Chronicle ran a full-page tribute for Rudy, with photos from his long and successful career. But the younger employees of Jungleland couldn't connect to that. He was just the old man who watered the shrubs.