The new Sensational Ortons appearing before the crowned heads of Europe, seen being escorted by Cyril Mills.
As I recall Dutch eventually died when the rigging collapsed while while he was practicing at his home in Dallas, Texas.
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Monday, November 17, 2014
"Swing and Sway" #7
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5 comments:
Lester (Sensational) Parker who
was married to Ninnette killed
himself in a swaypole wreck &
Jacqueline Zerbini's brother
Pierre was crippled for life in
a similar breakaway disaster
I seem to recall the Fawcetts
also had a swaypole death or 2
Rietta Wallenda fell from her
pole in Omaha in the early 60s
Also in this photo is Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Princess Ann and clown Percy Huxter on the left next to Cyril Mills, taken at Bertram Mills Circus, Olympia, London. 1955/56
What were the sway poles made out of and how were they anchored down? I would think the modern ones would be made from fiberglass or some high tech carbon fiber or such, both of which are relative "new" products.
For a time at Jungleland, we had Pierre Souren and his break-away sway pole. It was set up on one of the massive concrete anchor-bases for the attempted and sorely-ignored Sky Ride the office put in. Our operators spent roughly a million in mid-1960s dollars on the thing, thinking to begin a ride park in a lame effort to compete with what other Southern California parks had to great success. Back to Pierre--he was impossibly snobbish to all the Americans there, reflecting the attitudes maintained by Klaus and Ada Blaszak. When Pierre's wife came due, he hustled her down to Tijuana so his son would not be born an American. It was in this relative time frame that the release on his break-away cut loose at the wrong time, and his legs were shattered from the pole coming down as "swing and sway - the wrong way."
LARRY: I read an article stating the poles were of the finest steel Shelby tubing. These were exquisitely engineered by master machinists. There were keenly designed gradations of diameters, sleeved inside one another by powerful presses. Considering that most sway poles, in performance, were upwards of 100 feet in height, allowances were determined for sectioning the poles, to accommodate loading for travel. I can only testify to one anchoring device, used by the Nocks on the big dates for Hubert Castle. Their bases were great water tanks, some 12 feet in diameter, and if all they had were garden hoses, it took hours to fill each of their 3 tanks. The weight of the water secured the poles ideally. Along with the bone-chilling high acts of Bill and Trudy Strong, sway pole is another act I can barely make myself watch.
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