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From
Chris Berry - THE GREAT GRIMES - Cole Bros. (c.1944)
There
never was a high-wire act called "THE GREAT GRIMES" on Cole Bros, or any other
circus, yet rehashed poster continued to be used by Cole Bros well into the late
1940s. I was discussing this with Maureen Brunsdale, librarian
in charge of the "Circus and Allied Arts Collection" at Illinois State
University's Milner Library - and her exhaustive research indicates there was
indeed a press agent - Jack Grimes - with Cole Bros in 1943, but only during
the 1943 season. It woud seem unlikely that Jack Grimes was the inspiration for
the change in lettering on this litho. Unless one of your sharp-eyed viewers
has a plausible explanation, we may never know why this poster for THE GREAT
GRIMES was produced by the thousands, promoting an act that never
existed!
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Thursday, February 05, 2015
From Chris Berry #5
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3 comments:
This poster was still used by King Bros after Mr K got the rights to use the name and paper temporarily. Then in 1959 we used it on Famous Cole with the word "Famous" crosslined over "Bros" after Kitzman was awarded a truck full of posters for non-payment of wages on King Bros and sold them to Glenn Jarmes.
The recently posting of frame enlargements from a movie made on the Cole Bros. show in 1936 or 1937 DOES show a wire act similar to this one. Perhaps the act's real name could not be used on the poster due to some contractual conflict.
Eric - the act from 1937 was THE GREAT GRETONAS. The original poster - with their name) can be also be seen on the blog. The Gretonas troupe consisted of Willi & Clara Lamberti, Franz Heinzmann, Eugen Lechler and Otto Gretona.
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