Monday, July 18, 2016

#5 Red Show

Most of these pictures from a Farfan Family Photo-Op.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Most if not all of these photos are from the 1979 book A VERY YOUNG CIRCUS FLYER by Jill Krementz. Today 37 years later, it provides a great look at what the Red Unit was like back in the late 1970s. Sic transit gloria.

Roger Smith said...

You're so right. Glory that suffered transition, never to return.

Chic Silber said...


Anna & Armando behind both

Armando Jr "Tato" & Gino

The Farfans were from Chile

Anna's brother was Bobby Berosini

Armando's sister Alecia married

Donny Martinez who did the quad

before Miguel Vazquez but it was

never properly documented

Chic Silber said...


Dolly on the far left

was working in the act

with the Flying Farfans

Roger Smith said...

Long before this boy's "Young Flyer" book, Clyde Beatty, Jr. starred in the photos of his mother's fiction work, DAVEY'S ADVENTURES WITH THE CLYDE BEATTY RAILROAD CIRCUS. Jane Beatty and Ann Pinchot teamed up with this 1965 juvenile work, photographed on the Beatty-Cole show. To avoid "complications", their title specified a boy's summer on the rail show when Beatty was sole owner.

Roger Smith said...

Speaking of quads, Ernest Clarke accomplished his to catcher-brother Charles. It was done in practice in an era when no one had home movie cameras, and only the few in the barn served as witnesses. Honest credit to the Clarkes was never recorded. Similarly, Tito Gaona threw a quad, also not conclusively verified--but those present know he did it.

Chic Silber said...


Tito wasn't able to catch

the quad reliably enough

which cost him being the

featured flyer presented

as a main attraction but

the family was certainly

well appreciated as the

"First Family Of The Air"

& his return to the catch

trap during the come down

(again & again) was the

real crowd pleaser

Chic Silber said...


I had opportunity to see

Tito master the triple

caught by Victor & I saw

him catch several quads

caught by Eddie