Thursday, October 05, 2017

#8 On Stage!

Powers Elephants.

Posted by Buckles at 10/05/2017 06:49:00 AM

3 comments:

Paul Gutheil said...

Mentioned fondly on the air over the years by Jack Benny and Bob Hope.

05 October, 2017 08:21
JIM ELLIOTT said...

A Great Grandson of George Powers is the Manager of one of the Wade Shows Carnival units, which is playing the Fair in Rome, Ga. at the present time.

05 October, 2017 08:26
4pawfan said...

I remember Bob Hope taking about Gus Sun giving so many people a start in show business on the Tonight Show. Don't know if the Power's Elephants where booked by the Gus Sun Booking Agency or not, but would bet so.
Gus and his brothers were early circus performers and later started their own wagon show.
Gus sold his interest in the Sun Bros.Circus to his brothers George and Pete in 1898 and it turned into a fine 10 car railroad show.
The Gus Sun Booking Agency purchased Vaudeville theaters and booked acts for Vaudeville and fair units for many years. Besides Bob Hope getting his start from Gus, he also helped Fanny Brice, the Marx Brothers, W C Fields, Walter Winchell, Burns and Allen, and many others.

I have often wondered if Thomas W. Duncan who wrote "Gus the Great" understood he used Gus Sun's nickname for the title character for his book? You can go back in the older issues of the Billboard and find Gus Sun called " Gus the Great ". In the April 3rd 1948 issue of the Billboard, they paid tribute to Gus on a front page story called "Gus the Great Sun Still Shines After 59 Years In Show Business". This would have been the year following Duncan's book and maybe Billboard's way of clearing the air about the real "Gus the Great" who had spent the last 59 years of his life running a clean business?

I would have been more then a little mad too if someone had used my nickname and then wrote a book using the life story of Fred Buchanan.

p.j.

05 October, 2017 12:05

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