Friday, November 23, 2018

CAT FOLK #8


Posted by Chic Silber at 11/23/2018 09:01:00 AM

3 comments:

Roger Smith said...

Never will enough be said about this man. Anthony Patrick Vitanza returned as a WW II veteran paratrooper, and applied to study wild animal training under the G.I. Bill. The U.S. Congress laughed at him until his hometown rep, out of Cleveland, nailed it for him. On the measly stipend of $80 a month, he approached Clyde Beatty for schooling. Beatty said, "Pat, I'm going to do you a favor and turn you down. I have a working cat act, and you can't move up around me. Get yourself out to Thousand Oaks and do your breaking in. I'll send a letter to Chubby Guilfoyle to see if he'll take you on. He was my 2nd teacher, and if he'll take you, you'll get your start." I followed Pat there by over a decade, and heard that old Chubby was awfully hard on him, but when Pat took off in 1953 to go on his own, he was, as we all know, a finished wild animal trainer. He benefited also from the tutelage of Mabel Stark and Benny Bennett, who along with Dick McGraw, also broke me in. Bill Johnston left there with Pat and stayed with him 17 years. He told me Pat's biggest act was 22 mixed lions and tigers. Stricken with cancer, Pat sold the last of his cats to Dave Hoover, and we all went to Riverview to load them out. Pat came to Deland to teach Hoover to work the new arrivals, but his efforts did not fully catch on. Pat is interred in the big cemetery in Manasota, with no mention of his circus career--just a simple military marker under his birth name, Vitanza.

23 November, 2018 21:16
Chic Silber said...


The band had to play very loud

to cover his cursing at the cats

He was a funny guy to chat with

23 November, 2018 21:26
Chic Silber said...


I met him on Miller Johnson

before Cliff Vargas bought it

23 November, 2018 21:27

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