Thursday, May 24, 2012

Clyde Beatty in Rochester WQ


I am amazed at how close the general public is allowed to stand next to the arena. The Black leopard jumping through the fire hoop is something I haven't known of Clyde Beatty before. Ol' Whitey, what do you think?

3 comments:

Ole Whitey said...

Beatty had a black leopard in a mixed act before he took over Pete Taylor's big lion and tiger act in 1925, but to my knowledge he never worked one in his Cole show years 1935-1938. I believe in one of his books he mentions having worked two early in his career.

You notice that no trainer can be seen in the sequence with the black leopard and I wonder if this might have been part of Allen King's act just patched into the footage of Beatty's act.

Comments?

Harry Kingston said...

I looked at this Universal news reel footage several times and it is the same cat props and cage so Dave the all time expert is right on added footage.
What amazes me is just to see Clyde Beatty in action with all those cats and props and what we have today with what they call a cat act.
Mr. Beatty's presentation and how he went about it, WOW
I wish there was some way to find footage from the Cole press day from the rest of the news reel companies as Fox movietone, Paramount, MGM, Warners, and Hurst all did news reels.
and you can bet they were all there as they did not want to be scooped on a story.
Harry in Texas

Ole Whitey said...

When the 1935 Cole show was framed Jess Adkins brought Beatty with him from H-W and Zack Terrell brought Allen King from the Live Power show at the Chicago World Fair. Both appeared at this press day show and both were on the show in the early months, but before the end of the season King left to join Rice Bros.

Beatty was still just thirty-one years old when these shots were made and didn't turn thirty-two until the show reached Cleveland. He was at the top of his career.