As mentioned in the last thread, Circus Fan's of America are the greatest folk's in the world and most of what has been kept or documented has been through their efforts. These old picture's were sent to me last week on my 56th birthday, from Henry Penndorg along with this excerpt from his kind letter. It sure makes my past efforts seem worthwhile:
The first time that I saw you perform was at the
Westchester County Center in
White Plains, New York, with with the Hamid-Morton
Brothers Shrine Circus. At the time, as I remember,
you were presenting three acts , the Hawthorn tigers,
elephants, and a "natural enemies" act. You were also
doing your best Gunther imitation, complete with blond hair.
Each time that you would perform one of your acts,
my oldest son, who was two and a half at the time would call
out and point, "Daddy, Gunther". We did enjoy your performance.
I am not 100% positive, but I think Hamid-Morton Brothers
only appeared in White Plains in 1979 and 1980. During those
years we had two circuses appearing at the Westchester
County Center, the Royal Hanneford Circus in February, and the
Hamid-Morton Circus in May. I didn't miss either one.
The Hamid-Morton Circus was sponsored by the Mecca Temple.
The next time I saw you was when you joined Ringling
Brothers in the mid 80's, and then again in the 90's
when you presented Gunther's tigers.
These pictures were used in either The Star or The National Enquirer newpaper's(grocery store rags) to do a feature on me after I was sloughed by Sultan, whom I mention below. The top picture is the next day after I had been to the hospital for stitches. The second picture is in the house trailer a week later, with Adam and his mother, Margaret assessing the damage. A few day's ago an anonymous commenter asked if folks got off on the danger of what it is I do. The best response is "like a Roman watching a gladiator in the coliseum." I don't think anyone wishes bad for anyone who has a dangerous occupation, but then again, if it does go down, it makes for an extra exciting show.
Anybody who want's to make a snide comment about my blond hair, don't waste your time as it will be censored. LOL
Courtesy of Henry Penndorf
Posts
7 comments:
It would suck to see someone hurt, but there's the damned if you do, damned if you don't thing. People expect that wild animals are dangerous, but also like the bottle raising/tame as housecat pictures used in publicity shots. In a perverse way, the news stories that come up every week about someone's pet tiger/lion/bear/chimp injuring or killing him/her, might even be good for circus acts reminding people that they are wild animals they're watching in the arena.
Another thing I was thinking about is the fire hoop. For a long time it was announced as "Fire is a wild animal's greatest fear", even though in reality most could care less if it's a cold hoop or a fire hoop.
Now, that announcement has come back in the AR literature as "tigers forced to jump through fire hoops - their greatest fear", inviting their followers to imagine the horrors that must be perpetrated to 'force' them through the burning hoop.
Anonymous,
Good point, and the Court/Beatty sensational books of the era helped the ar quite a bit also. the ar will take their mothers birth certificate out context and add other things they have made up, to make it appear she is actually the real Queen of England.
Wade
I insist on believing that people want to see performers of all kinds, trainers, aerialists,race car drivers etc., come as close as possible to getting killed and by skill and luck survive unharmed. There is no thrill if they(we, you) couldn't get hurt, and no fun if they do.
Mark Horton
All I can say is, if you wanna hear the crowd go ape $hit crazy, clapping and screaming, let a cat get a hold of you and maybe tear a little skin for good measure. The times I have had hairy situations in the arena were always followed with great ovations once the act is finally over. But almost nothing between getting tagged and the moment the last cat walks out. Wade and I talked about this once and I think his conclusion of "They are half afraid you might still get killed in there and they damn sure don't want to egg you on by applauding" is probably right. But once it is over, and they know you are safe, they will always appreciate the fact they nearly saw a guy get ate by a tiger.
Hi Wade,
The pictures are from the "Star", a tabloid newspaper usually found at the checkouts in super markets. I am not sure whether it is even still around.
You would have been around twenty-five when these pictures were taken?
Having presented cage acts with both the stationary Hawthorn hydraulic pedestal system, and the more traditional pedestals (as in Gunther's act), do you have a preference? Did you find the Hawthorn system difficult to work around or limiting in any of the behaviors/tricks that you performed with your animals?
Stay well,
Henry
Mark,
You can insist all you want. You are not buying a ticket, and the ticket buying public thinks they got something better then an Elvis Presley encore if it ends up going south.
Wade
Henry,
I found the hydraulic pyramid that is synonymous with a Hawthorn cat act, to be fairly easy to work with, and I preferred it over prop's that had to be moved, and designed a "flip across" bridge in 1977, so I wouldn't even have to lift that off. Given my druthers, I would have preferred no pyramid ever. A lot of folks, found it difficult, as they had always had props that were carried out of the way, or left so they could keep them between them and the animals. European trainers had the most problem with it, as they traditionally move their animals from the front of the arena, around to the middle for the lay down, as opposed to an American trainer, who was used to traditionally bringing his animals from the back of the arena, to the middle for the laydown. I guess I was lucky, in that I started working with the Hawthorn pyramid early on in my career, after only working with movable props for a few months, so hadn't become set or comfortable with the movable ones, and actually was uncomfortable with the moveable pyramid that I used for GGW's tigers years later. In fact GGW had small wheels added to them so I could "drag" them to the side, as I hated lifting and carrying them, which is always so time consuming. Lance Ramos has those props today, which he purchase from Ringling. The most difficult aspect of the Hawthorn pyramid, for myself and others was that the animals had to be brought all the way to the front of the pyramid to lay down, being both time consuming getting them up to the front, instead of laying them down in the rear half of the arena, and difficult if they didn't want to come up, and you had to "go over/go around/go through" the pyramid to coax them back to the front. Like I said, I had worked with it so long, it had become second nature to me, and I only recall tripping once stepping over it. You don't do something stupid like that very often and I learned where to go without looking. A difficult obstacle to maneuver around, to be sure, which many never became comfortable with, and something which many who had never worked with it, would appreciate the ones who did.
Regards Henry and thank you,
Wade
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