Friday, February 25, 2011

Circus Barley--1951


Does anyone know the identity of the two gentlemen presenting this act?





6 comments:

Ryan Easley said...

I guess the ladder in pictures #1, #3 and #4 are for the slide in picture #2? With it leaning against the arena, it seems to defeat the purpose of the barred arena preventing anything from climbing out. As there are two men in the arena, perhaps guarding the ladder is part of the older man's job description.

Rob said...

Teddy Holmberg.

Rob.

Rob said...

The act was trained by Hagenbeck trainer John Steinhoff at circus
Trolle Rhodin.Over the years it had various trainers like:Teddy Holmberg,Henri Pedersen,Francesco Capri,Hans Keil,Ludo Palos,Peter Schneider and last but not least in the 1962 and 1963 season Ursula Böttcher,After the 1963 season ,the act stopped and the animals were moved to the Erfurt Zoo.In 1963 ,Wolf Mantang started training the later so famous act of Ursula.

Rob.

Wade G. Burck said...

Rob,
Great information, thank you. A lot of those people you mentioned I had never heard of before. It seems like people were recycled much as the animals were.
Wade

Rob said...

Yes Wade,Eastern Germany wasn't very transparent those days.If they needed a trainer for some sort of wildanimal act,they could open a tin of them.Very few were known and made in the Western world .This act was trained in 1947 and performed untill 1963 and had about 8 presenters ,mostly for only 2 years.Only Hans Kiel presented them for 6 years.

Rob

Jt.Holmberg said...

Hi!
Quite funny I found this site. Teddy Holmberg is my grandfather (on my fathers side) Does anyone have some more pictures from him performing?

Jens Holmberg