Unfortunately there is only about 3 seconds worth of Pat Anthony's mixed act on this video starting at :24. If anyone knows of a full video of this Hollywood Palace segment show, we would sure appreciate seeing it.
Courtesy of Inky Finklestein
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Pat Anthony on The Hollywood Palace
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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2 comments:
WADE, Outstanding blog you have, top shelf, just like your many great tiger acts! Just got high speed wireless out here in God's country so have some time to add some historical commments. Pat Anthony on Holllywood Palace was always a big deal. Pat had the biggest and best cage act at the time , a REAL Fighting act with several double tough lions. With the legendary Bill Johnson as his eyes outside Pat played every major Shrine tour, Polack, Hamid Morton, among others. But Holllywood Palace was a major TV gig back in those days of only 3 channels
(pre cable, satalite, twitter, tweettter, blackberry and even....the Internet!) Now on a historical note only a more seasoned scribe such as veteran Wild Animal man Roger Smith would know this , sometime in the early to mid 1960's a great cat trainer named (I hope that I get the spelling nearly right) Chet Jusecyk, had a big wild lion act based out of the famed World Jungle Compound (aka Jungleland)
that played big Shrine dates etc including TV shows such as Holllywood Palace, and if memory serves me correct, his lions got into a huge fight during the show, and they and he lost their footing on the slick stage floor, and he was severly mauled on camera. In those days there was not the rubber flooring we now enjoy, and you just had to make do to play the big media dates. I recall Pat Anthony had problems, and even the great Clyde Beatty had problems on the Ed Sullivan Show with slick flooring. Pat Anthony is well remembered by all of us privedged to have seen him work, and lets not forget he fought for our freedom in history's darkest days. Pat left home and joined the US Marine Corps during WWII (LIKE other circus patriots such as Rex Williams) Pat was a Marine Paratrooper
(think they were called "Flying Leathernecks") and one tough cookie. He fought' at Guadacanal, Saipan, Pelilui, "Bloody" Tarawa,Mount Sarabachi on Iwo Jima and about every other hellhole they sent the Marines to defeat the evil "Black Dragon Samari" cult of Japanese Army officers bent on fighting to the last man, woman and child to keep their nefarious hold on the Japanese populace. And he came home a real live American hero and was allowed to study Wild Animal Training by the G.I.Bill of Rights, under the veteran trainers in Thousand Oaks,Calif. at World Jungle Compound where he later performed with big cage acts before going out on his own. Thanks Wade for spotlighting Pat Anthony! MIKE CECERE
Mike,
Nice to hear from you. Chet was a great guy. I met him, and his wife Mary, who was Japanese, when I was working for Lou Regan. He and Lou had some history as they had worked together at the "Oaks". Chet was downed one day during a show, and Lou went in and got the lion off of him and carried him out, returning to put the lion back into the shift cages. An incredible, amazing era in animal training history.
For more on the great Pat Anthony type Pat Anthony in the search bar on the top left of the blog.
Wade
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