Circus Star
In 1938, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus made Buck a lucrative offer to tour as their star attraction, and to enter the show astride an elephant. He refused to join the American Federation of Actors, stating that he was "a scientist, not an actor." Though there was a threat of a strike if he did not join the union, he maintained that it would compromise his principles, saying "Don't get me wrong. I'm with the working man. I worked like a dog once myself. And my heart is with the fellow who works. But I don't want some --- union delegate telling me when to get on and off an elephant." Eventually, the union gave Buck a special dispensation to introduce Gargantua the gorilla without registering as an actor.
Read more about this topic: Frank Buck (animal Collector)
Famous quotes containing the words circus and/or star:
“It beats sitting around with my butt in a sling.”
—Antoinette Cancello, U.S. circus aerialist. As quoted in WomenSports magazine, p. 35 (January 1976)
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And purged its faith, and trimm’d its fire,
Show’d me the high, white star of Truth,
There bade me gaze, and there aspire.
Even now their whispers pierce the gloom:
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—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)