Famous Performers With Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus
- Clyde Beatty first joined out in 1921, with Howes Great London Circus, as a cageboy and assistant trainer to the legendary Louis Roth. When he joined Hagenbeck-Wallace, he learned more from star trainer Peter Taylor. When stricken with a neck injury in 1925, Taylor could not continue his major lion-and-tiger act, and Clyde Beatty took it over at once. With his exciting performing style, he became such a sensation the public filled the tent even during the Depression. He starred with Hagenbeck-Wallace until 1934, when a dispute with Ringling management caused him to sign with a new circus, titled Cole Bros. and Clyde Beatty Circus.
- Joe Skelton, the father of Red Skelton, once worked as a clown in the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. Red himself performed with the same circus as a teenager before entering vaudeville.
- Emmett Kelly got his start as "Weary Willie" during the Great Depression with Hagenbeck-Wallace before moving on to other circuses.
- In 1937, cowboy, rodeo performer, and movie actor Hoot Gibson performed with the circus.
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Famous quotes containing the words famous, performers and/or circus:
“Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“... we performers are monsters. We are a totally different, far-out race of people. I totally and completely admit, with no qualms at all, my egomania, my selfishness, coupled with a really magnificent voice.”
—Leontyne Price (b. 1927)
“Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)