Showman
In 1888, at 21 years of age, Cody started touring the US with Forepaugh's Circus, which at the time had a large Wild West show component. He married Maud Maria Lee in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and the name Samuel Franklin Cody appears on the April, 1889 marriage certificate.
Cody, together with his wife Maud Maria Lee, toured England with a shooting act. Maud used the stage name Lillian Cody, which she kept for the rest of her performing career. In London they met Mrs Elizabeth Mary King (later known as Lela Marie Cody) (née Elizabeth Mary Davis) who had stage ambitions for two of her younger children, Vivian and Leon King (later known as Leon and Vivian Cody). In 1891, Maud Maria Lee (Cody's real wife) taught the boys how to shoot, but then later returned to the USA alone. Evidence suggests that by the fall of 1891, Maud was unable to perform with her husband due to injury, morphine addiction, the onset of schizophrenia, or a combination of these ills. After Maud returned to America, her husband took up with Mrs King; but the marriage of Cody and Lee was never legally dissolved.
While in England, Cody, Lela King and her sons toured the music halls, which were very popular at the time, giving demonstrations of his horse riding, shooting and lassoing skills. While touring Europe in the mid-1890s, Cody capitalized on the bicycle craze by staging a series of horse vs. bicycle races against famous cyclists. Cycling organizations quickly frowned on this practice, which drew accusations of fixed results. In 1898 Cody's stage show, The Klondyke Nugget, became very successful; it included Edward Le Roy (Edward King, Lela's eldest son from her marriage to Edward John King (a licensed victualler) and brother to Leon and Vivian who were known as Cody to save any embarrassment. While in England, Cody still lived with Mrs King (his common-law wife who used the name of Lela Marie Cody, and who was generally assumed to be his legal wife). One of Lela's great-grandsons is the BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Franklin Cody