The Movie Jumbo
Posted By thecircusblog on October 4, 2012
We were known as “Barbette’s Boys” on the set. The six of us did trapeze on a single trap bar 12 foot long. Each trick we did was perfectly timed together. It took weeks to get our timing down for the few tricks we did. The trapeze routine turned out to be one of the best shots in the movie but most of it later laid on the cutting room floor. I was not hired to do trapeze. It all started with a phone call from Al Doebrich. He and Joe Pasternack, the producer hired me for Iron Jaw and for doubling actors and that was all that my contact called for. Barbette saw me rehearsing iron jaw and asked if I could do trapeze….. “Sure I am circus” I responded…… Now I had a third job. As the weeks past I found myself working with Jimmy Durante, teaching him how to hold a balance on a tight wire for shots in the movie and Stephen Boyd needed training on the trapeze. All in all having 5 or 6 jobs on one movie set was not bad….. Oh I forgot to write about the photo above. The director wanted some still shots of the six of us. The cameraman called out for a little action, so we started clowning around. I was readying myself to go up into a handstand when this photo was taken.
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