Al Kayda
Posted By thecircusblog on April 30, 2011
In the 1960’s Al Kayda was a circus producer in southern California and I might add very successful. He and his wife Irene put together about thirty non profit organizations to sponsor his circus”Kay Bros”. It was nothing more than a side wall show that mostly showed in ballparks but the show looked clean and it was good. Al did not skimp on the money for the acts. Al knew, in order to be successful you needed to have good talent and there was plenty of that in the Los Angeles area during the spring and fall. Some of the acts were forty milers while others like ourselves had a complete season elsewhere. It sure was nice to pick up gravy money before going on the road. I admired Al Kayda. He played two roles.
At the beginning of show he would kibitz with the sponsor committee. When the overture started he would disappear and the next thing you saw was Al the candy butcher working the seats. Al Kayda knew where the money was at and he did quite well with his food, candy and popcorn concessions.
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thecircusblog
My name is Ivan M. Henry and I am the 4th generation of a circus/show business dynasty. I hope you enjoy the blog.Comments
4 Responses to “Al Kayda”
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I remember one time hearing on the radio that Al had been in a traffic accident somewhere near El Monte. I called KFWB, a different Los Angeles radio station, which billed itself as “all news all the time” to see if I could get more information. Instead, I got a certificate and a card for being a “KFWB News Tipster” because no one there knew about the accident until I called them!
John Herriott told me Circo Hermanos Atayde acquired a female Asian elephant “Sammy” from “Al Kayda Calif. Circus.” Do you know anything about this elephant?
Al Kayda never owned an elephant. Al hired all of the circus acts. The elephant that preformed on his circus “Kay Bros”, from time to time we owned by Jack Badal her name was Anna. Jack later sold her but to who I don’t know. Ivan
I remember my mom telling us a story about that accident. She was with them in the truck. She has scars from where a tool box hit her. She was a teenager back then. So many funny stories to about making him a clown costume in a motel and they where cutting it out and they cut the carpet by mistake…he was a tall man you can only imagine how much carpet hot cut. Lol