Clyde Beatty and Albert Fleet
Posted By thecircusblog on March 6, 2009
A great photo of Clyde Beatty with Albert Fleet at the safety door. This photo was taken before Mr. Fleet had a chimp act. He started his career with the Clyde Beatty Circus and stayed with it for years. Clyde Beatty was noted for having a fighting lion act. His use of chairs, whip cracking etc. was mainly for audience entertainment, but there were those times when there were real problems between the cats or with one of the cats trying to bounce him. Beatty knew that it was necessary to have a good man on the door. In the original picture you can see Albert Fleet with a prod pole. Albert also was a lion trainer at the World Jungle Compound.
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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
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This photo was taken in 1934, in Madison Square Garden, in New York City, on Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Beatty remained on Ringling for the next date in Boston Garden. Upon closing “the garden dates”, he returned for the under-canvas tour with Ringling-owned Hagenbeck-Wallace, where he had starred since 1925, after taking over Pete Taylor’s “big act” of mixed lions and tigers, when Taylor could not continue. Beatty had bitter differences with Ringling general manager Sam Gumpertz, and departed all Ringling interests at this season’s end. He signed with Jess Adkins and Zack Terrell to star on their new Cole Bros. and Clyde Beatty Circus for 1935. Gumpertz refused to sell any part of the act above, and this all-new aircraft aluminum arena, built new for 1934, had to be replicated in record time by the original builder, the Nipple Factory, of Chicago. It was done, and Beatty then had to assemble, train, routine, and have ready an all-new act of 40 lions and tigers, not just by the Cole-Beatty opening, but for the contracted winter dates, early in 1935. He summoned cats from all sources, and opened on time, one reason the new circus was called The Miracle Show. It was no less a miracle that Adkins and Terrell induced bankers to back a circus in the depths of the Great Depression. They did so solely because the circus partners had Clyde Beatty’s name in ink on the contract.