Clyde Beatty
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Clyde Beatty (born June 10, 1903 in Bainbridge, Ohio, USA; died July 19, 1965) was a big game hunter who became famous as a lion tamer and animal trainer. He also was a circus impresario who owned his own show that later merged with the Cole Bros. Circus to form the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus.
Beatty became famous for his "fighting act", in which he entered the cage with wild animals with a whip and a pistol strapped to his side. The act was designed to showcase his courage and mastery of the wild beasts, which included lions, tigers, cougars, and hyenas, sometimes brought together all at once in a single cage in a potentially lethal combination. At the height of his fame, the act featured 40 lions and tigers of both sexes.
There is some indication that Beatty was the first lion tamer to use a chair in his act.[1]
Such was Beatty's fame that he appeared in films from the 1930s through the 1950s and on television until the 1960s. His "fighting act" made him the paradigm of a lion tamer for more than a generation. He is one of the caricatures at Sardi's restaurant in New York City created by Alex Gard which is now part of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library.
In one of his most famous episodes, Clyde Beatty was attacked by one of his tigresses and saved by one of his lions, an episode that was reported internationally.
In the 1997 film Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, the lion tamer Dave Hoover cites Beatty as a major influence on his career. The director Errol Morris uses several clips from Beatty's films during his interviews with Hoover.
Clyde Beatty died of cancer in 1965 at the age of 62 in Ventura, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.
[edit] Filmography
- Ring of Fear (1954)
- Perils of the Jungle (1953)
- Africa Screams, also known as Abbott and Costello in Africa (1949)
- Here Comes the Circus (1946)
- Jungle Woman (1944)
- Cat College (1940)
- Darkest Africa (1936)
- The Lost Jungle (1934)
- The Lost Jungle (serial) (1934)
- The Big Cage (1933)
[edit] External links
- Clyde Beatty at the Internet Movie Database
- Shriners site with photograph of Beatty with chair in hand
[edit] References
- ^ Feldman, David (1993). How Does Aspirin Find a Headache?. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-016923-0.
