The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 3

The famed jungle cat trainer bid out jn for a long time; but his bride won the jj Jj fjjvh ilU! 1. argument, and she now has an animal Xj" iilj act of her own in hubby new circus I jfwjH y5; jjfflk 7r 1 in in UI ill Vl I I tin ui ii tVTt 7 1 pita! and it was summer when he returned to the circus, where he met Miss Evansisky. Miss Evansisky, now Mrs. Beatty, is the Chicago-born daughter of Russian but the was reared in Canada. Although no one in her family ever had been identified with the circus she grew up with a determination to join one.

In 1 930. 'when, a Chicago circus adver lea, 1 .1 1 Harriet Beatty, former aerlalitt who married a wild animal trainer and persuaded -him to make, a trainer out of her. By Helen Wclshimer HEN a Royal Bengal tiger and a black mane' Iron ride aide by id oa an elephant' back, in one of the most sensational acta in cir cus history, notice that it is a mite of a girl, locked tp in ttfeir steel cage with them, who puts them through their paces. Lions, tiger and elephants hate ehe another. You sense the enmity above the glitter of the spangled lighjl the odor of the sawdust, the tempo of the band.

"That act is worthy of the "courage and showmanship of a Beatty 1" undoubtedly you will comment, if, you ever have seen the world famous animal trainer in action. You will be right Clyde Beatty has a hand in the super-trick. For the last two years Clyde Beatty has been taking time off from the training of the 40 tigers and lions, in his own act, to do a bit of special private coaching. He held out against it for a long time. The girl kept at him until he yielded.

The mite of a woman in the terrifying cage is Clyde Beatty 's wife, making her debut in an act that brings down the galleries. She is golden-haired, blue-eyed, five feet three inches tall and weighs' 104 pounds. I rwas back in 1935 that Mrs. Beatty first began to handle the jungle cats under her husband's direction, in the Cola Brothers-Clyde Beatty Circus, of which the noted animal trainer is part owner. She had been a circus herialist before her marriage a year Beatty had coaxed her to give up her profession becausejio thoughuhrt kmdjs jwork was "too At first Mrs.

Beatty just went along with "the ahow. She was afraid of the- wjlanimalv and she weren't Then a lion cub was bom and it fell to Mrs. Beatty to bring it up on a bottle. She got over her fear. She suggested to her husband that she would like to become an animal trainer.

the fearless master of the jungle tats had no sympathy with auch talk, TJie steel 4 vv fr II arena was no place for a woman, he insisted. She argued. And she won. Beatty began to let her enter the cage with him. She was an apt pupil.

He was amazed. One day he went out of the cage, leaving her alone for a minute while he watched from the side. When she realized that it was up to her to come through, without help, she had a terrifying moment but she didn't falter. She was scared to death but she loved it. That was two years ago.

Now, with the moving of the 1937 show from the New York Hippodrome to Chicago and other points, Mrs. Beatty 's act becomes a special circus novelty. Beatty keeps an eye on his wife while she works. yf" trained the animals for me and it's my duty-to take care of them when my stunt comes, his wife says. "He watches me during my 30-minute rehearsal, period every morning and throughout my performances.

Now and then he has to come to my rescue and I'm certainly glad he's around. was the day I got In the way of a tiger which was rolling a barrel. He kept pushing me against the walL Then he But not at me. He had been watching a lion in front of him. brushed me as he passed.

"One day I saw a lion kill a tiger in my husband's act, and I'll admit that for several days I hated to hear the overture for my act IONS and tigers' are quite apt to stage a r-1 killing "at any time. Ever since Beatty began to mix the two cats back in 1926, be cause he had been told that the one-species, one-sex acts were losing their appeal, he has had to expect fights. He has lost 1 8 tigers and two lions in such battles. Since a replacement costs $500 and he puts a value of from $5000 upon a cat he himself has trained, his losses have been terrific. 1 When Mrs.

Beatty became an animal trainer's wife she had to cure herself of the habit of screaming. "At first I just stood by the cage all the time Clyde was in it and screamed," she re-x members. startles animals, as 'it happens, and when you train animals you understand the motives back of their movements suffi ciently to know when noise is needed to diverts the oncoming cat. However, I screamed from plain fear at first-All trainers crack the whip and shoot blank cartridges to frighten animals. Bullets are useless.

"All a cat can feel is a homing sensation." Clyde Beatty holds a blank-loaded pistol and a steel-bolted chair in his left hand, during his act. and carries a whip in his right. The whiplash, which cuts the air like a small crack of thunder, and the barking of the pistol are only part of the trick of keeping the animals in place, -Mrs. Beatty learned. For instance, take her husband's act in which he pedestals 25lipns and lionesses, and 1 5 tigers' and tigresses, in the steel cage whkh is 32 feet in diameter, with, a web of netting pro tecting the top.

Every movement of tra'uier'a body must convey a message to the animal. A cue, in briefer phraseology. A trainer must keep the animals informed that he is master of the arena. Consider the Beatty act for' a minute. A Eon aits with ita paws upraised, begging like a dog.

A tiger is made to whirl arounc leamg her alone for a minute while he watched pORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS isn'l much money to pay for the risks that he runs several times a day. Once his arm was chewed by a tigress. An? other time a leopard ripped open his forehead. Then there was that experience at the training camp at Peru, in 1932 when a huge Nubian lion named Nero suddenlyluned, knocked over the trainer and bit him. Two lions, which hadn't left the cage as yet rehearsal was just over joined Nero.

Before the famous animal man recovered from this experience his fever reached 105 de-' grees, A laboratory analysis of specimens of Beatty 's blood showed that he had acquired a germ "that belongs to the Pasteurella group, a group which attacks animals. Only 14 human, including Beatty, ever had had the germ, research, revealed. Immediate attempts to create a combative erum were started. It was doubtful the one applied to animals would work on a human, be- spv as ing. meantime, ut.

Stephen V. JVlalour, the physician who takes care of the cjreus people at their winter kept on searching a pus pocket He found it. released the poison, and Beitty grew better without the serum. The medicine was perfected and is ready -in case another cat bites the Beattys or anyone else. This accident required 10 strenuous weeks of "suffering before recovery was completed.

Mr. and Mrs. Beatty, apart from the circus exejtement, live a quiet life. When they are, at. their winter training headquarters, now located at Rochester.

they rent anapartment Hotels take care of them during long city engagements. They are allotted half a Pullman coach when the circus' is traveling. "We sleep about nine hours a night, Mrs. Beatty explains. "Our big meal, is a dinner that, we eat at 5 o'clock, several hours before the animal acts go on.

About midnight we have a light supper. I like to cook and my husband is fond of eating. He has a huge appetite but-he works so hard in the cage that there is no that he will accumulate weight Soups and steaks are his favorite foods." Clyde Beatty'a sensational rise in the animal world is well known to most small boys who have seen, or wanted to see, the. circus carl -unload. As a child on his father's farm at Chillicothe, Beatty coaxed his.

mother to take him to the Cincinnati zoo every time the family went to town. For recreation at home ho trained the domestic animals in the bant lot At 6. he ran away to join a circus, but hit father brought him home and made him complete his high school course. At 18 he ran away again. This time he was allowed to stay.

At first he was put to work cleaning out animal cages. He showed such skill with the animals that he was permitted to work with them and before, long was putting lions, bean and leopards together. Then he began the famous lion-tiger combination At 25 he was a radiant star in die dreus world, tised for girl to pose for a feature, she ap- plied and received job. Later she worked wild horses and eventually became an aerialist "Clyde and I began to see a lot of each other," Mrs. Beatty reminisces.

"We both like to fish and are fond of ball games. It was three years, though, before we were married." Beatty, meantime, although his animal act was the most sensational in the world, and his name a circus drawing card, never had exceeded a 1 00-a-week salary mark. The Ring-ling circus was paying him this amount in 1 935. This circus, which had bought up ill its com-, petitors, had been forced to turn over most of its assets to New York bankers during the depression when it couldn't meet the interest on a note of $1,700,000. Therefore, in 1935, he and two other Ring img men pootea inetr capital and organized a with a pair of lion cubs.

circus around Beatty's animal act. The other two men were Jess Adkins, former manager of Hagenbeck-Wallace, and Jack Terrell, who had occupied the same position with Sells-Floto. Beatty had some money saved from his book royalues on "The Big Cage," and from the two movies which he had made, "The Big Cage," and "The Lost Jungle." Last year, the report goes, the show cleared $250,000. of which $40,000 Was Beatty'a share. around and around.

The animals are taught how to feint and make sham attacks. It's splendid -showmanship, and tremendously dangerous considering that lions hate tigers, and tigers despise lions, and neither have much love for human beings. All of. this'worjt knowfjis "advanced, trickology." Mrs. Beatty uses tiger'named Pirmba, an' African lion named and an elephant named Jobba for her act( Pirmba.who is 20 months old, tips the scales at 400.

pounds," and Simba weighs nearly 500 pounds. Mrs. Beatty has her cats go through some trickery of their own, arranged by her husband. But to get back, to the Beatty romance and the advancement of the young animal trainer'. Mr.

and Mrs. Beatty THE Beatty romance got off to an unpro-pitious start It was back in4he spring of 1921. while the Hagenback-Wallace circus, with which Clyde Beatty was then affiliated. was at Komo, Ind. One day as Beatty was re- hearsmg his cats, Harriet evansisky, a newcomer to the show, sat watching.

She had not seen the animal trainer before, either in his act or "off the set. Suddenly a tiger sprang' at him and tore 'sr him. He soent a lonf convalescence in jsjioe.