$55.00 CAD
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Not quite sure how this piece was used. Assumed it has something to do with printed advertising.
Based on the performers, can be dated to 1959.
Some handwriting on front in red '282', and on back "#4 Janette(?) May 30 p.p.(?)". From Sun May 22nd to May 30th Circus was at Philadelphia Light Houser Field.
5 ¼” x 3 ¼”
The Cole Bros. Circus was a medium-sized American circus. It was founded in 1884 as "W.W. Cole’s New Colossal Shows", by William Washington Cole. In the 1930s, the circus employed two noted animal trainers, Clyde Beatty and Allen King, both of whom traveled in their own railroad cars. Another well-known performer with the circus was Bob Strehlau Juggles the Clown.
Pinito del Oro (1931-2017) was a genuine circus star, an iconic personality of the Spanish entertainment scene, and one of the world’s top aerialists in the 1950s and 1960s....also courageous and resilient: she survived three near-fatal accidents, and each time resumed her precarious career on the trapeze….
… Then, for the 1959 season, she returned to the United States to perform with Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus, which had taken the place of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey as the world’s largest tenting circus (Ringling was now playing sports arenas) and featured America’s biggest circus star at the time, Clyde Beatty. A journalist from St. Petersburg, Florida, noted: "Almost rivaling Clyde Beatty, who battles a full cage of lions and tigers, is Pinito del Oro, Spain’s lovely 'Goddess of balanced flight.'" As a matter of fact, the beautiful Pinito was the true star of the show to a large section of the audience, male in particular.
Clyde Beatty (1903 – 1965) was a famed animal trainer, zoo owner, and circus mogul. He joined Howe's Great London Circus in 1921 as a cage boy and spent the next four decades rising to fame as one of the most famous circus performers and animal trainers in the world. Through his career, the circus impresario owned several circuses, including his own Clyde Beatty Circus from 1945 to 1956.
