Elegant Scandal: Female Big Cat Trainers

For the circus, setting the tone for the show will be important from the first moment the audience arrives.  I'm not giving away all of our tricks, but I do want to talk about the opening number, which is based on real early twentieth century circus acts.  It was specifically inspired by this poster, but there's a lot more to these awesome women.

In the inset circle on the left, you can see 'Adgie's Lions' performing a tango.  Adgie's Lions were a famous act, featuring ten lions including the 'Man-Eating Teddy,' who performed tricks and (apparently) dance-like sequences.  According to Janet Davis, author of The Circus Age: Culture and Society under the American Big Top, poses such as 'the tango' were a way of sexualizing female trainers.  This is especially interesting in the context of the 19-teens, when tango was called 'the best ballroom dance' by the New York Times and fell into a new, more sensual category of dance that also included the maxixe and blues.  If sex sells, lions and trainers tangoing was a sure way to bring in the crowds.

Adgie in a cage with two of her lions, 1897 (from the Library of Congress)

So, naturally, a little bit of elegant scandal seemed like the perfect way for us to open the show.  I have experience with both modern ballroom tango and vintage tango, so I'll be choreographing a dance for our own lion trainer and her beasts to perform.

However, Adgie wasn't the only woman known for making big cats dance to her tune.  Another was Dolores Vallecetia, who had a leopard act.

Mlle Vallecetia in charge-love the fur trim!

Here's another act, but I can't find her name:

In the 1920s and 30s, a little after Adgie's time, there was Mabel Stark.  A performer with many circuses throughout a long career (including Ringling), Mabel worked with as many as 18 tigers in the ring.  Her famous wrestling act is shown in this poster:

She suffered numerous maulings by her tigers during her career, but she never quit.  In her autobiography, Stark writes "The chute door opens as I crack my whip and shout, 'Let them come,' Out slink the striped cats, snarling and roaring, leaping at each other or at me. It's a matchless thrill, and life without it is not worth while to me."

Something especially neat about Stark in particular is that she was Mae West's double in the 1933 hit I'm No Angel, in which West plays Tira the Lion .  That means that if you watch the circus scenes from the movie, you are actually seeing Mabel Stark at work!  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a video clip online, but here's a still from the movie:

Rhinestones, feathers, and girls taming beasts? The perfect start to the circus.