Sunday, August 31, 2014

1950 RBBB #13


At the end of the season, "Manula" died while playing the RBBB Christmas date in Havana and on return to U.S. "Lelabardi" was sold to Mills Bros. Circus where Hugo Schmitt was now employed.

I never met Schreiber, he was around with a chimp act for years but our paths never crossed.

2 comments:

Chic Silber said...


How far back did some version of

the elephant teterboard go & who

might be credited with creation

My favorite was when Ben flipped

over Barbara with "TGEOAT" (AM)

The Greatest Elephant Of All Time

Bill Schreiber said...

I had the good fortune to have met and talked with Baptiste Schreiber during the time we toured with Roberts Bros. Circus. Although we shared the same last name, we were in now way related. He lived in the St. Augustine area and was retired by then. He had some great stories about the struggles of keeping his show going in Europe during WW II with the war and shortages caused by it. He said he was writing a memoir of his life, but as he passed away some years ago I suspect he never finished it. A shame because it would have been a helluva read. A funny thing about him -- he called all politicians "Nazis", even in the US, regardless of party because they were all as conniving and duplicitous as the Nazis he had to deal with during the war in Germany and Europe.

Bill Schreiber