Charlie, sometimes Charley or Old Charlie, (b. unknown, d. 1923) was an elephant who lived at the Universal City Zoo in Universal City, California, United States, from approximately 1914 to 1923 and appeared in scores of silent-era films. He was executed in approximately August 1923 for his attack on trainer Curley Stecker.
Apparently formerly known as Prince Rajah, Charlie the Elephant weighed just shy of five tons (4,500 kg). [1] [2] He may have been found hauling teakwood near Calcutta in 1889 or 1899 by a scout for Karl Hamburg and brought to the Berlin Zoo. [2] [3] [4] Circus manager and actor Duke R. Lee then brought Charlie to the United States in 1902 or 1903. [1] [3] Animal collector Frank Buck claimed to have "brought him back from India," [5] but Buck was known for telling falsehoods. [6] A movie magazine stated in 1923 said that Charlie had been in the United States for 20 years. [7]
His mate Susie had apparently been executed after a rampage in Raleigh, North Carolina. [2] A 1904 rampage in San Francisco, California had apparently involved smashing five cars, drama at the ferry dock, and a "grand finale" in the water. [2] He was struck by lightning around 1908 and was blind in his left eye as a consequence. [8] [1] Charlie and animal trainer Curley Stecker met doing circus work and took "about three years getting acquainted," until Stecker was the only human Charlie regularly tolerated. [3]
He was supposedly brought to Universal City in 1913 by Curly Stecker with the "first load of lumber that built that city." [2] Another source said he'd been with the studio since 1912. [1] He consumed two 150 lb (68 kg) bales of hay each day. [9] Charlie regularly escaped and wandered around the San Fernando Valley. [2] In 1915, 30 men armed with rifles and a machine gun went after him. [1] Or maybe a lone man on horseback found him by the river. [10] One afternoon in 1919, trainer George Englehardt returned him home safely. [11] He was known to bull through the wall of the barn to escape; once he blacked out Universal City by knocking down the electric poles. [1] In 1919 an editorial cartoon suggested that killing trainers was a "pastime" of Charlie's, [12] and in 1920 it was reported that he had "killed several of his attendants during his life." [13] According to a movie magazine, he was eventually condemned to death with the acquiescence of the Humane Society because, "On the average of about once a month, he breaks his chains and fares forth upon Los Angeles, just rarin’ to go...Movie sets, front porches, lamp posts, motor cars, trolley cars, and occasionally a dog, a horse or even a human" had been knocked about or crushed by Charlie. [14]
Charlie and another Universal Zoo animal, an orangutan called Joe Martin, were both trained by and accompanied on film shoots by Curley Stecker. Orangutan and elephant appeared together in multiple comedies, features and adventure serials, including Man and Beast, [15] The Revenge of Tarzan, [16] and A Monkey Hero. [17]
In the early afternoon on Monday, April 24, 1923, at Universal City, [18] while filming the genie-of-the-lamp movie The Brass Bottle , "during a parade sequence, veteran pachyderm-performer Charlie the Elephant, on loan from Universal, went berserk. As 300 extras scattered, Charlie turned on his trainer…picked him up and dashed him to the ground. As Charlie tried to kneel on Stecker to crush him, a stagehand struck the enraged elephant with a pitchfork, and the trainer was rescued." [19] Another account stated that "as the sets were being shifted between scenes, the elephant without warning attacked his trainer, knocked him down his long trunk, reared down on his hind legs and brought his front feet down on Stecker’s body, dug at him with his tusks, and trampled him into the dust." [20] [21] [22] [23]
Stecker's older brother Carl Stecker (also an animal trainer) and A.H. Kuhlman, a carpenter, [18] using either a pitchfork or "a piece of concrete", fended off Charlie long enough for Curley to survive the initial attack. [17] [24] [19] Stecker suffered lacerations, contusions, rib fractures, and a concussion. [21] [20] [25] Curly told the Associated Press, apparently from his hospital bed, that he thought it was a case of "mistaken identity" in which Charlie thought he was Carl (whom Charlie hated), because Curly was wearing a business outfit instead of his usual animal-trainer outfit, and Carl was wearing an old outfit of Curly's. [26] "Charlie started picking up rocks with his trunk and throwing them at the horses. I told him to stop. He paid no attention. I jumped at him with a sharp command—and he did the rest. He thought I, in my business clothes, was my brother, and my brother 50 feet away in the clothes familiar to Charlie was 'the master.'" [24]
Curly Stecker, released from hospital after three months, apparently pled for Charlie's life but to no avail. [2]
Multiple newspaper articles from the second half of 1923 report on the studio's deliberations about Charlie the Elephant's fate. Several conferences were held between Julius Bernheim, general manager, Homer Boushey, general production manager, and William Koenig, business manager, about what to do about Charlie. [3] Whether or not he would be euthanized was a decision reportedly made by Carl Laemmle himself—he apparently wired from Europe "Hate execution idea but if necessary go ahead" [3] —and multiple methods of execution were considered. [27]
While there is debate about how Charlie was dispatched, and the preponderance of evidence points to garroting—although some sources do say the studio settled upon gunshot—no sources assert summary execution of an elephant worth thousands of dollars, as is suggested by the account of the incident in Diana Serra Cary's memoir. [19] Charlie the Elephant was euthanized [19] in autumn 1923 (most likely garroted by steel cables tightened by a windlass [28] [29] ) but possibly by gunshot. [30] One 1936 article said "two big trucks driving in opposite directions broke Charlie's neck." [31]
Stecker died the following year from leukemia, with "wild animal injury" that occurred at Universal City listed as a complicating factor on his death certificate. [28] [21] [lower-alpha 1] Charlie's skeleton was reportedly donated to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. [32]
Charlie's execution triggered one of the first animal welfare campaigns focused on the American film industry; Laemmle personally managed the studio's response. [33]
At the time of Charlie's execution in 1923, it was claimed that he had killed five people, had appeared in over 180 films, and was over 150 years old. [8]
Frank Howard Buck was an American hunter, animal collector, and author, as well as a film actor, director, and producer. Beginning in the 1910s he made many expeditions into Asia for the purpose of hunting and collecting exotic animals, bringing over 100,000 live specimens back to the United States and elsewhere for zoos and circuses and earning a reputation as an adventurer. He co-authored seven books chronicling or based on his expeditions, beginning with 1930's Bring 'Em Back Alive, which became a bestseller. Between 1932 and 1943 he starred in seven adventure films based on his exploits, most of which featured staged "fights to the death" with various wild beasts. He was also briefly a director of the San Diego Zoo, displayed wild animals at the 1933–34 Century of Progress exhibition and 1939 New York World's Fair, toured with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and co-authored an autobiography, 1941's All in a Lifetime. The Frank Buck Zoo in Buck's hometown of Gainesville, Texas, is named after him.
The Selig Zoo in Los Angeles, California was an early 20th century animal collection managed by Col. W.N. Selig for use in Selig Polyscope Company films and as a tourist attraction. Over the years the zoo was also known as the Luna Park Zoo, California Zoological Gardens, Zoopark, and, eventually, Lincoln Amusement Park. After Westerns, "animal pictures" were Selig's second-most popular genre of film product.
Rex De Rosselli, was an American actor of the silent era, mainly appearing in Westerns. He appeared in more than 150 films between 1911 and 1926. He was born in Kentucky and died in East Saint Louis. He also served as head trainer of the Universal City Zoo from approximately 1915 to 1917. Rex De Rosselli was described as a "silver-haired Beau Brummell" who alternated film work in the winters and circus work in the summers.
Al G. Barnes Circus was an American circus run by Alpheus George Barnes Stonehouse that operated from 1898 to 1938.
Providencia Ranch, part of Providencia Land and Water Development Company property named for the Rancho Providencia Mexican land grant, was a property in California, US. It was used as a filming location for the American Civil War battle scenes in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and other silent motion pictures. The valley was also the site for two Universal Studios west coast operations in 1914.
The Catalina Island bison herd is a small group of introduced American bison living on Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California. In 1924, several bison were acquired and, before the end of 1925, brought to Catalina. The bison are now quite popular with the tourists. Some buildings have been painted with images of bison and decorated with bison weather vanes. Over the decades, the bison herd numbered as many as 600. The population currently numbers approximately 100.
Jungle Cavalcade is a compilation of footage from Frank Buck’s first three films depicting his adventures capturing animals for the world's zoos.
Joe Martin was a captive orangutan who appeared in at least 50 American films of the silent era, including approximately 20 comedy shorts, several serials, two Tarzan movies, Rex Ingram's melodrama Black Orchid and its remake Trifling Women, the Max Linder feature comedy Seven Years Bad Luck, and the Irving Thalberg-produced Merry-Go-Round.
Universal City Zoo was a private animal collection in southern California that provided animals for silent-era Universal Pictures adventure films, circus pictures, and animal comedies, and to "serve as a point of interest" for tourists visiting Universal City. The animals were also leased to other studios. The zoo was closed in 1930, after cinema's transition to synchronized sound complicated the existing systems for using trained animals onscreen.
Harry Burns was a vaudeville performer, boxing referee, actor, assistant director, animal-picture director and producer, and Hollywood magazine publisher. Burns was married to the actress Dorothy Vernon; the silent-film slapstick comedy star Bobby Vernon was his stepson.
Joe Martin Turns 'Em Loose is a two-reel black-and-white silent comedy film released by Universal Pictures on September 15, 1915. It is not found in the Library of Congress' film preservation database and as such, is believed to be a lost film. The film was regarded by contemporary reviewers as a remarkable for its integration of plot, animal performance and stuntwork. The film’s animals were the trained tigers of Paul Bourgeois paired with the menagerie of the recently established Universal City Zoo, under the leadership of Rex De Rosselli. Bourgeois was the director and scenarist.
Paul Sablon, later Paul Bourgeois, was a Brussels-born actor, director, cinematographer, writer and animal trainer, who worked in the early film industry, including for Pathé Frères in Europe and Universal in the United States.
Algernon Maltby "Curley" Stecker was an early Hollywood animal trainer, Universal City Zoo superintendent, animal-film producer, and occasional actor-stuntman.
Robison of San Francisco was a family-owned bird and animal importer, pet-supply producer, and retail pet shop that began operating during the California Gold Rush and endured until at least 1989.
William S. Campbell was a film director, scenarist and producer of Hollywood's silent and early talkies era, recognized for his skill in working with children and animals.
Otto F. Breitkreutz, universally known as Big Otto, was an American circus man and film producer during the early 20th century. He was called Big Otto because he weighed somewhere between 350–480 lb (160–220 kg) and was "big in heart and policy."
Olga Celeste trained leopards and pumas for performance in circuses, vaudeville and film. She starred in very early animal films for Selig Polyscope, and was said to have handled animals for 1,000 films, including the leopard in the Katharine Hepburn film Bringing Up Baby. For most of her career she was associated with the Selig Zoo in Los Angeles.
This is a list of known on-screen appearances made by Joe Martin (orangutan), a film star of the 1910s and 1920s.
William Alban Ulman Jr. was a film screenwriter, magazine writer and U.S. Army officer. He is best known today for his involvement in the photographic record of D-Day. A persistent legend of D-Day is that important footage of the landings was dumped into the English Channel. Maj. W.A. Ulman is mentioned in at least two memos regarding film of the landings and as such has historically been considered a "suspect" in the lore of D-Day.
Elephant execution in the United States, sometimes elephant lynching, was the killing of an elephant in order to punish it for behaviors that had inconvenienced, threatened, injured, or killed humans. Elephant execution is distinct from both elephant euthanasia and from killing an elephant that is in the midst of an ongoing attack or "rampage." Elephant execution is a ritual process with a pseudo-legal or performative aspect. Documenting the execution or the body with film or still photos was not uncommon.
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