When the "red unit" of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performed earlier this year at Madison Square Garden in New York City - always one of the longest stops on the circus' two-year itinerary - the prestigious arena, with plenty of well-deserved hoopla and fanfare, presented animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams with a special award: a "platinum ticket" in appreciation for the fact that he had racked up more attendance figures in the Garden than any other single performer in the arena's history.
Of course, his 1989 appearance was more than just another play date for the circus.Considerably more.
It was part of Gebel-Williams' two-year, 92-city "farewell tour" that will mark his retirement as a performer.
Most retirement parties are fairly
routine, traditional affairs - a nice dinner, a few pleasant remarks, some toasts and a gold watch. Then the retiree is expected to spend his declining years on the golf course or in an Arizona retirement community.
But Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey doesn't do "routine" things - not when it involves the final tour of its biggest star. This retirement party is lasting nearly two years, and - when it's over - unlikely you probably won't find Gebel-Williams puttering around the garden in his Venice, Fla., home, or laying around on the beach. It's anticipated that he'll move into the circus' corporate structure, most likely as a full-time goodwill ambassador and overseer of all of the animal acts.
All across the country, print and video journalists are clamoring for interviews as the circus train, carrying not only the clowns and the gymnasts and other circus acts, but Gebel-Williams' menagerie of trained elephants, horses and Bengal tigers, is wending its way back and forth across the United States.
The big windup will occur in November of 1990 in Pittsburgh, Pa., a stop that is very significant in circus history. In the mid-1950s, Pittsburgh was the final Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey show under the traditional "big top." After that, the circus moved into the new generation of giant arenas that were sprouting up in major cities from coast to coast.
Another landmark year for the circus was 1969, when the 99th edition of RB and B&B circus presented Gunther Gebel-Williams - already a superstar in Europe - in his American debut. For the past 20 years, the red unit (a second show, dubbed the blue unit, has its own separate acts) has showcased the talented animal trainer.
We interviewed Gunther two years ago by telephone. We do a lot of phone interviews in this market, but for Gebel-Williams' farewell tour, the circus has been permitting only face-to-face, live interviews.
So last week, I flew to Portland, Ore., to catch a performance and spend some rarely granted one-on-one time talking to "the lord of the rings" about his illustrious career and what will happen after he retires.
-THE MASTER TRAINER mirrors many of his animals' traits. Like his beautiful Bengal tigers, he's lithe and lean. Like his perfectly matched team of white Liberty Lipizzaner horses, he's assured and confident.
And, like his herd of 21 performing Asian elephants, he never forgets . . . all the great experiences he's had during the past 20 years of performing in the United States.
Seated in his comfortable, luxuriously equipped motor home in the parking lot outside the Portland Memorial Coliseum (the vehicle sports Florida license plates imprinted with GGW1), he reflected on his retirement and told us of his fond memories of previous visits to Salt Lake City, where he has a large contingent of fans with ties to his native Germany.
While we were visiting, 19-year-old Mark Gebel, heir-apparent to his father's role as the world's greatest animal trainer, burst through the door and excitedly announced, "Dad! Dr. Schmidt is here!"
Gunther, with a broad grin, jumped up and, in his thick German accent, said, "Come with me!"
As he raced out the door and through the adjacent tent, where his elephants and tigers were housed, we followed along behind. At the far end of the tent, there was a small group of people, including Dr. Michael Schmidt, full-time veterinarian for Portland's Washington Park Zoo.
The zoo's worldwide claim to fame is that it has the finest elephant breeding and research program anywhere. When the circus donated one of its older elephants, Hugo, to the zoo a few years ago, it was agreed that the circus, in return, would receive the first-born.
In circus parlance, Schmidt might be termed Portland's pre-emin-ent pachyderm pediatrician. And he had come to the coliseum to see how his bouncing baby elephant, Chang Dee (now known as Prince Tusk), was faring. The toddler, being trained by Mark Gebel, had been the center of attention at a homecoming party a few hours earlier, and the little tyke (who tips the scales at roughly 4,000 pounds) was still frisky and playful while showing off for the good Dr. Schmidt and Gunther.
A few moments later, Gunther and I returned to his motor home to continue our interview.
How circus owner Irving Feld lured Gunther into finally crossing the Atlantic Ocean (he bought out the entire Circus Williams that Gunther had been working with at the time) has been well-documented. Passengers aboard the Swedish liner, Atlantic Song, in 1968 were probably unaware that the ship was practically a contemporary version of Noah's ark, with 38 horses, 12 elephants and nine tigers down in the hold.
And not many people are probably aware that another landmark in the relationship between Gebel-Williams and Feld occurred right here in Salt Lake City. That was the formal transfer of ownership of Gebel-Williams' animals to the circus itself. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus owns the animals that Gebel-Williams trains and puts through their paces.
In 20 years of performing with Ringling Bros., Gebel-Williams has never missed a performance. Even when he's been sick or he's been scarred by one of his animals, he has epitomized the best tradition of "the show must go on." At one performance, he had to execute a risky somersault, although an ear infection affected his equilibrium.
-THE ART OF ANIMAL TRAINING has been elevated to new heights by Gebel-Williams.
"They're like children," he told us in Portland.
They're easily distracted, especially by the weekly changes in their environment as they tour with the circus. Changes in temperature (he hoped the weather in Salt Lake City would be as warm as it was in Portland) and differences in the various arenas can affect an animal's performance.
Because he's continuously on the road, Gebel-Williams doesn't have the luxury of devoting eight hours a day, seven days a week, to training new animals. In addition to the animals that are already in his acts, two or three others are in various stages of being trained to perform before an audience.
And the ones that have been trained are still unpredictable.
During the performance we saw in Portland, a pair of Bengal tigers were perched atop a couple of pedestals, holding a burning rod between them, which other tigers were supposed to leap over. But one of them balked, jumped to the floor and slunk back to its place in the cage, rather than soaring over the pole.
With patience and perseverance, Gebel-Williams devotes nearly 16 hours a day to the caring, rehearsing or performing of his beloved animals. The fictional Dr. Dolittle was able to "talk to the animals," but Gebel-Williams has an uncanny knack for communicating with his four-footed companions, too.
"The animals are my friends. Caring for them makes me their friend, too," he says. And when the animals have such a wide range of temperaments and individual personalities, it often takes months or even years to teach an animal specific tricks.
Down through the years, he's paired some unusual combinations of animals, including many breeds that are natural enemies in the wild. Leopards, lions, cheetahs, pumas, panthers, mountain lions, dogs, goats, llamas, zebras, a giraffe, even a rare white tiger (Maharanee) have been featured in his wide array of sensational acts.
When they're sick, he tends to their needs - or summons one of the on-call veterinarians that the circus enlists in every town on the performance route. You can't just tell an ailing tiger to take two aspirin and go back to sleep in its cage.
Gebel-Williams' love for his animals reminded me of the wonderful scene in "Ben-Hur" where Sheik Ilderim (Hugh Griffith) referred to his team of chariot horses as "my beauties . . . my children."
-BUT THERE ARE THOSE who claim that animals in the circus are mistreated.
When the circus was in Oakland recently, Gebel-Williams addressed the California Legislature in Sacramento on animal rights issues.
He said one East Coast newspaper report accused circus trainers of burning the paws on the feet of the performing bears to get them to stand up on their hind legs. But there was no truth whatsoever to this claim, Gebel-Williams said, explaining that animals in the circus receive the best possible care, from custom-formulated food to top-notch medical care.
In his new role as a goodwill ambassador for the circus, it's anticipated that Gebel-Williams will also play an important role in the promotion of animal rights and endangered species issues.
But he certainly won't just sit in some stuffy office wearing a three-piece business suit.
That's just not Gunther Gebel-Williams' style.
*****
(additional information)
The 119th edition of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, featuring Gunther Gebel-Williams' farewell tour, will open Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in the Salt Palace arena, where it will continue for 11 performances through Monday, Oct. 2.
Dates and performance times are: Wednesday, Sept. 27, and Thursday, Sept. 28., at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Sept. 29, at 4 and 8 p.m.; Saturday Sept. 30, at 11 a.m. and 3:30 and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 1, at 2 and 6 p.m.; and Monday, Oct. 2, at 4 and 8 p.m.
Regular reserved-seat admission is $7.50, $9 and $10.50, with a $3 discount on all tickets for opening night (KSL-TV Family Night) and $2 discounts for children with coupons from Fred Meyer stores on other selected performances.
The Deseret News and KALL Radio are sponsoring the free Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus menagerie, which opens 90 minutes prior to showtime. Admission to the menagerie, in the exhibit hall adjacent to the arena, is free for those with tickets to the circus performance.
The traditional animal walk - the parade of circus animals from the Union Pacific Depot to the Salt Palace complex - will take place at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
In addition to Gebel-Williams, other acts in this year's circus include the Royal Canadian Aerial Ski Squadron, four athletes who race down an indoor ski ramp, then do somersaults and back flips; daredevil aerialists; hoola-hoop performers; the high-speed Skating Willers; the Carrillo Brothers, high-wire daredevils; two teams of trapeze artists; performing bears, wolfhounds and seals - and, of course, the copious cadre of capricious clowns.
Tickets are available at the Salt Palace box office and all Smith'sTix outlets. For information, call 363-7681. For group rates, call 484-6916.