Word: gargantuas
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With lights blazing, band blaring, batons twirling, and all signposts seeming to point to Gargantua the Great, described as "the only full-grown gorilla ever seen on this continent," Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey circus arrived, as punctual as spring, for its annual opening in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden last week. Gargantua out-ballyhooed a whole battalion of new acts, out-ballyhooed Frank ("Bring 'Em Back Alive") Buck, who appeared- elephantastically in a howdah-for the first time in any circus, out-ballyhooed John & Henry Ringling North who, after payment of $823,000, last winter brought back...
Appearing as Display No. 14 on the 26-item program, Gargantua was hauled round & round the Garden in a heavily barred, thickly glassed, air-conditioned wagon drawn by six white horses. Stocky & truculent, he stared menacingly out of his cage, was characterized by Frank Buck as "the most ferocious, most terrifying and most dangerous of all living creatures."* A coastal gorilla from the swamps of the Belgian Congo, Gargantua was brought to the U. S. as a baby by Captain Arthur Phillips, was bought by Mrs. Gertrude Lintz, animal-training wife of a stomach specialist, grew to apehood in Brooklyn...
Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circus' gorilla Gargantua the Great, wrote Gargantuan Columnist Heywood Broun three weeks ago, "is the fiercest looking thing I have ever seen on two legs. And probably his power and truculence were all the more impressive because he did look a good deal like a distant relative. No one was allowed to go close to his cage, because Gargantua can reach about five feet through the bars and get a toe hold on a visitor whom he dislikes." Gargantua may not be the world's biggest captive gorilla-since the death of Berlin...
Last week the circus' executive vice president, young John Ringling North, nephew of the late John ("Three-Ring") Ringling, was inspecting the circus' Sarasota, Fla. winter quarters. Imprudently disregarding warning signs, he leaned against the bars of Gargantua's cage to rest. Gargantua reached through, got no toe hold but wrenched Circusman North's left arm into the cage, bit & wrung it until Trainer Richard Kroner, pounding the gorilla with an iron stake, distracted its slow attention...
...splendiferous arrival in Rome was made last week by Ministerpräsident General-Oberst. In stature Mussolini is definitely a small man and Italians were surprised that Göring did not turn out to be larger-they had expected a bulging Gargantua in corsets, but Göring has really trained down, and Germany is training down, hard. Herr Göring gave a good account of himself at Rome in a fencing bout with Signor Mussolini, expert duelist. Commented a professional fencing master who witnessed the 20-minute bout: "Mussolini was faster and more agile. He showed...