Monday, December 6, 2010

I found a photo of Berta Beeson!


I wrote in an earlier post that I'm pretty seriously considering
writing a play about Frank "Slats" Beeson, a famous female
impersonating wire walker for Ringling Brothers circus,
who performed under the name Berta Beeson.
Anyways - in one of my circus books, I stumbled on this
photo of Berta Beeson performing -and this is the only
actual photo I've seen of him performing - so I'm really
excited about this -the photo is black and white so I did
a quick colorizing of it and turned it into a caption -
but it's the black and white photo that I found that I really
like - partly because it does confirm that this wasn't a farce,
he was an attractive, talented performer -the book goes on
to say that the program notes include the tag
"Expect a lot, and Boy, oh Boy you get it"
Yes, we get it - as I said in my earlier post, Ringling Brothers
were savy enough to market an act to attract gay men to. I'd go. 

PS - I recognize most of you don't share my enthusiasm about
the Circus, and Berta Beeson, and play writing.
Bear with me, I'll post some more captions in a day or two.


2 comments:

  1. Nice fun caption Samantha. ^_^

    And I don't mind posts like this, it's interesting. I never knew there was a cross dressing circus act on the high wire.

    Wonder what a play would be about though. hmm. would a woman play the lead?

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  2. OOPS! -Samantha you dope!
    (We say OOPS! a lot here at Trans-Honey)
    I described the Story in my November blog

    "Stats" Beeson, the story, the play
    (posted Nov 26) it includes a quick
    outline of the play, and the true
    story of the man who performed as
    Berta Beeson.

    ReplyDelete