Dear Vance:
I remember going to the Memphis Zoo in the 1960s and being highly entertained by a family who presented a circus of trained animals. What happened to them?
— R.Y., Memphis.
Dear R.Y.: Although the trophies gathering dust on the shelves of the Lauderdale Mansion are proof of my family’s talents at bowling, roller-skating, and oboe recitals, I have to admit we never gained fame for wild animal shows. Not since that incident with Uncle Lance and the anaconda. We don’t discuss these things.
But the Tommy O’Brien family — for this is the act you mean, R.Y. — showed considerably more skill (and common sense) than the Lauderdales, and they entertained visitors to the Overton Park Zoo for decades with their well-trained monkeys, dogs, horses, ponies, elephants, camels, and even goats.
O’Brien was born outside Forrest City, Arkansas, in 1906. As a young boy, he astonished friends and neighbors by lashing two horses together and riding them over hill and dale while standing upright on their backs, holding onto nothing but the reins. It was only a matter of time before he decided that the farming life didn’t hold much allure, so he did what every kid in those days dreamed: At the age of 14, he skipped school one day and ran off and joined the circus that was traveling through town. Among other acts, he was soon featured as “The World’s Youngest Roman Rider.” During the winters, he would come to Memphis, where he worked as a meat cutter in the A&P market his father owned.
But the sawdust and spotlights always beckoned, so he would regularly disappear, working whenever he could at various carnivals and circuses, and even appearing on the vaudeville circuit as a dancer and contortionist. The young man, it seems, could do just about anything. With his skill with horses, it was only natural that he gravitated to other four-legged critters, and soon developed a trained-animal performance, which allowed him to tour the country with the Dailey Brothers Circus, then Ringling Brothers, then Barnum & Bailey. The highlight of that act — and this must have been something to see — was O’Brien, starring in a Wild West show, riding a white Arabian stallion.
His life seems like something out of a movie. He caught the eye of a lovely trapeze artist, and soon his new wife, Marguerite, became part of his show. In 1949, they had just signed a new contract with the circus that would have taken them across the United States and throughout Canada and Mexico, when they learned that Marguerite was expecting a child. So, just for the time being, they thought, they took a job with the Overton Park Zoo, presenting their trained-animal act once a day to Memphians.
As more children came along, they also joined the family act, and within a few years, the Memphis Press-Scimitar told its readers about the Overton Park Zoo Circus, which featured all five O’Briens: Tommy served as ringmaster, and Marguerite rode the large animals, which by this time included horses, camels, and even elephants. Son David performed as a clown, oldest daughter Myra led the trained dogs through their paces, and younger daughters Manci and Anita “will dress up the whole show.” If you’re wondering, all the kids still attended school — the girls at Messick, the son at Memphis State — when they weren’t performing.
So where did O’Brien find all these talented creatures? Well, obviously the larger beasts — the elephants and camels — belonged to the zoo. But he acquired some of his top-performing dogs from an unlikely source: the local dog pound. In fact, Memphis Press-Scimitar “Strolling” columnist Eldon Roark told readers about the morning that O’Brien showed up at the pound to add a few new dogs to his menagerie. Four mutts — named Ring, Rusty, Rocky, and Tony — had been picked up by the dog-catcher and were probably doomed. But O’Brien “looked the four dogs over, studied them a few minutes, and spoke to them. Then he pointed and said, ‘I’ll take that one, and that one, and that one, and that one.’ And that meant a brighter day for Ring, Rusty, Rocky, and Tony.”
O’Brien told Roark that he selected these four dogs “because he liked their looks and they seemed to be intelligent. So it went from gloom to glamor for them.”
In the mid-1950s, the Overton Park Zoo Circus even featured a pair of performing goats. Roark told his readers, “This is the first time goats have been used, but Tommy is training them — Brownie and Whitey — to jump hurdles, walk across pipes, and ride and roll barrels.” Admitting that this may not seem like much to see, he wrote, “There’s something funny about a billygoat, no matter what he does.” This is so true.
Training wild animals took hours of patience — and caution. “I’ve worked with everything but big cats,” O’Brien told a newspaper reporter in 1976, when he had retired his circus act at Overton Park and had taken over the Mid-South Fair petting zoo and the always-popular Children’s Barnyard. “But I’ve worked with bears, and they are mean. Bears are so unpredictable that they will eat you in a minute and not think a thing about it.”
Another critter that people always think is “cute” is a monkey, but O’Brien knew better. “I’ve really been chewed up by monkeys,” he told the Press-Scimitar. “They are mean and they are intelligent. Maybe too intelligent. Any monkey will bite you — especially the chimpanzees.”
Even so, most of his worst accidents came from falls while riding his trick horses. “I was a little too sure of myself,” he admitted. “I didn’t take the precautions I should have.”
O’Brien and his wife separated, and his children grew up and went on to other professions, out of the spotlight. Late in life, O’Brien worked as a zookeeper, but still lured by the world of performers, he sold tickets at the Mid-South Coliseum. In 1977, he met with Press-Scimitar reporter William Thomas to share his boxes of photos and press clippings.
Although he enjoyed his days with the Overton Park Zoo, “it was never like the circus,” he admitted. “Nothing is. Circus people say they don’t work for glory, but they do — they do it for the thrills and applause and the glory of performing. We went through floods, fires, and storms. We lost three tents in one year to tornadoes. We were wet, cold, and hungry — but I never got tired of it. In fact, I’d do every day of it again if I could.”
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazine.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine,460 Tennessee Street #200, Memphis, TN 38103
