Frank Buck (animal collector)
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This article is about Frank Buck, whose philosophy of hunting wild animals was to "bring 'em back alive". For other people with the same name, see Frank Buck.
| Frank Buck | |
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| Born | March 7, 1884 Gainesville, Texas, USA |
| Died | March 25, 1950 (aged 66) Houston, Texas, USA |
| Occupation | Actor, Author, Film director |
| Years active | 1930–1949 |
Frank Buck (March 7, 1884 – March 25, 1950) was a hunter and "collector of wild animals," as well as a movie actor, director, writer and producer. He is probably most famous for his book Bring 'Em Back Alive and his 1930s and 40s jungle adventure movies including: Wild Cargo, Jungle Cavalcade, Jacare, and Killer of the Amazon, many of which included staged "fights to the death" between formidable beasts. Born in Gainesville, Texas, Buck grew up in Dallas and excelled in geography, at the cost of "utter failure on all the other subjects of that limited Dallas curriculum."[1]
While still a child, Buck began collecting birds and small animals, and tried his hand at farming before getting a job as a cowpuncher. Accompanying a cattlecar to the Chicago stockyards, he refused to take the trip back to Texas, and spent the rest of his days supporting himself on various jobs while seeking adventure. In 1911, he won $3,500 in a poker game and decided to go overseas for the first time, leaving his wife and setting out for Brazil.[2] Bringing back exotic birds to New York, he was surprised by the amount of his profits. Trips to Singapore followed, and he was traveled the world for 18 years, until the stock market crash of 1929 left him penniless. However, friends lent him $6,000 and soon he was back to his profitable work.
When war correspondent Floyd Gibbons suggested that Buck write about his adventures, he collaborated with Edward Anthony on Bring 'Em Back Alive, which became a bestseller starting in 1930. While the book made him world famous, Buck would say later that he was prouder of his 1936 elementary school reader, On Jungle Trails, saying "Wherever I go, children mention this book to me and tell me how much they learned about animals and the jungle from it."[3] Buck's autobiography, "All in a Lifetime," was published in 1941.
In 1938, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus made Buck a lucrative offer to tour as their star attraction, and he would enter the show astride an elephant. He refused to join the American Federation of Actors, stating that he was "a scientist, not an actor." Though there was a threat of a strike if he did not join the union, he maintained that it would compromise his principles, saying "Don't get me wrong. I'm with the working man. I worked like a dog once myself. And my heart is with the fellow who works. But I don't want some --- union delegate telling me when to get on and off an elephant."[4] Eventually, the union gave Buck a special dispensation to introduce Gargantua the gorilla without registering as an actor.
Buck appeared as himself in the 1949 movie Africa Screams (also known as "Abbott and Costello in Africa"), although most of his adventures collecting exotic animals took place in Asia. He was played by Bruce Boxleitner in the 1982/83 adventure series, Bring 'Em Back Alive.
The Frank Buck Zoo in Gainesville (initially populated with retired circus animals) is named in his honor.
The menagerie retrieved by Frank Buck for the world's zoos and circuses is impressive. He estimated that in his years of hunting, he had brought back alive 49 elephants, 60 tigers, 63 leopards, 20 hyenas, 52 orangutans, 100 gibbon apes, 20 tapirs, 120 Asiatic antelope and deer, 9 pigmy water buffalo, a pair of guars, 5 Babirussa swine, 18 African antelope, 40 wild goats and sheep, 11 camels, 2 giraffes, 40 kangaroos and wallabies, 5 Indian rhinoceroses, 60 bears, 90 pythons, 10 king cobras, 25 giant monitor lizards, 15 crocodiles, more than 500 different species of other mammals, and more than 100,000 wild birds.[5]
Although his life was an adventurous one, and he reported many brushes with danger, Frank Buck died in bed from lung cancer brought about by a lifetime of cigarette smoking.
[edit] Filmography
- Africa Screams (1949) as Himself
- Tiger Fangs (1943) as Himself
- Jacaré (1942) as Himself
- Jungle Cavalcade (1941) as Narrator
- Jungle Menace (1937) as Frank Hardy
- Fang and Claw (1935) as Himself (also director and author of the original book)
- Wild Cargo (1934) as Himself/Narrator (also producer and author of the original book)
- Bring 'Em Back Alive (1932) as Himself/Narrator (also author of the original book)
[edit] References
- ^ Current Biography 1943, pp84-88
- ^ Current Biography 1943, p86
- ^ Current Biography 1943, pp84-88
- ^ New York Post, May 5, 1938
- ^ Current Biography 1943, p84
[edit] External links
- Frank Buck at the Internet Movie Database
- The Frank Buck Zoo
- Candidates for the National Film Registry
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