The Show Must Go On

The modern story of the Hannefords grew to myth in 1890, when another Edwin Hanneford, who was born in 1867 and went by "Ned," married tightrope walker Elizabeth Scott. It was a Romeo-and-Juliet story of a marriage between rival circus families. Elizabeth Scott, whose family owned the Royal Scott's Circus, was supposedly descended from the original Edwin's juggling rival. Elizabeth's father forbade her to see Ned. "He said the Hannefords were both our past and our present rivals," Elizabeth told Justin Douglas in an article in the American Weekly published April 17, 1949. She died in 1953.

After their marriage, Ned and Elizabeth joined their circus prowess. They both rode horseback, and she performed her tightrope routine. In 1903, they formed their own circus with their three children -- Edwin, Grace, and William -- moved to Ireland, and performed as the Hanneford Royal Canadian Circus (even though they were English) for the next 12 years. The children developed a stunning bareback equestrian act. William, who went by the nickname "George," wowed audiences with bareback riding tricks. As the clown "Poodles," Edwin mimicked William's prowess trick for trick. In failing to complete the stunts successfully, he did ever more spectacular feats. Elizabeth, or "Lizzie," as she was known, was a dashing equestrienne who rode in between the two brothers' shtick.

John Ringling saw the act in 1913 and brought Elizabeth Hanneford and her three children to the United States in March 1915. (Ned had died in 1913, and with England in the midst of World War I, his widow was having a hard time running the show.)

Elizabeth served as ringmaster for the family's debut performance in Madison Square Garden in the Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Hanneford brood did things on horseback American audiences had never seen, McConnell says. Poodles ran at a horse moving at a full gallop, stepped onto its back, and then off again as it hurtled around the ring, just in time to run at another horse, leap onto it, and jump back off that horse and onto another -- 26 times. They also did somersaults from one galloping horse to a second galloping behind. And Lizzie stood on Poodles' shoulders while Poodles stood astride a galloping horse.

"They stopped the show," McConnell says.

In their heyday, the Hannefords were the highest-paid circus performers in the country, McConnell notes. Poodles starred in a spate of early films, and family members were featured performers in circuses all over the country. Other riders copied the tricks, but they never reached the drama of a Hanneford show. "Just about anyone familiar with the circus would say they had the most entertaining act this country has ever seen," McConnell says.

George Sr.'s sons, Tommy and George Jr., and their sister, Kay Frances, learned the Hanneford act as young children. They enjoyed great success carrying on the family legacy as the George Hanneford Riding Act. Originally, Tommy did the Poodles clowning and George Jr. (Catherine and George's father) performed as the straight rider. George Jr. later also did clowning. He did both with a technical perfection that astonished other riders, McConnell says. He would do the somersault from one galloping horse to another with his feet tied together so that he had to land perfectly to keep his balance. "George Hanneford may be one of the most skilled riders of all time," McConnell says of Catherine and George III's father.

When George Jr. married trapeze artist Mary Victoria "Vicki" George in 1952, they combined their circus prowess into an act like Elizabeth and Ned had done a generation before. The couple worked for Ringling and for the Clyde Beatty Circus in the 1960s. When Catherine and George were born, the pair yearned to create their own circus. For that, they needed elephants. "Sometimes I kid my dad and ask if he had us so he could get the elephants," George III says.

In 1971, when George III was a year old, his father paid an animal dealer $25,000 to buy elephants for their act. He expected young elephants, but when the shipment arrived, he was flabbergasted. He had never seen elephants that small. Vicki says the five babies reached only to her kneecap. Too young to train for an act, the tiny pachyderms stayed home with Vicki and her children while George Jr. went on the road to earn the family's keep. One of the babies died shortly after the Hannefords acquired the elephants, and they returned another to its original owner. Vicki bottle-fed the three remaining babies; she says the elephants came to regard her as their mother.

When George III says he considers Carol, Liz, and Patty family members, he means he was raised with them almost as siblings. Catherine, who is a few years older than George but doesn't want her exact age published, assisted her mother in taking care of and training the baby elephants. Elephant trainers the family contacted were scared to work with such small elephants for fear of hurting them. Instead, the Hannefords trained the elephants themselves, Catherine says, much the same way people train dogs. Vicki used rewards to reinforce behavior -- not beatings, Catherine stresses. Elephants, like dogs, she says, are eager to please and respond to verbal and gustatory encouragement. "They just want to do anything to hear 'good girl,'" she says.