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Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Ricky


Ending the Columbus Day series with a playful 
Barrington picture of Ricky Alboni on a trapeze.

 

7 comments:

  1. Another handsome, pre-steroid body. And the smile adds much to the picture IMHO. What do you think led to the trapeze pose, though?

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    1. Whimsy? Barrington could be creative, despite his technical photographic shortcomings.

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  2. Barrington was doubtlessly making a nodding reference to the French acrobat Jules Léotard (1838–1870)- whose name was given to the "leotard" or singlet for women - who was the subject of one of the most famous music hall songs of all time of 1867, "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze", written by George Leybourne to music by Gaston Lyle. Even in my childhood, a century on, most people in Britain could at least sing the chorus.

    Once I was happy but now I'm forlorn
    Like an old coat that is tattered and torn
    Left on this wide world to fret and to mourn,
    Betrayed by a maid in her teens

    The girl that I loved she was handsome
    I tried all I knew her to please
    But I could not please her one quarter so well
    Like that man up on the Trapeze

    CHORUS:
    He'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease
    A daring young man on the flying Trapeze
    His movements were graceful, all girls he could please
    And my love he purloined away...

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    1. That song has been popular in the USA, too. My grandmother used to sing it whenever my cousins and I got crazy on the playground equipment during our weekly trips to town.

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    2. Yes, the wonderful Eddie Cantor recorded a version with his own inimitable ad lib:

      And my love he'd stolen away - alas, alack, Alaska.

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  3. There is just something about a naked guy on a swing...very stimulating.

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    Replies
    1. They had saloon girls on swings in the Old West . . . at least in the movies.

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