Charlie (elephant)
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Charlie, sometimes Charley or Old Charlie, (b. unknown, d. 1923) was an elephant who lived at the
Universal City Zoo Universal City Zoo was a private animal collection in southern California that provided animals for silent-era Universal Pictures adventure films, circus pictures, and animal comedies, and to "serve as a point of interest" for tourists visiting ...
in
Universal City, California Universal City is an unincorporated area within the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Approximately 415 acres (1.7 km) within and around the surrounding area is the property of Universal Picture ...
, United States, from approximately 1914 to 1923 and appeared in scores of silent-era films. He was executed in approximately August 1923 for his attack on trainer Curley Stecker.


Life and work

Apparently formerly known as Prince Rajah, Charlie the Elephant weighed just shy of five tons (4,500 kg).Death Sentence for Movie Elephant, New Philadelphia Daily Times Newspaper Archives August 22, 1923 Page 5Famed Elephant Must Be Killed, Defiance Crescent News 27 Aug 1923, Defiance, Ohio, USA He may have been found hauling
teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...
wood near
Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
in 1889 or 1899 by a scout for Karl Hamburg and brought to the
Berlin Zoo The Berlin Zoological Garden (german: link=no, Zoologischer Garten Berlin) is the oldest surviving and best-known zoo in Germany. Opened in 1844, it covers and is located in Berlin's Tiergarten. With about 1,380 different species and over 20,2 ...
. Circus manager and actor
Duke R. Lee Duke R. Lee (May 13, 1881 – April 1, 1959) was an American actor. Lee's career began when he performed in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and he later played Buffalo Bill on film. He appeared in more than 90 films between 1913 and 1946. I ...
then brought Charlie to the United States in 1902 or 1903. Animal collector Frank Buck claimed to have "brought him back from India," but Frank Buck told a lot of fibs. A movie magazine stated in 1923 said that Charlie had been in the United States for 20 years. His mate Susie had apparently been executed after a rampage in
Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...
. A 1904 rampage in
San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
had apparently involved smashing five cars, drama at the ferry dock, and a "grand finale" in the water. He was struck by lightning around 1908 and was blind in his left eye as a consequence. Charlie and animal trainer Curley Stecker met doing circus work and took "about three years getting acquainted," until Stecker was the only human Charlie regularly tolerated. He was supposedly brought to Universal City in 1913 by Curly Stecker with the "first load of lumber that built that city." Another source said he'd been with the studio since 1912. He consumed two bales of hay each day. Charlie regularly escaped and wandered around the
San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
. In 1915, 30 men armed with rifles and a
machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
went after him. Or maybe a lone man on horseback found him by the river. One afternoon in 1919 it just was trainer George Englehardt who returned him home safely. He was known to bull through the wall of the barn to escape; once he blacked out Universal City by knocking down the electric poles. In 1919 an editorial cartoon suggested that killing trainers was a “pastime” of Charlie's, and in 1920 it was reported that he had "killed several of his attendants during his life." According to a movie magazine, he was eventually condemned to death with the acquiescence of the Humane Society because, “On the average of about once a month, he breaks his chains and fares forth upon Los Angeles, just rarin’ to go...Movie sets, front porches, lamp posts, motor cars, trolley cars, and occasionally a dog, a horse or even a human” had been knocked about or crushed by Charlie. Charlie and another Universal Zoo animal, an orangutan called Joe Martin, were both trained by and accompanied on film shoots by Curley Stecker. Orangutan and elephant appeared together in multiple comedies, features and adventure serials, including ''Man and Beast'', ''
The Revenge of Tarzan ''The Revenge of Tarzan'' (1920) is a silent adventure film, originally advertised as ''The Return of Tarzan'', and the third Tarzan film produced. The film was produced by the Great Western Film Producing Company, a subsidiary of the Numa ...
,'' and ''A Monkey Hero''.


Trainer attack

In the early afternoon on Monday, April 24, 1923, at Universal City, while filming the genie-of-the-lamp movie '' The Brass Bottle'', "during a parade sequence, veteran pachyderm-performer Charlie the Elephant, on loan from Universal, went berserk. As 300 extras scattered, Charlie turned on his trainer…picked him up and dashed him to the ground. As Charlie tried to kneel on Stecker to crush him, a stagehand struck the enraged elephant with a pitchfork, and the trainer was rescued." Another account stated that “as the sets were being shifted between scenes, the elephant without warning attacked his trainer, knocked him down his long trunk, reared down on his hind legs and brought his front feet down on Stecker’s body, dug at him with his tusks, and trampled him into the dust.” Stecker's older brother Carl Stecker (also an animal trainer) and A.H. Kuhlman, a carpenter, using either a pitchfork or "a piece of concrete," fended off Charlie long enough for Curley to survive the initial attack. Stecker suffered lacerations, contusions, rib fractures, and a concussion. Curly told the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
, apparently from his hospital bed, that he thought it was a case of "mistaken identity" in which Charlie thought he was Carl (whom Charlie hated), because Curly was wearing a business outfit instead of his usual animal-trainer outfit, and Carl was wearing an old outfit of Curly's. "Charlie started picking up rocks with his trunk and throwing them at the horses. I told him to stop. He paid no attention. I jumped at him with a sharp command—and he did the rest. He thought I, in my business clothes, was my brother, and my brother 50 feet away in the clothes familiar to Charlie was 'the master.'" Curly Stecker, released from hospital after three months, apparently pled for Charlie's life but to no avail.


Death

Multiple newspaper articles from the second half of 1923 report on the studio's deliberations about Charlie the Elephant's fate. Several conferences were held between Julius Bernheim, general manager, Homer Boushey, general production manager, and William Koenig, business manager, about what to do about Charlie. Whether or not he would be
euthanized Animal euthanasia ( euthanasia from el, εὐθανασία; "good death") is the act of killing an animal or allowing it to die by withholding extreme medical measures. Reasons for euthanasia include incurable (and especially painful) conditi ...
was a decision reportedly made by
Carl Laemmle Carl Laemmle (; born Karl Lämmle; January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939) was a film producer and the co-founder and, until 1934, owner of Universal Pictures. He produced or worked on over 400 films. Regarded as one of the most important o ...
himself—he apparently wired from Europe "Hate execution idea but if necessary go ahead"—and multiple methods of execution were considered. While there is debate about how Charlie was dispatched, and the preponderance of evidence points to garroting—although some sources do say the studio settled upon gunshot—''no sources'' assert
summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
of an elephant worth thousands of dollars, as is suggested by the account of the incident in Diana Serra Cary's memoir. Charlie the Elephant was euthanized in autumn 1923 (most likely
garrote A garrote or garrote vil (a Spanish word; alternative spellings include garotte and similar variants''Oxford English Dictionary'', 11th Ed: garrotte is normal British English spelling, with single r alternate. Article title is US English spellin ...
d by steel cables tightened by a
windlass The windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights. Typically, a windlass consists of a horizontal cylinder (barrel), which is rotated by the turn of a crank or belt. A winch is affixed to one or both ends, and a cable or rope is wound arou ...
) but possibly by gunshot. One 1936 article said "two big trucks driving in opposite directions broke Charlie's neck." Stecker died the following year from
leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...
, with "wild animal injury" that occurred at Universal City listed as a complicating factor on his
death certificate A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as ...
. Charlie's skeleton was reportedly donated to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. Charlie's execution triggered one of the first animal welfare campaigns focused on the American film industry; Laemmle personally managed the studio's response. At the time of Charlie's execution in 1923, it was claimed that he had killed five people, had appeared in over 180 films, and was over 150 years old, and at least some of that was partially true.


Notes


References


External links

* Security Pacific National Bank photo collection
An elephant named "Old Charlie" is pulling a wagon as men clear brush from a hillside near a road in April 1914.
{{commons category Individual elephants Elephants in the United States Animal actors Universal City Zoo Individual animals in the United States American male silent film actors Male mammals 1923 animal deaths