Olga Celeste and Midnight the panther at the California Zoological Gardens, Los Angeles, 1936

Item Overview

Title

Olga Celeste and Midnight the panther at the California Zoological Gardens, Los Angeles, 1936

Date Created

[circa June 6, 1936]

Publisher

Los Angeles Times

Language

No linguistic content

Collection

Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection

Notes

Description

A behind-the-scenes look at the animal actors that have roles in popular motion pictures. These animals are well-groomed like any human Hollywood star, and are trained for the profession from a very young age, marked as being highly intelligent. They reside at the California Zoological Gardens on Lincoln Park Boulevard.Midnight is a nine-year-old Malayan panther who is readily identified as the most dangerous of all the animals. He attacked trainer Olga Celeste the previous year, biting into her neck and ripping at her shoulders with his claws, putting her in the hospital for eight weeks, but this has not deterred Olga from training him.
Olga holds several whips as she stands several feet away from Midnight inside his cage. The cat walks on a beam above the ground, growling at the trainer while an unidentified man watches from outside.
In 1912 William Selig purchased the site that is now Lincoln Park in Los Angeles, at Mission Road and Selig Place, as additional film studio acreage for the housing of wild animals used in his films. The studio was insolvent by 1918 and the zoo was auctioned off in 1923. Over time, it had various names, including Luna Park Zoo, the L.A. Wild Aimal Farms, the California Zoological Gardens, and Zoopark.
Similar photographs appear with the article, "Stars That No Director Dares Defy!", Los Angeles Times, 07 June 1936: I4.

Caption

Text from negative sleeve: 5674 Zoo Olga Celeste (zoo park) - animal trainer (animals used in movies - see 6/7/36 article) June 8, 1936

Physical Description

Extent

1 photograph

Medium

b&w nitrate negative

Keywords

Genre

cellulose nitrate film
news photographs

Subjects

Animal training--California--Los Angeles
Cages--California--Los Angeles
Zoos--California--Los Angeles
Panthers--United States
Whips

Names

Celeste, Olga, 1888-1969

Location

Los Angeles (Calif.)

Resource type

still image