CLYDE BEATTY BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:

Clyde Beatty was born on June 10th, 1903 in Ross County, Ohio with the birth name Clyde Raymond Beatty.  His mother was Margaret Beatty who was a single parent.  He had a total of nine siblings.  Clyde would help out his family financially by taking on any part time job he could find.  He graduated from Chillicothe High School and then became interested in the circus.  He first began his career as a lion tamer and animal trainer.  He began working in a circus called  Van Amburgh's Wild Animal Circus and soon owned his own circus show.
 
He became very well known for his fighting acts where he would enter a cage with wild tigers and lion and show off his courage and mastery.  His success as a lion tamer brought him into the film industry where from 1930 to 1950 he worked on a variety of films.  The first film he did was with Universal called, "The Big Cage" (1933) in which he secured himself as a well known actor.  This film role followed with two others, "The Lost Jungle I" and "The Lost Jungle II" (both 1934).  In 1935 he created the Clyde-Beatty-Cole Bros Circus.
 
He married Harriett Evans in 1933, who already had one young daughter. They remained on the Cole-Beatty title until it closed in 1938. In 1939 the couple opened the Clyde Beatty Jungle Zoo in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, however zoning laws forced them to close in 1945. 

In 1947, he took his circus on the road and it remained a traveling circus until he had to file for bankruptcy.   He lost his wife in 1950 to heart disease and remarried Jane Lorraiane Abel in 1951.  They had one son, Clyde Jr., born in 1952.
 
He was also the star of his own radio series from 1950 to 1952, "The Clyde Beatty Show".  
 
In 1957 the circus was taken over by new owners and they changed the name to, "Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros" in 1959.  Beatty became ill in 1964 and underwent surgery at Billings Hospital in Chicago where they discovered he had cancer.     
 
Clyde Beatty died of cancer on July 19th, 1965 from cancer in Ventura, California at the age of sixty two.  He was buried at Forest lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.  The plaque at his gravestone bares a lion.   
 

Filmography
 
1953   Perils of the Jungle 
1936   Darkest Africa 
1934   The Lost Jungle II
1934   The Lost Jungle I
1933   The Big Cage