COVER STORY
SAWDUST AND SOLITUDE
Zora coaches her pachyderm pack to perform one of its most elaborate feats.
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The bride ended up spending much of her time with the
menagerie, and she confided in her husband that she wanted
the “most spectacular elephant act in show business.” He
obliged, but it was a frightening proposition to him, knowing
that an elephant can weigh several tons and could crush his
new bride in an instant.
PACHYDERM PROWESS
It was not one elephant, but many, that would pyramid
above Zora, while she crouched at the bottom. She
would lie under a carpet while every elephant in the
circus stepped across her and then back. In another act, an
elephant picked her up in its trunk and then whirled her
away with all its strength.
Zora particularly came to love an elephant named
Snyder, who she thought had a great sense of balance. She
slowly and methodically taught Snyder to balance on his
hind legs and walk the length of the tent. Then she taught
him to walk while she balanced on a tusk. The spectacular
act was born. She became the “Bravest Woman in the
World,” riding on a tusk of the only elephant in the world
that could walk like a man.
Bengal tigers and lions came next, and Zora began training
them. When she entered the iron cage with her whip, with
“death at my elbow,” she became one of the earliest female
wild animal trainers and probably one of the first to use both
lions and tigers, natural enemies, together. Between shows,
Zora spent her time with domestic duties: reading cookbooks,
making candy, studying French.
Zora, who went through “countless escapes” from the animals,
recounted in her book how she watched in horror as a
child stepped in front of a tiger, which killed it with a sweep
of its claw. She was nearly killed by a tiger that tried to take
her in its mouth, but was protected by the thick cotton of her
cape. She suffered a lifelong injury from a jump she took off
an elephant in order to avoid being crushed to death. There
were train wrecks and several near-deadly scrapes with the
animals for her husband, including an animal stampede.
A POWERFUL WOMAN
Zora remained undaunted. She seemed to have a mental,
as well as a physical, superiority over every situation. She
was described as a “powerful woman, both in physique
and in mental dominance which became apparent with the
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