Harry Dann: Beatty-Cole

I've been told by several reliable sources that Harry Dann NEVER worked on the Beatty-Cole show but here we see SOMEONE who looks an awful lot like him in his usual whiteface, small peaked hat but sporting a baggy, plaid suit.

I knew I had seen pictures of SOMEONE who looked like Harry but was always told that it could never have been him.

Submitted for your approval: Above we have a Beatty-Cole publicity photo from the spring of 1967 featuring several clowns identified (top to bottom) as Eddie Dullam, John James, Marvin Gauger and Cliff Cowen.

Now the guy on top certainly looks like Eddie Dullam so I'll buy that one. The third one down could be Marvin Gauger, I don't know. I've never heard the name before. The bottom guy looks to me to be Jimmy Armstrong not Cliff Cowen. Cliff Cowen is identified in another press photo and the person in the picture is neither a little person nor a clown on the show.

All of which brings us to the man second from the top.

Folks, that's Harry Dann. It's not Billy McCabe or "John James" or Jimmy James or even Jimmy "J.J." Walker... that is Harry Dann in a plaid suit looking quite a bit like what Frosty Little would look like just a year or so later on the Ringling show.

Just because Harry is in the photo doesn't mean he toured with the show. He may have just been there for press photos. And just because the photo was published in 1967 that doesn't mean that's when it was taken.

But that's Harry Dann in a plaid suit working for Beatty-Cole. So there!

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THIS JUST IN FROM BILL STRONG!!!

"According to "Encyclopedia Herriott", when Harry Dann first came to Beatty-Cole he announced the show, wearing a red Blazer, he indeed did clown on the show. Marv Gauger & Cliff Cowen were very close friends and often attended Circuses & CFA functions together. I spent 3 years with Marv at CWM, and feel like it is Marv in the picture, BUT, that is Jimmy Armstrong on the bottom sure as you're born. On top is Eddie Dullum, and if that's not Harry Dann, I'm not Bill Strong, and I'm going this afternoon to get a DNA test to confirm that I am really me. I am enclosing a scan of the same pic that I made off an 8X10 glossy that I sold earlier.