Ben Williams, Circus Performer Whose Costar Was an Elephant, Dies at 56
Matthew Kruk
Ben Williams, Circus Performer Whose Costar Was an Elephant, Dies at 56
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Ben Williams, who, clad only in his trademark tiger-skin loincloth,
seized the attention of Big Top crowds by fearlessly and flamboyantly
cavorting under, above and around elephants to become one of the top
circus attractions of recent decades, died on Oct. 2 in Tampa, Fla. He
was 56.
Anna May, the 7,880-pound pachyderm with whom he performed for a half
century, died at 57 in December 2004 after a seven-month retirement.
(Human and elephant years are pretty much equivalent.)
The cause of Mr. Williams's death was gastrointestinal cancer, said his
stepfather, Bill (Buckles) Woodcock, himself a famed elephant presenter.
Mr. Williams's mother, Barbara Woodcock, was a member of the fourth
generation of her family to perform with animals in circuses. Ben's
father, Rex Williams, was an elephant trainer known for slipping camels
and horses into the act.
After Barbara and Rex divorced, she married Mr. Woodcock, whose own
father was a legendary elephant showman, with family roots going back to
the Orton's Badger Circus, which started in Wisconsin in 1854.
Can it be any wonder that Ben Williams took to elephants the way most
children warm up to cocker spaniels? At the age of 6, he was already a
precious part of the family act.
"He could climb around the elephants almost like he was a chimpanzee,"
Mr. Woodcock said in an interview on Tuesday. And, truth to tell, Ben
Williams - with his tiger-skin loincloth, million-watt smile and
streaming blond mane - rivaled Anna May in popularity, if not poundage,
appearing on Ed Sullivan's television show when he was 10 or 11.
The human would cavort under, over and around Anna May and other
pachyderms, not to mention a leopard walk-on. He would lie motionless as
Anna May came within inches of crushing him. He would grin as the
elephant grabbed his leg in her mouth and spun him horizontally. He did
a handstand on Anna's head.
Mr. Williams selflessly gave credit to his costar, a native of Burma
whom his stepfather's father bought from another circus at the age of 5
in 1951. She was named after Anna May Wong, the silent movie star.
"She makes me look good," Mr. Williams said in an interview with New
York magazine in 1985. "She's forgotten more tricks than I know."
Ben Harold Williams was born On Jan. 18, 1953, in Fort Worth, Tex., and
first rode an elephant at 4 months. As a toddler, he made a jungle gym
out of the species, intrepidly leaping from back to back. He was soon
cutting the elephants' very large toenails, among other grooming chores.
When not on the road, he went to school in Ruskin, Fla., where he was
president of the National Honor Society. He turned down a scholarship to
the University of South Florida to stay with the elephants.
Ben, his mother, stepfather and two siblings performed together in a
small circus started by his mother's parents. They worked with the
Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1970s and the Big
Apple Circus in the 1980s and 1990s.
Anna May, a stunningly intelligent beast, liked most people but fell
hard for young Ben. She liked to hoist him high in the air with her
trunk. By the 1970s, they were a hit act.
"She raised him, really," Mr. Williams's mother said in an interview on
Wednesday.
Mr. Williams returned the love, as was dramatically evident in 1982,
when a 30-year-old woman in Wisconsin sneaked into a trailer where Anna
May was sleeping. The startled elephant swatted the woman with her
trunk, killing her.
Mr. Williams panicked and fled with Anna May. He was worried that the
authorities would kill the elephant, as often happens to animals that
kill humans, however inadvertently, Mrs. Woodcock said. After initially
being charged with murder, Mr. Williams was convicted of leaving the
scene of an accident. He spent two weeks in jail.
Around 2000, the Big Apple Circus stopped including elephant acts,
partly in response to animal rights groups' protests. Mr. Williams's
family gave Anna May and their other pachyderms to a refuge in Arkansas.
She is buried beneath rocks meant to represent a heart-shaped circus
ring. Ben liked to visit.
In addition to his mother and stepfather, Mr. Williams, who lived in
Ruskin, is survived by his wife, Darlene; his daughters, Stormy and
Skye; his sister, Delilah; and his brother, Shannon.
Mr. Williams was offered opportunities to pursue other lines of work,
New York magazine reported. But he always refused.
"I just went back to running around in the loincloth and jumping around
with the elephant," he said. "It's what I do best."
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company