Frank Buck

Frank Howard Buck (March 17, 1884 – March 25, 1950) was an American hunter, animal collector, and author, as well as a film actor, director, and producer.

Beginning in the 1910s he made many expeditions into Asia for the purpose of hunting and collecting exotic animals, bringing over 100,000 live specimens back to the United States and elsewhere for zoos and circuses and earning a reputation as an adventurer.

According to Buck, in 1911 Buck won $3,500 in a poker game and decided to go abroad for the first time, traveling to Brazil without his wife.

According to Robison, one day in 1915, Buck visited Robison's shop with an eye to purchasing Lady Gould finches (Chloebia gouldiae) from a shipment that Robison had received from Australia.

Robison vividly recalled his first sight of Buck: "He was a slick-looking young fellow. All dressed up. Chamois gloves and spats. A regular fashion plate, and handsome and likable, too."

Buck was looking for pets "to keep in his hotel room".

Otherwise, at that time, "there was nothing to link him to animals...except a modest taste for finches."

Buck, who had formerly been a Chicago newspaperman, worked in publicity for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

Hired by Frank Burt, the Director of Concessions and Admissions, Buck was there to drum up business for "the Zone" of the world's fair, which was the amusement-park-style "midway of that time".

In late summer 1915 an "enormous orangutan" came from Java on a Russian tramp steamer otherwise loaded with sugar.

Robison bought the steamer's animal cargo and rapidly sold the constrictor snake to a circus, but could not seem to find a buyer for the orangutan.

Buck told him that at the Exposition Zone there was a "fast-talking carnival man named Don Carlos, whose concession was doing badly."

Apparently Don Carlos "had no money", but Buck suggested Robison let Don Carlos use the orangutan on a percentage basis until the end of the exposition "in a few weeks".

According to Robison, the orangutan "was a sensation. Within two weeks Carlos brought in $750 as full payment for it, plus $500 as the pet shop's percentage of the receipts."

Meanwhile, Robison had an order from the United States Department of Health for 500 rhesus monkeys from India at $20 each.

He co-authored seven books chronicling or based on his expeditions, beginning with 1930's Bring 'Em Back Alive, which became a bestseller.

Between 1932 and 1943 he starred in seven adventure films based on his exploits, most of which featured staged "fights to the death" with various wild beasts.

He was also briefly a director of the San Diego Zoo, displayed wild animals at the 1933–34 Century of Progress exhibition and 1939 New York World's Fair, toured with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and co-authored an autobiography, 1941's All in a Lifetime.

The Frank Buck Zoo in Buck's hometown of Gainesville, Texas, is named after him.

In his life story, coauthored by Ferrin Fraser, All In a Lifetime (1941), Buck claims his first Asian animal collecting trip was in "late 1912 and early 1913."

He states that from this first shipment he sold tigers and birds to Dr. Hornaday, leopards and pythons to Foley & Burke Carnival Company, and "the remaining birds to Robinson [sic] Bird Store and other dealers" for a net profit of $6,000, and three weeks later went back to Singapore.

He also states that after the close of the San Francisco world's fair he went to work as Director of Publicity and Promotion for Mack Sennett Studio for seven months but "it was the sunrises over the Malayan jungle that I missed...I headed back for Singapore, headed for everything the jungle and life could do for me."

According to the Saturday Evening Post in 1953, "World War I was on and the monkeys were vitally needed for trench-gas experiments. But Ansel Robison could not seem to get any action out of his agents in India. But the order had to be filled; it was a patriotic necessity. Ansel began making preparations to go to India."

After the close of the fair, Buck "announced he was taking a publicity job with a steamship company" or was "going to the Orient as correspondent for a magazine," heading out shortly for Calcutta.

Robison commissioned Buck "to keep his eyes open for monkeys".

Buck was initially reluctant, stating even if he were able to find so many rhesus monkeys, he had no money to buy or ship them.

Robison told Buck, "I'll worry about the money."

Six weeks later Robison received a cablegram from Buck in India that he had the monkeys, as well as two Bengal tigers, snakes, rare pheasants and some other birds.

Buck added, "Send money."

According to Robison: "He didn't know a damn thing about animals...[but] Frank did help, sending monkeys to me for government research...After that I financed all of Frank's trips for 10 years."

Per the Evening Post, "Robison put Buck back on the next steamer leaving for the Far East. With World War I on and the European markets closed, zoos, circuses, and dealers everywhere were looking to the Robison firm for supply."

According to a 1957 article about Buck's life, "For years he avoided telling about the poker game that staked him to his first venture in South America, instead claiming he had skimped and saved as an assistant taxidermist in a museum."

Bringing back exotic birds to New York, he was surprised by the profits he was able to obtain from their sale.

He then traveled to Singapore, beginning a string of animal collecting expeditions to various parts of Asia.

Leading treks into the jungles, Buck learned to build traps and snares to safely catch animals so he could sell them to zoos and circuses worldwide.

After an expedition, he would usually accompany his catches on board ship, helping to ensure they survived the transport to the United States.

According to the San Francisco Examiner in 1968, Robison initially "gave Buck ideas on the use of tropical birds for added interest at the exposition."

Buck began to visit frequently to talk to Ansel Robison and look at the animals until he was virtually "haunting the place".

According to Ansel W. Robison, he both trained and funded the man whom The Rotarian magazine in 1972 called "a sideshow impresario and writer".

Robinson, a pet store owner from the third generation of a family of San Francisco animal merchants, recalled from over a distance of some 50 years "the day Buck barked frantically over the telephone, 'Come quick, Ansel, the panther escaped when we were unloading it!' Robison hurried to the docks and together they inched the snarling, frightened cat into an awaiting cage."