Wild Man

He said he ran away with a German circus at age thirteen and became an elephant boy taking care of elephants. I met Mr. Reuben Kastang in the geriatric ward at Orange County General Hospital in California. I was his hospital orderly and it was my duty to help him with his personal needs. I brought his food, bathed and shaved him with cheap razors supplied by the county hospital. He told me he had no money in the United States, but said he had plenty of money in Australia and England. He told me about himself and the book that was written about him.

He said "I was born in England. I took a liking to birds and animals as a boy. My father owned a bird shop, and I learned to speak bird languages by imitating their sounds. I studied rabbits, cats, and dogs and learned to talk their languages too. When I was thirteen a great animal trainer, Hagenbeck from Germany, came to see my father to buy birds. He found out about how I could communicate with animals and convinced my father to let me go back to Germany with him as an apprentice to learn about book keeping and business. I was not interested in books or business, but I was very interested in animals. I longed to learn how to get them to do things, how to speak their languages, and how to be a friend to them. I was also interested in learning to speak most of the languages of Europe and also learned Russian. Carl Hagenbeck was my boss. He owned the largest business in the world for training wild animals. He gave me the opportunity to learn my trade. I started off as an elephant boy and was taught by the great elephant trainer Julius Wagner."

He said his first experience with elephants was as a teenager. A new group of wild elephants had arrived in Germany to be tamed and trained. A very large female was sick. That night Reuben could not sleep. He wanted to do something to save the old lady elephant. He got out of bed and went into the tent with the elephants in the dark. Guard elephants stood on either side of the sick female who was lying on her side. The guard elephants allowed Reuben to touch the old lady, and in the morning bullmen [elephant keepers] found the boy sleeping on straw touching the dying animal. They were upset with him but after he begged them, he was allowed to return to nurse the elephant cow. [Old females are called cows and they are often the leaders of wild herds of elephants.] Reuben used camphor medicine, blankets, hay tea and loving care to bring the cow back to health. At the end of those few days he had gained the respect of the old elephant cow. In every herd of elephants there is an elephant who is the leader or boss. Reuben became the boss of the leader elephant and so was able to control the entire herd. He was a strong athlete not afraid to fight anyone during a circus fight. His nickname Rube was eventually used by circus people when a fight started. People yelled "Hay Rube!" The call to fight became a standard in circus language.

When a playful elephant picked him up and threw him in the air, Reuben knew how to fall without being injured. He kept his temper under control rather well and had great patience with all animals.

He said, “Later I learned to train lions, and after that I trained goats, horses, zebras, polar bears, ostriches, laughing hyenas and apes. I guess during my eighty years I have trained about every wild animal there is except my wife. I never learned to control her, but I never tired of trying to tame her. He said he was the first man to train a tiger to ride on it's enemy, the elephant. In 1908 he trained a team of polar bears to pull a dog sled. Someone had talked him into the idea of exploring the North Pole using polar bears instead of dogs. The huge bears were difficult to handle, and he gave up the idea of going into the cold wilderness with a bear sled. He sold the bears to a lady performer who used them to become famous. They performed in her circus act.

When Reuben was twenty one, he supervised animals on a voyage. The ship from Europe to America carried one hundred fifty circus animals. There were thirty animal keepers and trainers. It was young Reuben’s job to know and understand all the animal needs. He supervised the care of elephants, horses, sea lions, lions, tigers, cockatoos and macaws. He knew that an elephant needed five times more hay than a horse, that a leopard needed ten pounds of fresh meat and a lion fifteen pounds of fresh meat a day. He knew black bears eat only fruit, vegetables, and bread while the polar bears enjoy fish and vegetables. He supervised the care and feeding of all the animals and kept them healthy on the voyage. During a storm at sea Reuben used his knowledge and skill to quiet the elephants who, when frightened, could have wrecked everything on the ship. After ten days from Hamburg, Germany the ship arrived at New York where the animals were housed. Soon the grand opening of Hagenbeck Wild Animal Show took place at Coney Island. All the animals had survived the journey to America.

Reuben was the head elephant man with twenty elephants traveling with the circus all over the United States and the rest of the world. This was the largest group of elephants ever to be supervised by one man.

About nineteen twelve Reuben fell in love with a large breed of chimps that grow to be as heavy and four times as strong as any man. He found these animals to be intelligent and fun to be with. Most other trainers would not work with these large animals because they could be very dangerous. Reuben trained a pair of chimps named Max and Moritz who became famous in Europe. In 1914 Reuben was offered a large sum of money to bring his chimp act to tour Russia. On the train to Russia a railway bridge was blown up and the train halted. Reuben was forced to return to Germany and when the train halted in Austria, German soldiers asked his nationality. He answered, "British." He was arrested and spent World War One in German Prisons. During the four plus years he spent in prison he organized entertainment and did his best to keep up the moral of other prisoners. The inmates elected him Prime Minister of Ruhleben prison. Six months before the war ended the Hagenbeck family persuaded the German officials to release Reuben so he could manage a chicken ranch that had once been an ostrich farm. The only food available to feed chickens was potato peelings and bran husks, but Reuben kept the chickens alive and breeding.

After traveling the world with the circus he lived in Hollywood where he trained very large chimpanzees for movies. Every day you could see Reuben driving his chimpanzees to the old Fox lot on Western Avenue. The chimps were used as actors and sometimes performed entire movies such as Uncle Tom's Cabin. He made short subject movies showing the chimps dressed as cowboys or children, riding bicycles, and acting in movies during the nineteen thirty decade.

Reuben spoke of his wife, "You know, she was a Zigfield Follies girl when I met her in New York City. She was beautiful! She is still pretty. I don’t want her to get her hands on my chimps. They are worth a lot of money, and she would just sell them. I wouldn’t like that."

Reuben Kastang was probably the greatest animal trainer in history. He was born in the eighteen eighties, and he lived a long and interesting life. Although he was considered indigent at the county hospital where I met him, he had earned a fortune during his lifetime. For five years he trained chimpanzees for Hollywood movies. He earned more than six thousand dollars a month.

That was during the great depression when men worked for a dollar a day and secretaries received salaries of twenty dollars a month. There were no income taxes to pay. Previously he had made fortunes performing with circus acts all over the world. He had been popular entertaining the royal families of Europe. He was highly paid.

I met a man in Fullerton, California who kept some chimps that belonged to Reuben. He told me he had watched Reuben work with lions. The man in Fullerton said, "He acts and roars just like a lion when he is training them. He goes from a gentleman outside the cage to acting like a beast when he's inside the cage with them. I think he feels like he really is a lion." Just before I met him Reuben Castang became ill and spent his American money. He still owned a few of the valuable chimps. I went to see them in their cages behind a restaurant in Fullerton, California. Mr. Castang said he had spent all his American money but had a lot of money kept in Australia. He said the British government wouldn't allow the money to leave Australia, and that's why he was a poor county hospital patient.

Reuben Castang's reputation was of him being as wild as any of the animals he trained. He was also known as a man who loved gourmet food and whiskey. This I learned from his chimp keeper friend in Fullerton. "He was as fierce as any lion he worked with and he ate gourmet food like a lion."

Reuben seemed a gentle man to me. He said "I have trained most all kinds of wild animals but have not been successful training my wife. So far, she is the one who does the training, and I am the one who does the tricks."

Thirty five years after talking to the old man I found his book at the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. Some of his story is found in the pages of THE WILD ANIMAL MAN by R.W. Thompson. I hope this short story about him will peek new interest in my old friend, Reuben Kastang.