Frank Buck (animal collector)
Frank Howard Buck 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. He coauthored seven books chronicling or based on his expeditions, beginning with 1930s 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 193334 Century of Progress exhibition and 1939 New York Worlds Fair, toured with Ringling Bros. and Barnum amp Bailey Circus, and coauthored an autobiography, 1941s All in a Lifetime. The Frank Buck Zoo in Bucks hometown of Gainesville, Texas is
Buck was born in Gainesville, Texas in 1884 and grew up in Dallas. He excelled at geography, at the cost of utter failure on all the other subjects of that limited Dallas curriculum, and quit school after completing the seventh grade. During childhood he began collecting birds and small animals, tried farming, and sold songs to vaudeville singers before getting a job as a cowpuncher, . Accompanying a cattle car to the Chicago stockyards, he refused to return to Texas.
Source: Wikipedia