November 26: Lalla Selbini

U.S. Patent 1,045,138 was granted on this day in 1912, the invention of William Golby and J.S. Patterson, a “Theatrical Device” (a cage to transform a live lion), assigned to performer Lalla Selbini. Selbini was the popular acrobat and bicycle-riding music hall star. She was suspected of being the paramour of the magician, The Great Lafayette, but became his successor. When Lafayette died in a theater fire in 1911, she inherited his props, but the new design for the lion cage seemed to be an improvement on the Lafayette original mechanism, safely ensuring that the actual lion could not reach a performer during the act.