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Photograph courtesy of Gabriel Moulin's 'San Francisco Town and Country Homes 1910-1930.'
Saratoga artist Josef Sigall was as well-known for his pet lion as he was for his attractive estate or his art.
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Picture from the Past
Los Gatos, Saratoga have seen their share of lions
By John S. Baggerly
A dwindling few Saratoga and Los Gatos residents recall seeing artist Josef Sigall and his pet lion, Pasha, riding about in his 1920s touring car--Sigall at the wheel and Mr. Lion riding in the back seat, secured by a light chain running from his collar to the lap-robe bar that graced the back of the front seat. Lap robes were a necessity in those days before internal heating warmed motor cars.
Citizens who saw Pasha resting in the back seat while parked in downtown Saratoga or Los Gatos hoped the tin can was strong enough to contain the lion if he decided to have some human flesh for lunch.
Sigall was a native of Europe who had painted many of the crowned heads of Europe. Upon coming to the United States, he painted several U.S. presidents, including Herbert Hoover. The Sigall estate in the Saratoga hills overlooked the sprawling Santa Clara Valley, as shown in photograph above, and bordered U.S. Sen. James Phelan's Villa Montalvo property.
Two lifelong Saratoga residents, Vince Garrod and Willys Peck, both Los Gatos High School graduates, add to the Sigall estate and lion story.
Garrod noted that the Sigall landscape, like that of Phelan "next door," showed numerous statues. On one Halloween night, Garrod recalls, a group of young Saratoga males--Garrod not included--kidnapped a number of Sigall statues and placed them at downtown corners in Saratoga. None were damaged and all were returned.
Peck, a historian, attorney and newspaper writer and editor, recalls that when Sigall's home burned down, Sigall was in Southern California and could not bring himself to return. It was then that he gave his lion Pasha to actor Eugene Pallette.
On this trip to Southern California, Sigall visited actress Pola Negri, who in turn had visited him at his Saratoga home.
As dinner guests of Sigall, Saratogans John and Kay Breeden, producers of local plays, recall that midway through dinner, Pasha entered and settled himself comfortably on a rug. Other Sigall rugs were hung as wall decorations.
A Saratoga firefighter whose name escapes this writer said that as a delivery boy, he was instructed to enter the back door and leave the groceries in the kitchen. On one such trip the lion was enjoying the cool linoleum floor but did not see the boy as "lunch."
For the entertainment of his guests, Sigall would wrestle Pasha outside on a lawn. The name "Pasha" no doubt was appropriate and sounds like a person of high stature. How and where "Pasha" was obtained seems unknown. It appears Sigall acquired Pasha as a young cub.
For those who prefer the King of Beasts to look like the Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion with his mighty mane and roar, that beast arrived in Los Gatos in the 1930s and was ruling a mechanized vehicle parked in front of Los Gatos Theater to advertise a movie. A crowd gathered but the hairy-maned animal was unconcerned until a reporter arrived with a camera. The crowd insisted that the lion relocate himself, facing the cameraman.
In the same position, the lovable Pasha might have opened one eye and gone back to sleep.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
