Monday, August 18, 2008

JACKO FOSSETT AND "LITLE BILLY" MERCHANT: 1978



From the Telegraph in the UK...

(I wouldn't take this career timeline to be the gospel truth as it omits the years that Billy spent working with Mike Coco, Lou Jacobs and Otto Griebling on the Ringling show in the early 60s)

"LITTLE BILLY" MERCHANT

November 22, 2001

"LITTLE BILLY" MERCHANT, who has died aged 81, was a much admired midget circus entertainer.

William Merchant was born on July 31 1919 and, having been abandoned by his parents at an early age, grew up in an orphanage in Bristol. As a youngster he was fascinated by the local variety theatre, which he would visit at every opportunity, and in 1937 a chance encounter at the Bristol Empire with John Lester's celebrated troupe of midgets brought him his first job.

After working in Lester's act, he joined Joe Boganny's band of acrobatic dwarves, another renowned music hall act of the era. During his time with Boganny, Merchant appeared at all the leading variety venues with such well-known stars of the day as "Wee" Georgie Wood and Elsie and Doris Waters.

When war came, he worked as an aircraft fitter for the Bristol Aeroplane Company. He then spent the summer of 1944 at Chessington Zoo Circus in Surrey, playing alongside the clown Fiery Jack (Fred Zetina).

Merchant next teamed up with the Austin brothers, Len and Alby, and in 1945 they were featured at Blackpool with other clowns such as Coco. Merchant returned to Blackpool two years later with Charlie Cairoli, whose simple style of make-up he afterwards imitated.

He and the Austins next worked with Chipperfield's Circus for two years before parting company. Merchant then appeared as a reprise clown with Bertram Mills, playing Olympia in London each winter until 1964, and touring with the show's travelling circus until it closed the same year.

He was often teamed with the Mills circus's other principal midget clown of the post-war years, Nikki, and the two were regularly billed as "Britain's funniest 'little fellows' ", as dwarves were known in circus parlance. On one occasion they appeared with the ringmaster Frank Foster in a skit in which Foster, dressed in drag, played Brunhilde, while Nikki wore Robin Hood garb and Little Billy was a diminutive Norseman.

Although Merchant was offered a place with the Moscow State Circus, in 1965 he retired from show business and went to live with friends in Reading. This interlude did not last long, however, as his former colleague at Mills, Jacko Fossett, found himself in need of another partner.

Fossett had joined Cirkus Schumann in Copenhagen after Mills had folded, and when Schumann's long-serving dwarf clown Kiki retired in 1968, Merchant was persuaded to team up with Fossett and Antonio (Schumann's other in-house midget clown).

After Schumann's was also forced to close, the trio went to Cirkus Benneweis in Denmark. In the years that followed, Little Billy and Jacko Fossett enjoyed great success together on the continent with Cirkus Krone in Munich and at the Stadthalle in Vienna, as well as in Puerto Rico.

They regularly returned to Britain for television shows featuring Chipperfield's and Billy Smart's circuses, and often played winter seasons at the Belle Vue Circus, Manchester. They also spent six summers working at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome.

In 1978, Merchant and Fossett won an award at the annual Clown Festival held at Blankenberge, Belgium. Merchant retired again to Reading after the end of that year's winter season at Belle Vue.

In the 1980s, he moved to Skegness, where he and Fossett eventually lived in the same nursing home. On occasions they also found themselves in neighbouring beds when ill health necessitated hospital treatment for both, though in all their years together they never exchanged a cross word. Fossett called him "the best partner I have ever had, and the one with whom I never had an argument."

Merchant was the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Circus Friends' Association of Great Britain last year.

8 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if Billy ever did work for Ringling. The little person who worked alongside Lou in the car act and with Otto & Freddie in the boxing routine was Billy Levishion, who had a very similar look as Little Billy Merchant. I met Billy Levishion in LA years ago and he came over with Mike Coco to perform in the painters entree.

    -Greg

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  2. REALLY?!?

    They look exactly alike to me! I never thought for a minute that there could or would be more than one little person, named Billy, who wore a Charlie Cairoli-style makeup and excelled at soap gags.

    Just goes to show, huh?

    Does anyone know if Billy Levishion is still in LA?

    ~P

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  3. I met Billy in LA in 1988. He came to the show with Spider Austin, another well-known British clown who had worked with Buster Keaton in Medrano in the 1950's. Billy seemed to up in years then, so who knows 20 years later?

    I can ask Coco if he knows more about his wearabouts next time we chat.

    -Greg

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  4. Re: The newspaper article about “Little Billy” Merchant, I believe it was very accurate of his career.
    I knew Billy from when I was with Bertram Mills Circus in UK from 1959 until the closing of the 1964 season, and I know he had been with Bertram Mills for many years before that.

    Billy had never been with Ringling. One time when my uncle, Jacko Fossett and Billy had just finished performing in Puerto Rico they did visit us when we were with Ringling at the Madison Square Gardens, New York. (On their way back to UK) and stayed a couple of days with us, That was the extent of Billy with Ringling.

    The article was wrong about them both being in a Nursing home. My Uncle lived in Skegness with his wife Connie and her twin sister Marjorie in a beautiful house, Billy stayed with the same friends that he had lived with in Reading that had also moved to Skegness, Later Billy did go into a Home because of ill health.
    At one time both Billy & my Uncle were in hospital at the same time, so that’s where that story came from.

    Jacko Fossett passed away in June 2004 followed by his wife Connie in May 2005.
    Sue Lenz.

    (Sue & Rudi Lenz Chimpanzees)

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  5. I can confirm that Little Billy never worked for Ringling, I never heard about that. Furthermore, his kind of comedy was very European and/or British, with long, carefully build entrees, and some talk.
    But nobody can know better that Mrs.Lenz, from a family so deeply in the British circus world.
    Jacko and Billy had a good interaction, and did several brilliant soap entrée. In my childhood, the Italian TV used to broadcast Christmas circus British specials as Billy Smart's, so I became a fan of Jacko and Billy. I later saw them live in the last years, I don't remeber if in Blackpool or Yarmouth.
    Concerning Spider Austin (and his company): he never worked WITH Buster Keaton, but they happened to be in the same program that Mr.Medrano booked, in which Keaton starred (Keaton worked 3 different times at Medrano in the 50s).

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  6. Spider did tell me that he worked in the program that featured Buster. He and the other clowns were in awe of his talents and would watch his entrees each & every show.

    -Greg

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  7. Raffaele.

    I don't think Jacko and Billy ever worked Blackpool Tower together, so it's more than likely that you saw them at Great Yarmouth Hippodrome. They were there from 1973 to 1978 for the summer seasons.

    John.

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  8. After reading the newspaper article about “Little Billy” Merchant. I was under the impression that “Little Billy” as I fondly remember him by was laid to rest in Skegness.

    I have just been to Skegness and I am unable to trace where he is buried/cremated. While in Skegness I paid my respects to Robert “Jacko” Fossett.

    Unfortuately, the St. Mathews Parish Office didn’t have a record of William Merchant as there records are much newer.

    I remember "Little Billy" used to live in a house in Ewan Street, Gorton, Manchester. From the newspaper article I am dating it back to around 1978 while he was working at Belle Vue. I would have been 8 years old at that time.

    Does anybody have any idea of where William “Little Billy” Merchant is buried? or How I can get more information about him.

    Thank you.

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