LIVE AUCTION: To Benefit the International Clown Hall of Fame (Bill Irwin Figurine)

The second item up for bid is a resin figurine of Bill Irwin by artist Angel Contreras. This is one of only 12 that were cast and the molds were destroyed so there won't be any more. The original is on display at the Hall of Fame.

Bill Irwin was born 11 April 1950, in Santa Monica, California, the oldest of three children born to Horace and Elizabeth Irwin. He was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Southern California. He spent a year in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as an exchange student. He is a graduate in theatre arts from Oberlin College, OH and a graduate of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's Clown College, FL. Mr. Irwin met his wife, Martha Roth, actress-turned-nurse midwife, when he went to her for treatment of a stiff neck. Their son, Santos Patrick Morales Irwin, was born in 1991. 

Bill was an original member of Kraken, a theatre company directed by Herbert Blau, and was also an original member of the Pickle Family Circus of San Francisco where he worked with Larry Pisoni and Geoff Hoyle. He has appeared as a guest artist with the ODC Dance Company of San Francisco, which first produced his original work. His own pieces, often produced with Doug Skinner and Michael O'Connor, include "Not Quite / New York" , "The Courtroom" and "The Regard of Flight" (PBS, Great Performances). Skinner, Irwin and O'Connor have performed "The Regard of Flight" on and off Broadway, across the U.S. and in Sydney, Australia. "Largely New York", Irwin's original work, was developed at The Seattle Repertory Theater City Center and The Kennedy Center, ran on Broadway, and received five Tony nominations as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and New York Dance and Performance awards.  

Mr. Irwin performed "Fool Moon" with David Shiner and the Red Clay Ramblers on Broadway, in Los Angeles, Seattle, Vienna and Munich.  

He appeared at the Public Theater in Beckett's "Texts for Nothing" directed by Joe Chaikin, and as Trinculo in "The Tempest " with Patrick Stewart, directed by George Wolfe (1995), also in "Waiting for Godot" at Lincoln Center with Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and F. Murray Abraham. He adapted, directed, and starred in "Scapin" at The Roundabout Theatre in NYC from Dec 1996 to Mar 1997. 

At La Jolla Playhouse, he played Galy Gay in Brecht's "A Man's a Man", Medvedenko in "The Sea Gull", and Arlecchino in "Three Cuckholds". He appeared on Broadway in "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" with Jonathan Pryce; "5-6-7-8- . . . Dance!" with Sandy Duncan; and in Philadelphia in "Strike Up the Band" as well as "Waiting for Godot" in Lincoln Center with Steve Martin, Robin Williams and F. Murray Abraham.  

Bill Irwin has starred in many other Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional productions, including: "The Goat or Who is Sylvia" opposite Sally Field; "Accidental Death of An Anarchist"; "5-6-7-8 Dance!"; "Waiting For Godot"; "Scapin"; "The Tempest"; "Garden of Earthly Delights"; "Texts for Nothing", and many others. 

Bill starred on Broadway and London's West End in the revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", for which he won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. The production had a national tour in 2007. His 2007 theater piece "The Happiness Lecture" was commissioned by and staged for the Philadelphia Theater Company. 

On TV, he has appeared on "Saturday Night Live," "The Tonight Show," "The Cosby Show," "3rd Rock From the Sun", "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", "Life on Mars" (US), "Law & Order; SVU", HBO's "Bette Midler, Mondo Beyondo," CBS's "Northern Exposure," PBS's "Great Performances" and, with great pride, on "Sesame Street" in one of his most famous roles, Mr. Noodle. In Britain, he appeared on BBC's "Paul Daniels Magic Show." Irwin has also appeared in many film and television productions, including the PBS Great Performances telecasts "Bill Irwin Clown Prince" and "The Regard of Flight". 

In his film work, prior to Rachel Getting Married, Irwin appeared in such films as: Popeye, Eight Men Out, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Igby Goes Down, Lady in the Water, Dark Matter, Raving, Across The Universe and others.  

Irwin has won many awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer's Fellowship, and Guggenheim, Fulbright and MacArthur Fellowships. He gratefully acknowledges these awards. 

Mr. Irwin is currently appearing on Broadway with David Shiner in the Signature Theater Company production of "Old Hats" as well as the TNT television medical drama "Monday Mornings".

Bidding starts at $100. for this extremely rare figurine.

The bidding starts now and continues through 11:59 PM (EST) Sunday night. Simply place your bid in the comments section of this post.

LIVE AUCTION: To Benefit the International Clown Hall of Fame

The first item up for bid is a Leon "Buttons" McBryde doll, generously donated by Leon himself.

Leon is a graduate of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, performed with the Greatest Show on Earth and became the first Clown College graduate to become the circus' Advance Clown. He was trained in the job by none other than Michael "Coco" Polakovs.

Leon McBryde became a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus clown after graduating from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1969.  

Following his apprentice year with the Blue Unit of the Greatest Show on Earth, was selected as the show's Advance Clown (trained by Michael "Coco" Polakovs) and named Ringling's Goodwill Ambassador. Leon devised many promotional concepts, which he later taught as a Clown College instructor.  

In 1980 he created the "Ronald McDonald School Safety Show" and the "Big Red Shoe Review"for the McDonald's corporatation and in 1983 began appearing on "Toddlers Friends", a weekly TV show in Chicago, and with wrote and produced 100 segments.

Today Leon is known for creating the ProKnows clown noses that virtually all professional clowns wear (as well as other ProFace makeup supplies) and is one of America's premier Santa Clauses.

The doll is unsigned and the bidding starts at $40.00 plus shipping.

The bidding starts now and continues through 11:59 PM (EST) Sunday night. Simply place your bid in the comments section of this post.

ICHOF: Eric Stonestreet and the 2013 Annual Fundraising Campaign

Welcome from the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center! It is with great pride and excitement that we introduce our 2013 Annual Fundraising Campaign, Smile – One Laugh at a Time, with our special Honorary Chairperson – Emmy Award winning actor from ABC’s hit television show Modern Family - Eric Stonestreet!

"As a kid, all I ever wanted to be was a clown in the circus. In a sense, my dream came true. It’s with great honor and respect that I get to be my childhood clown character, Fizbo, in the biggest circus of them all, Hollywood.

Please join me in supporting the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center in their efforts to sustain and honor clowns and laughter.

With smiles, laugher and a pie in the face!

All my best–

Eric Stonestreet
Honorary Chairman"

The International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center is embarking on the biggest funding campaign in its 27 year history of bringing laughter, education and preservation to this thing we all love called clowning.

We need your help today to continue our mission to “Preserve and honor the art of the clown”. This museum houses the largest single collection of clown artifacts in the world today. That is a lot of “stuff”. As we explain in our guided tours, behind each clown shoe, trunk, costume, photograph or scrapbook is a story. Sometimes that story belongs to a fairly famous clown name like Red Skelton, Emmett Kelly or Grock. More often than not, it’s the story of a working performing artist who devoted their life’s efforts to this passion and created laughter and memories. To share those stories is our honor.

Since 1989 we have inducted 77 master clown performers into the International Clown Hall of Fame. We continue to strive to give back to our local and world communities through two dozen outreach programs, original historic DVD’s, interactive exhibits, education and training programs, research opportunities, oral history preservation, and to continue to honor those who have come before us, left a lasting impact on this art form and on who’s shoulders we all stand.

I and the entire Board of Directors of the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center respectfully ask for your financial help to further achieve the goals and mission of this unique institution. Any gift amount is most welcome and deeply appreciated. Since opening our doors in our new home of Baraboo, Wisconsin in May of 2010, 100% of all donations, tour revenues, grants and gift shop sales have gone towards supporting our outreach programs, new display development, research opportunities and operating expense’s. As Executive Director, I performed my duties on a volunteer, no compensation basis for the past three years.

If you’ve donated to the ICHOF before, we thank you for your generosity, kindness and support. We hope you can take a moment to reflect on our message, remember the laughter and support our mission. Donations can also be made through the PayPal Donate Button on our website, www.theclownmuseum.com. The ICHOF is a 501 (c) 3 not for profit organization, therefore your donation may be tax-deductible.

Very Sincerely,

Greg DeSanto
Executive Director

THE FORNASARI COMEDY MATADORS

IN MEMORIAM: EUGEN "CHICKY" ALTENBURGER

Word comes to us from our friend John Cooper that yesterday (February 4th) Chicky (Eugen Altenburger) passed away in Geneva, Switzerland. I have no further details as yet.

ROCCO PARIS

THE RASTELLIS: The Life

For seventy years the Rastellis have made audiences laugh on five continents, performing in Europe's most prestigious circuses ice shows and variety theaters.

HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS

This becomes interesting as an explanation of how so many teens and twenty somethings only know clowns as something that is supposed to be feared.

With fewer people attending live circus performances, and producers hiring fewer skilled clowns, the chances that someone has the first-hand experience of seeing a talented professional circus clown in actual performance is astronomically slim.

The far greater majority of people "know" what a circus clown is from film and television, which (even when the aren't mining the "scary clown" trope) are as likely to accurately depict a circus clown as a James Bond film is to accurately depict a female nuclear physicist.

TOM DOUGHERTY & PEPE SILVA

Клоуны Колганов-Белогорлов "Огонь" (2011)

Клоунский дуэт «Конфуз». Реприза "Степ" (2011)

FELIX ADLER: King Orange Jamboree Parade

Photo by Joseph Steinmetz

Felix Adler taking part in a New Year's Eve staple for 65 years, Miami's King Orange Jamboree, the lavish parade held the night before the Orange Bowl.

Клоун

REMEMBERING CESLEE: Ceslee Conkling (December 6, 1965 - January 13, 1994)

Video courtesy of Mike Weakley

28 year old Ceslee Conkling, clown with the Blue Unit of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, perished 19 years ago today in the circus train wreck in Lakeland, FL that also claimed the life of 39-year-old Theodore Svertesky, the circus' lead elephant trainer.

Fellow clown Mike Weakley has very generously shared this footage of Ceslee in rehearsal in December of 1993,  just a few weeks before the crash.

This was taken in Tampa, Florida during Winter Quarters. The 2 male clowns are Cezary Skarzynski & Arturo Figueroa.

THE INTERNATIONAL CLOWN HALL OF FAME: Big News On the Horizon!

The International Clown Hall of Fame in Baraboo, WI has HUGE news on the horizon! I can't divulge the secret just yet but it is a truly unbelievable announcement.

That said, the Hall could use a little extra cash to make these plans (and a few others for 2013) a reality so if you've got a few extra bucks burning a hole in your pocket at the moment, please consider a donation to the ICHOF in the next two weeks.

You'll be glad that you did ; )

http://www.theclownmuseum.com

ALWAYS LEAVE 'EM LAUGHIN': Arthur Borella (July 2, 1946)

HISTORIA DEL PAYASO

RAMPER: Ramón Álvarez Escudero (Madrid, 1892 - Sevilla, 1952)

Video courtesy of Johnny Xod


Let's start 2013 off right...

DOUGIE ASHTON

Photo courtesy of Sue Lenz

Unless your name is Otto Griebling or David Shiner, you are likely unfit to shine the oversized comedy slapshoes of the one and only Mr. Dougie Ashton.

CHUCK BURNES: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Winter Quarters (March 26, 1957)

Chuck Burnes and Claudie Bennett. Photo by Joseph Steinmetz

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Peace On Earth, Good Will to All

INTERNATIONAL CLOWN HALL OF FAME: Holiday Contribution

As you conclude your holiday gift giving, please consider including the International Clown Hall of Fame with a donation of $10.00 - $25.00 to assist this most wonderful and worthwhile organization in the preservation of the history of physical comedy in circus, stage and screen.

FRANCK MARVIN: Bob Williams et Louie en Français

I LUCHETTINO

DONIMO

IN MEMORIAM: Scott Parker

Photo by Susan Felter

Sarasota Man Dies In Drunken Driving Crash

Scott Parker,55, was hit by a suspected drunken driver who fled the scene and who shouldn't have been on the road driving anyway, according to Florida Highway Patrol.

• By Charles Schelle
• December 7, 2012

A 55-year-old Sarasota man has died after a suspected drunken driver struck his car on Washington Boulevard early Friday.

Florida Highway Patrol responded to U.S. 301 and 47th Street at 12:50 a.m. where Siosaia K. Fonua, 29 of Bradenton was driving a 1995 Mercury on northbound U.S. 301 and struck a 1999 Ford Mustang driven by Scott R. Parker, 55, of Sarasota at 47th Street.

The Mercury struck the left side of the Mustang and Fonua fled on foot and was later located by law enforcement, according to Highway Patrol. Parker was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Highway Patrol.

Fonua suffered minor injuries and was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital for his injuries and faces DUI Manslaughter, driving on a suspended license and leaving the scene of a crash involving a death, according to Highway Patrol.

Fonua , of 4324 55th Ave. Drive East, has a lengthy criminal record in Manatee County, according to court records.

In 2001, Fonua at the age of 18, was charged with driving under the influence and was sentenced to probation, which was later violated, and to perform community service, according to court records.

Fonua pled no contest to felony robbery charges in 2006 and received probation, which was violated in 2008, but received credits for time served in jail, according to court records.

In 2009, Fonua was charged and convicted for DUI and providing a false name to Manatee County Sheriff's deputies and driving on a suspended license for a third or subsequent offense. He refused to submit himself to a blood alcohol test during that arrest, according to court records.

Fonua's license was suspended again in October 2011 for not appearing in court, according to court records.

THE COMIQUE FILM STUDIO by Charles Simic

Manhattan’s Forgotten Film Studio

Charles Simic

Buster Keaton (left), Fatty Arbuckle (center), and Al St. John, circa 1917

Here, briefly, is the story. In March, 1917, while walking on Broadway, Buster Keaton bumped into a friend from vaudeville who happened to know Fatty Arbuckle, the famous silent movie comedian and Chaplin’s rival. Asked if he had ever acted in motion pictures, Keaton said no, and was invited to drop by Arbuckle’s studio on 48th Street the following Monday. Keaton first declined, because Arbuckle had stolen one of his vaudeville routines in the past, but then changed his mind because his curiosity was piqued by the opportunity to see how movies are made and especially how the gags are filmed.

The Comique Film Studio was located in a warehouse at 318-320 East 48th Street, in the tough neighborhood west of the elevated subway tracks on First Avenue. On the first floor, the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation was in full swing filming Poppy. Near the precariously built sets, a violinist was attempting to put Norma in the proper mood for a love scene with her leading man. On the second floor, Norma’s sister Constance, who first gained attention in D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, was making a new comedy. On the third floor Fatty Arbuckle, who was the first of the silent movie comics to also direct, was at work on a film called The Butcher Boy. There was no script. The director, the actors, and the crew talked over what they were going to do in the next scene and then did it. Keaton with his elegant, laid-back air improvised a routine with a broom and was instantly hired.

Keaton had grown up in show business. His father, Joe, worked in a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the “Mohawk Indian Medicine Company,” which in addition to entertaining rubes, sold patent medicine on the side. Keaton became a part of his parents’ comedy act when he was three. His mom played the saxophone while he goaded his father, who would respond by grabbing the boy by the suitcase handle they had sewn to the back of his jacket and throwing him against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, and at times even at the hecklers in the audience. So one might say he had a professional interest in seeing how Arbuckle dealt with the various acrobatic feats that were the staple of silent comedy.

On April 23, 1917, The Butcher Boy opened in two hundred theaters across the country, including the Strand in Times Square, and soon became a big box office success. Following that, Arbuckle and Keaton made, I believe, two other films in the same building—A Reckless Romeo and Rough House, the first of which no longer survives as far as I know. The company then moved to the Biograph Studio on East 175th Street where Coney Island, His Wedding Night, and a couple of others films were made before it relocated to Long Beach, California in October 1917.

Roughly twenty to twenty-five minutes long, these shorts, which can be seen on YouTube, are still very funny. Along with Arbuckle and Keaton, they feature Al St. John, Arbuckle’s second banana (and nephew), a gangly, loose-limbed acrobat dressed like a scarecrow who played country bumpkins and various kinds of villains. Beyond the slapstick and roughhouse typical of the times, the number of thoroughly original and brilliant comic ideas found in these shorts is staggering. (See, for instance, the marvelous clip on YouTube of the boys eating spaghetti in the 1918 film The Cook.) Keaton once said that making funny pictures is like assembling a watch; you have to be sober or it won’t tick. He also said afterward that everything he knew about film comedy he learned from Fatty Arbuckle, who by the time they met had already been in some twenty films.

Jim in Times Square

Part of Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle's 48th Street movie studio, now a parking garage

I know a bit about the subject because years ago, I read everything I could find on Buster Keaton, and collected his movies and those of other silent movie comedians. Still, if my son had not lived for a time on First Avenue and 48th Street and I had not started parking my car at the 20th Century PARKING GARAGE, which turned out to have been part of the old Comique Film studio, I would not have made the connection.

Just recently I took a look at a documentary on Keaton made years ago, which to my shock placed Arbuckle’s studio in California, though it did not move there till the fall of 1917. Regardless, I was astonished that the building that held the studio run by Joseph Schenk was still there. It would be interesting to find out its history and that of the neighborhood over the decades. I love the idea that the garage was just three blocks from the United Nations and that over the years many world leaders and high diplomatic officials must have ridden past it in their bullet-proof limousines, throwing a casual glance at the entrance through which, almost a century earlier, Fatty, Keaton, and St. John went, if they were not already in the studio whacking each other over the heads with pillows, making feathers fly out of windows.

A few days ago, I took a stroll during the lunch hour past nail salons, stores selling cell phones, and pizza joints to take another look at the building, thinking the only familiar establishments in the neighborhood that the members of the Comique Film Corporation would still recognize are the Irish pub and the funeral parlor. The garage was still there, but to my surprise and horror I discovered that the wing of the old warehouse that contained the studio had recently been torn down and the government of Singapore was raising some kind of building in its place.


December 7, 2012, 12:18 p.m.

BILL IRWIN & DAVID SHINER: Old Hats

Bill Irwin and David Shiner Collaborate With Tina Landau and Nellie McKay for Old Hats World Premiere at Signature

By Kenneth Jones
06 Dec 2012

Bill Irwin
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Old Hats is the name of the new work by clowning Tony Award winners Bill Irwin and David Shiner, who will appear in the show's world premiere by Signature Theatre Company starting in February 2013. Tina Landau directs the work, with music by retro-pop star Nellie McKay, who is also featured in the production.

Irwin, the renowned clown, is an alumni playwright from Signature's past. This presentation is part of the Off-Broadway's continuing effort to showcase work by alumni, in its Legacy Program.

Performance of Old Hats begin Feb. 12 toward a March 4 opening on The Irene Diamond Stage within the Pershing Square Signature Center on West 42nd Street.

According to Signature, "2003-04 Playwright-in-Residence Bill Irwin reunites with fellow clown David Shiner for a new work combining their inimitable magic, slapstick, and hilarity. Using music, technology, and movement, plus other tricks up their sleeves, Irwin and Shiner create another wild and remarkable outing of theatre for a new generation of audiences. Signature is proud to present this dynamic duo's first collaboration since the smash Broadway hit Fool Moon."

---

Advertisement

---

Tina Landau directed Off-Broadway's Civil War Christmas, Floyd Collins, Dream True, In the Red and Brown Water, Iphigenia 2.0, Wig Out, Mary Rose, Saturn Returns, Orestes, Trojan Women; La Jolla Playhouse's Beauty, Cloud Tectonics and Marisol; Actors Theatre of Louisville's 1969; Broadway's Superior Donuts and Bells Are Ringing; and many other productions.

  The design team includes G.W. Mercier (scenic and costume design), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting design), John Gromada (sound design), and Wendall K. Harrington (projection design). David H. Lurie is the production stage manager.

Production support for Old Hats is provided by the Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation and the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater.

All tickets for the initial run of the production (to March 31) are $25 as part of the Signature Ticket Initiative: A Generation of Access. Tickets go on sale Jan. 8, 2013.

The Pershing Square Signature Center is located at 480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues.

For tickets and information, visit signaturetheatre.org.

*
Bill Irwin is a Tony Award winner for playing George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? His many Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional stage productions include The Goat or Who is Sylvia, opposite Sally Field; Waiting For Godot with Nathan Lane, for which Irwin was nominated in 2009 for a Drama Desk Award; The Tempest opposite Patrick Stewart; Texts for Nothing; Largely New York; The Regard of Flight; Garden of Earthly Delights; Accidental Death of an Anarchist; and the Tony Award-winning Fool Moon, which he created with David Shiner. He was Playwright in Residence for the 2003 Signature Theatre season. He was Mr. Noodle on "Sesame Street."

David Shiner made his American debut starring in the renowned Canadian Cirque du Soleil and toured North America in Cirque's Nouvelle Experience from 1990 through the spring of 1991. American-born David began his career on the streets of Boulder, CO. In 1981, he moved to Europe and honed his craft on the streets of Paris, Rome, Florence, London and Munich. He then began performing in Europe's most prestigious circuses, including starring in the German National Circus' Ronacalli and the Swiss National Circus' Knie. Between circus engagements, Shiner and partner Rene Bazinet toured Europe in a two-man show. In 1993, 1995 and 1998, Shiner starred with Bill Irwin and The Red Clay Ramblers in Fool Moon (Tony Award for Unique Theatrical Experience), touring the show throughout the U.S. and Europe. He also starred on Broadway as The Cat in the Hat in Seussical The Musical. Shiner's home base is Munich.

OKIDOK

JAMES THIERREE: Article by Jenny Gilbert

In Chaplin's footsteps: How James Thiérrée became vaudeville royalty

James Thiérrée is the scion of vaudeville royalty. Just don't tell him that he's the image of his grandfather...

By Jenny Gilbert

VIEW GALLERY


If anyone ever had good reason to want a nice quiet job in a bank when he grew up, it was the young James Thiérrée. From the age of four, alongside his three-year-old sister, he spent his childhood appearing in theatres across Europe and North America as a piece of luggage that sprouted little legs and ran around.

The show was his parents' own Cirque Imaginaire, a novelty in the late 1970s as one of the first circus shows to do without sawdust and trained animals. Its successor, Le Cirque Invisible, pushed the envelope further, and British theatre-goers of the late 1980s who managed to find their way to the old Thames-side venue The Mermaid may recall – along with memories of an elfin gymnast who turned herself into fantasy monsters by carrying quantities of chairs, and an older man with a dippy Harpo Marx smile who performed opera with his kneecaps – an uncommonly pimple-free youth, his long wavy hair flaring out in a halo, soaring about on bungee ropes like the Angel Gabriel. It was almost certainly that performance that gave Peter Greenaway the idea of casting the teenaged Thiérrée as Ariel in his 1991 film Prospero's Books.

James is lumbered with performing ancestry: his dad Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée gave up a career on the classical French stage to develop his musical vaudeville act; his dancer-cum-designer mother Victoria was the third' of Charlie Chaplin's eight children with Oona O'Neill, herself the daughter of the playwright Eugene O'Neill. So, at an early age, he had to decide to do something defiantly ordinary, or seize his genetic fate.

In the vacant tearoom of a smart hotel in the French city of Lyon, where Thiérrée is touring his new one-man show Raoul before bringing it to London, he is, by his own admission, wiped out with exhaustion, yet strong physical family traits still shine through. His face echoes his grandfather's fine-boned wolfishness. His dark hair is the same vigorously curly mop, which at the front is prematurely blotched with silver (he turned 37 this year). Even slumped in an armchair, shod in orange trainers, Thiérrée's light frame has the high-tuned look of a body that can do pretty much anything its owner asks of it, be that descending a long ladder by slithering slowly head-first between alternate rungs, or tripping over a non-existent ruck in a carpet, only to bounce straight back up and trip over again. But if you think this sounds like stuff you've seen before, perhaps in a black-and-white silent film, you are only partly there. Thiérrée's medium is an amalgam of live theatre with elements of vaudeville, circus and dance – and you can forget about Cirque du Soleil, too. Those terms hardly begin to describe Thiérrée's celebration of low-tech, high-impact stage design, its extraordinary atmosphere, or the existential questions it lightly touches on.

"I'm still trying to find the rhythm of the new show," he confesses. "Having done three previous shows with a cast of four or five people around me [all these shows have travelled to London in the past 10 years], being alone on stage each night feels hugely different – a liberation in its way, but daunting."

Strictly speaking, Thiérrée isn't alone on stage. Raoul, the fictional hermit whose wordless story this is, makes his first entrance scrambling on to the stage from the stalls as if it's the last ridge of a mountain range he has had to cross to reach his home, a precariously constructed giant tepee of scaffolding poles. Wild-eyed and dishevelled, Raoul may be returning from fighting a war, or fending off global meltdown – we never know. What we do soon discover is that an intruder – an impersonator, even – has stolen his identity and inveigled his way into his hearth and home. To his fury and dismay, Raoul finds himself usurped.

The sleight-of-hand comedy Thiérrée mines from this situation is at once frenetic, unsettling, hilarious and profound. In the hand-to-hand combat that ensues, the audience keeps thinking the invader is about to be unmasked (as indeed, he is, repeatedly), but each time it is Thiérrée's face and body that emerge, raising the outlandish possibility that Raoul/Thiérrée really does have a doppelgänger.

More whimsically, Raoul also entertains various non-human visitors, fantastical creatures fashioned from scrap materials: a crayfish immaculately crafted out of industrial metal tubing; a giant jellyfish in shimmering antique silk; a skeletal wading bird made from frayed string; and, most fantastic of all, a spectral, life-size fabric elephant. You never see wheels or pulleys or a body inside. Part of the beauty of each scuttling or lumbering creature is its seeming self-locomotion.

Thiérrée loves the sense that, exquisite as these objects are, they're the result of someone sitting down with a needle and thread. He's also a stickler for using outmoded theatrical machinery, so no electronics. The movement of the cloth we see in the opening – a vast Gericault-like tableau of swathes of grubby sailcloth – is all controlled with cords and counterweights filled with sand. But why make life so difficult?

"Because the result is warm, and operates on a human scale. It's the same with the props. They're all things picked up in flea markets and salvage yards, with a sense of having lived a life already. You just can't compete with film and computerised imagery, so I deliberately go in the opposite direction." That's why, in a flying sequence near the end of the show, he has the lighting swing round to show the stage hands manipulating the flying crane, with Raoul, oblivious, doing his soaring through a night-sky bit, strapped to the other end. What the audience gets is a layered reality. By showing the mechanics, the routine is doubly interesting, yet the magic remains intact.

While Thiérrée himself takes the credit as set designer – along with lighting design and musical direction – it was his mother he invited to devise and make the creatures; clear evidence, if any were needed, that her son is perfectly at ease picking up the family baton. They are hardly in each other's pockets these days, though: James lives with his girlfriend in Paris, while his parents are based in Burgundy. And given the amount of time they spend on their separate tours (missing each other by a matter of weeks in London, this time round) they see each other rarely.

"People assume it must have been a problem for me, my parents being such a global success and my choosing the same creative line. But just as my father was an actor who taught himself clowning, and my mother a dancer who taught herself other skills, I've also taken bits and pieces from all over. We're all bouncing between different disciplines and I've perhaps moved further away from circus than they have. My only responsibility is to the audience, in taking them to a place in their heads where they don't feel quite secure. It's tempting to rely on rewards for comic effects, because that's immediately gratifying. But Raoul isn't meant to be pure comedy. I try to think of it as a moving sculpture, with comic moments." That said, some of the funniest at Lyon's vast Maison de la Danse passed so solemnly that my yelps of mirth had to be muffled, if only out of politeness. "Oh, that's typical French," Thiérrée quips. "They think it's terribly serious as I used the Schubert quintet on a loop earlier on, and they didn't feel they'd been given licence to laugh."

Be that as it may, the moment involved Thiérrée's character slithering stealthily down a scaffolding pole with extreme control, then bouncing vigorously on his backside when he reached the bottom, as if having fallen from a great height. Isn't that the very area of sly humour, based on subverting expectation and undermining physical laws, that his grandfather traded in as a performer?

There is a faintly hollow sense of victory in getting Thiérrée to admit that, yes, if you must, some of what he does could be seen as Chaplinesque. He is, after all, entitled as an artist to carve out his own path, not to have to retread the tracks left by a man he can barely remember. But then, as Thiérrée properly points out, Charlie may not have been the first to do those Chaplinesque gags either. He, too, was working within a genre, applying his skills to standard vaudeville tropes. Tradition, as Thiérrée describes it, "is like a strong wind at your back. You don't necessarily pay it attention, you just feel it."

I ask him, as a final throw, whether he intends his curtain calls as a tidbit tossed to fans who have come hoping to witness some directly channelled Charlie-isms. It is indeed a delicious moment when Thiérrée comes bowling on like a blown leaf, running and twirling in tiny irregular steps as if imminently about to trip over both feet, at once delighted and a touch affronted to see how many people have been out there watching him all along. And it does come across as a truly Chaplin moment.

Thiérrée's brow darkens. "Did it really look like I meant to do that? Then I must look again at those curtain calls. That was me just having fun and messing about. I really don't want anyone to think I'm making a reference. I don't want people to think that at all."

FRANCESCO BEELOO & SHEPPERD CLOWNS: Karate Entree (2005)

OTTO GRIEBLING: Haruki Murakami Quote

"I've carried this character around like an old suitcase, down a long, dusty path. I'm not carrying it because I like it. The contents are too heavy, and it looks crummy, fraying in spots. I've carried it with me because there was nothing else I was supposed to carry."

-Haruki Murakami

 

This Murakami quote makes me think of Otto Griebling.  This photo of Otto makes me think of the Eric von Schmidt and Rolf Cahn version of the song He Was a Friend of Mine.

GALINA & SONNY HAYES

DON CHRISTIAN & BIANCA: Cirkus Maximum

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Jacko Fossett

Jacko Fossett and Little Billy Merchant

Happy 90th Birthday today to Mr. Jacko Fossett

Jacko Fossett

Clown from the world's oldest circus clan

Jacko Fossett was Britain's best-loved clown, with a career that spanned nearly 60 years. When asked what were his happiest memories under the Big Top and in the enchanted sawdust ring of the circus, Fossett's response was straightforward. "They were all happy memories. I was lucky to have been born in the business. I have no regrets and would do it all again."

The man who became Clown Jacko, known to his many friends as plain Jack, was born Robert George John Francis Fossett into England's oldest circus dynasty. The son of a clown, also known as Jacko, and a wire walker, Maria Proctor, he first saw the light of day in Hull in 1922 where his parents were appearing at the famous Hull Fair. By the time he was about eight he was performing in the ring himself, following in the footsteps of his sisters Margaret, Louise and Emmie, who all became trapeze artists.

"When I was six years old," said Jacko Fossett,

I remember my father as a clown, making up his face in the caravan. He made the white colouring out of zinc and lard, a stick of red for his nose, and the black for his eyes came from the soot in the chimney.

There was no designer theatrical makeup in those days.

Jacko's earliest years were spent with his Uncle Bob's show, Sir Robert Fossett's Circus, and with Chapman's, a leading circus in the 1930s. While Jacko was at Chapman's, his father died and he was packed off to school in Northampton, the home of the Fossett clan.

Of the Fossetts, many of whom still populate the circus world, he was fond of saying, "It's not a family, it's a disease." It is the world's oldest circus clan, and at one time it was said that every circus in Britain contained at least one member of the family, who are noted for their red hair.

Jacko Fossett's happiest days before the Second World War were spent with Chapman's, earning 12 shillings a week for a daring trapeze act with his sisters. He was appearing in Morecambe when war broke out, and soon afterwards he enlisted, serving in the RAF and being posted to Ensa.

Ralph Reader was producing shows to entertain the troops, and Fossett found himself in the company of performers who later became great stage and television stars, among them Peter Sellers, Cardew Robinson, Dick Emery and, his best chum at the time, Tony Hancock. Fossett already had a desire to be a clown, and performing in comedy skits with these artistes developed his abilities, so that when he came out of the forces he joined the circus of his cousins, Bobby and Tommy Roberts, as their principal clown.

He stayed with the Robert Bros Circus for 14 years, despite offers from Bertram Mills Circus. He was not only principal clown, but its tent master too, and nightly got kicked around by a mule, and performed in a comedy boxing bout with a very lively kangaroo. "When the kangaroo died, I cried like a kid because it felt like I had lost one of my family," he said.

When Bertram Mills Circus finally persuaded Fossett to sign a contract, he entered the world of "big time" circus. He travelled with this prestigious show until its tenting circus closed in 1964 and worked at Olympia, London, with it until the final season there in 1967.

Fossett was invited to appear in Denmark with Cirkus Schumann, 1966-69, and then went to Cirkus Benneweis. After seven summer seasons in Denmark, he was back in England, spending six years from 1973 in Great Yarmouth at the Hippodrome Circus. After the closure of Mills' seasons at Olympia, he was invited to work at Belle Vue, Manchester, and appeared there from 1968 until 1982.
But Fossett, along with his long-term clowning partner Little Billy, a British dwarf comic who worked with him for years and with whom "I never had an argument", was always in demand for work with top circuses around the world. He worked in Munich for Germany's biggest circus, the Circus Krone, run by Carl Sembach, whom he had known before the war at Chapman's Circus, and who had courted one of Fossett's sisters. He was in Paris with Cirque Jean Richard, in Italy with Circo Enis Togni, in the huge winter circus of Vienna, in Puerto Rico, and in 1983 was in Australia with "The World's Greatest Circus Spectacular".

He said that his worst experience on the Continent was when he left Circus Krone in Munich to join Jean Richard. "I'd paralysed them in Munich, we went so well . . . and then I went to Paris, did the same gags, same acts, and died a terrible death." Of all circus acts, comedy is the thing that travels least well. What appeals in one country does not always go well elsewhere. Luckily, British clowns have often found success abroad.

In 1983 Fossett went to the prestigious International Circus Festival of Monaco for Prince Rainier, but on the opening night he was despondent at the reaction he had had from the rather starchy audience and asked the ringmaster to help him. Together they worked out a way of presenting his Anglo-Saxon humour to advantage, and he ended up a success.

Fossett's biggest ambition had been to appear as a clown at the Blackpool Tower Circus, where his idol Charlie Cairoli had starred for nearly 40 years. He got his wish in the summer of 1990, but his success was short-lived. He had already suffered a number of minor heart scares but in the middle of the Blackpool Tower season he had a major heart attack and doctors advised his retirement from the ring. The old trouper was, however, well enough to return on the final night of that season, the recipient of a special award from the Circus Friends' Association of Great Britain. Ten years later, the showmen's newspaper The World's Fair gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award at Blackpool.
Jack Fossett retired to Skegness with his wife, to the bungalow they shared with his wife's twin sister.

He had married Constance Reid in 1960, having courted her for some two decades. Connie and Marjorie Reid had toured in variety for 25 years as the Reid Twins, one of Britain's leading novelty acrobatic acts, and Fossett waited patiently until variety and music hall were dead, and the girls' own careers over, before marrying Connie.

And, although Connie became the butt of many of his jokes in the circus ring, theirs was an ideally happy marriage. She was indeed a long-suffering partner, especially in bed. "I used to lie in bed at night," he recalled, "and a gag would come to me. I'd have to wake up my wife Connie and she'd have to write it down in case I forgot it by the morning."

D. Nevil

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON QUOTE

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

CLOWN ALLEY: Barbara Mandrell with the RBB&B Blue Unit

BOBBY KAYE: Roxbury Candy Ad

BUSTER KEATON: Steamboat Bill Jr Storm Scene (1928)

STINKY! Joe Besser with Bud Abbott & Lou Costello

CLOWN ALLEY: Hagenbeck-Wallace (Circa 1930s)

This looks to be from the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. The clown cop on the far right is Jojo Lewis, next to him with the saxophone is Paul Jerome. Emmett Kelly is next to Jerome in the spotted derby. The tramp next to Emmett with the clarinet looks like he might be Mark Anthony but he's far too old to be. Behind them might be Roy Barret.

Down front with arms outstretched is Jerome's pal, Bill Ward's uncle and longtime Ringling advance clown, Earl Shipley.

The whiteface playing clarinet at Earl's left hand may be Frank Luley. The whiteface trombone player at the bell of Frank's clarinet is Horace Laird and next to Horace is Billy Rice. I'm not sure about the other whitefaces.

I *am* sure that, in the center, that is Otto Griebling in drag.

Potential Bumper Sticker

CURRENT CIRCUS REPORT?

If there is anyone out there with the current issue of CIRCUS REPORT, and wouldn't mind scanning the photo of me, I would very greatly appreciate it. I'd like to see it!

Thanks,
Pat Cashin
cashincomedy@yahoo.com

KARANDASH

Mikhail Nikolayevich Rumyantsev (Russian: Михаи́л Никола́евич Румя́нцев) (10 December 1901 – 31 March 1983), better known under his stage name Karandash (Russian: Каранда́ш which means pencil), was a famous Soviet clown. He was a People's Artist of the USSR, and was the teacher of the famous Russian clowns Oleg Popov and Yuri Nikulin.

Another Potential Christmas Card

IT'S NEVER TOO EARLY: To Start Thinking About This Year's Christmas Card

CLOWNALLEY.NET IS BACK: Did You Miss Us?

Professor Paul Wenzel - RBB&B '68

"MONSEWER" EDDIE GRAY

Click here for a link to the British Pathe newsreel of the Monsewer's juggling prowess.

CHUCK BURNES

AL ACKERMAN: Publicity Photo

STEVE COPELAND & RYAN COMBS: Kelly Miller Circus

STANLEY "CARLO" BOWER: Brian Boswell's Circus

DAVID LARIBLE: Trash Bag Ballet, Circus Moira Orfei

MAISS & BEBY: 24 Hours In the Life Of a Clown (1946)

MONTE CARLO WINNERS by Cesar Diaz

MICHAEL "COCO" POLAKOVS: RBB&B (Early 1960s)

Coco's soap gag performed outdoors. After Ringling stopped touring under canvas the Greatest Show on Earth still continued to perform grandstand dates until the mid 1960s. 

Michael "Coco" Polakovs

RBB&B BLUE UNIT CLOWN ALLEY: Happy Birthday, Mr. Feld (1984)

Link suggested by Omar Morales





Chris Shelton and friends!

IN MEMORIAM: Frank Curry

Deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my friend, Frank Curry.

Men like Frank are all too rare and his generous spirit will be very sorely missed.

THE FRATELLINIS and GROCK (Newsreel footage)

Les freres fratellini les trois fameux clowns by jean_luc_arsene

TOP SIX CAUSES OF DEATHS IN CIRCUS CLOWNS by Tim Torkildson

TOP SIX CAUSES OF DEATHS IN CIRCUS CLOWNS
by Tim Torkildson

American clowning reached its zenith in the 1950’s. Reliable records indicate that there were over five-thousand professional circus clowns working in North America. Besides Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus, there were dozens of independent tented circuses, called ‘mud shows’, that traveled by truck throughout the United States and Canada. The interstate highway system was a godsend to them, allowing them to travel quickly from town to town without worrying about muddy, impassable back roads. And there were several dozen showmen who put together Shrine circuses; these shows used only premium acts and paid very well. A clown who got on with a Shrine circus outfit could work seven months of the year and then spend the rest of his time fishing down in Florida or augmenting his income with work on one of the year-long mud shows. If you knew your funny business, it was a good career with steady work and pay. And recognition. President Harry Truman started the tradition of inviting a notable circus clown to come to the annual White House Easter Egg Hunt, as a treat for the children. The fortunate funster who was chosen usually made the front page of the New York Times, as well as the cover of LIFE magazine.

All of these circuses were determined to have the largest clown alley around. Ringling Brothers kept that record for many years, boasting on their posters that their clown alley contained “A Congress of One Hundred Clowns!” But several of the more ambitious Shrine circuses were determined to top Ringling’s haughty boast. In 1953 the Hanneford Shrine Circus put on a show that featured, according to their publicity posters, “An unparalleled collection of two-hundred leaping, laughing circus clowns!” The word around circus lots was that Hanneford had simply grabbed all its roustabouts – the working men who put up and tore down the rigging for the show – and slapped makeup on them, then marched them out into the ring with the regular professional clowns. However it was done, it proved to be a ticket-selling coup for Hanneford; they played to straw houses until the end of the season in September. (A ‘straw house’ is circus jargon for a full house – back in the old days when seating ran out, the show would provide bales of straw for the surplus audience to sit on.)

This was a time before anyone had any reason to fear clowns – no Stephen King stories or clown serial killers – and so the whole family could enjoy the slapstick antics of these wonderful performers in their baggy clothes and exaggerated makeups. Insurance companies, ever mindful of potential markets for their policies, commissioned a study in 1956 to find out how prudent it would be to offer life insurance and annuities to circus clowns. Their actuaries interviewed hundreds of professional clowns and came close to developing diabetes from eating so much cotton candy while watching circus performances. The consensus was that circus clowns could prudently be offered life insurance or disability insurance, and the reports went on to list the top six ways that circus clowns usually died. This information is in the history library at the Circus World Museum, in Baraboo, Wisconsin. I’ve gone through the reports, and hereby give you THE TOP SIX CAUSES OF DEATH IN CIRCUS CLOWNS:

1) Jake leg This was circus jargon for white lead poisoning. Up until the late 1920’s or early 1930’s circus clowns whitened their faces with a compound of beeswax, mineral oil, and white lead. Since they wore their makeup for an average of 16 hours per day, the white lead had a chance to seep into the skin pores and make its way into the vital organs, including the brain. The most common symptom was a tremor while walking, and eventual paralysis of the legs. In many instances when the clown would stop using white lead the symptoms would clear up – but unfortunately the lead would not be flushed from the system and would catch up with the clown when he grew older, leading to migraines, confusion, and often premature death from irreversible liver damage. White lead has been outlawed for any kind of cosmetics since 1945.

2) Transportation accidents Clowns drove many of the circus trucks between towns for the mud shows. This was known as ‘cherry pie’ – doing more than one job on the show. Most performers did cherry pie; they drove, they sold popcorn, or helped with the set up and tear down. The tour schedule of a mud show was exhausting; they played just one day in a town, then packed up and drove to the next town, usually about a hundred miles away. So lack of sleep was a constant problem for everyone, including the clowns. Nodding off while behind the wheel of a large equipment or animal truck was an occupational hazard for clowns. Another source of transportation accidents was the circus train; it could be a bumpy ride, since railroad tracks had been neglected during World War Two and after, and an occasional unwary clown would be ejected from the vestibule of a speeding circus train when it rounded a corner or hit a rough patch of rails.

3) Septicemia Blood poisoning, in layman’s terms. This one lacks any concrete explanation, except for the fact that animal dung is everywhere in a circus, and when it gets into an open cut it can cause blood poisoning quite fast. But why clowns were more susceptible to blood poisoning than other circus workers remains a minor mystery.

4) Accidents during clown gags This one is a no-brainer, since the typical circus clown gag back in the 1950’s resembled a pitched battle more than anything else. There would be explosions, guns going off, punching, kicking, falling, and huge plumes of flame. Virtually all professional clowns who worked with a circus in the 1950’s, or earlier, had some black powder marks etched into their faces and hands.

5) Cirrhosis of the liver Okay, it seems like a unimaginative cliché; but clowns were notoriously heavy drinkers, and who can blame them for taking a couple of snorts after a hard day of dodging pies, being blown up, and stepping in elephant poo?

6) Hardening of the arteries A garden variety illness that was currently affecting 20 million other middle-aged, Caucasian males in America. Clowns were rather more mainstream than we give them credit for!


Tim Torkildson spent 20 years as a professional circus clown. Today he is a free-lance blogger

CIRCUS PEOPLE (Circa 1940s)

Shot on the Cole Bros. Circus in the 1940s. At about the six minute mark they begin to feature the clowns. I believe Horace Laird is misidentified at "Otto", Otto Griebling is misidentified as "Mike" and Mark Anthony is correctly identified as "Tony".

In the background there may be Art Cooksey and Bobby Kay. If someone could ID them for certain we'd have a better idea of when this footage was shot.

THE INTERNATIONAL CLOWN HALL OF FAME

Video courtesy of M. Lane Talburt

FREEDONIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR from the Marx Brothers' DUCK SOUP: For Robert Nelson

Thank you, Robert.

~P

MNOZIL BRASS: Lonely Boy

Link courtesy of Steve Smith

IN TENTS: Teatro ZinZanni, Recess Monkey and PETER PITOFSKY!!!

JEFF JENKINS: With Lola (or is this Junebug?)

THE GREAT CLOWNS OF VAUDEVILLE DVD

The first in a series of "collector to collector" DVDs, THE GREAT CLOWNS OF VAUDEVILLE (Volume 1) is now available by clicking here.

Future volumes will focus on American, European and Russian circus, burlesque, music hall, variety, ice shows and more.

CLOWN NERD MELTDOWN

Put on a pot of coffee. You're going to be here a while.





Copeland, you're going to want to bring a change of underwear.

LES BARIOS