Hippodrome: The Three Ghezzis

The French comedy acrobats, The Three Ghezzis, performing their body breaking slapstick on the British variety program, Hippodrome.

Unfortunately the ladder portion of their act has been edited out, but does exist in other videos. Besides this act I have seen footage of them performing a construction routine.

I welcome any additional information about these gentlemen!

Ringling: Dentist Gag

 

Richard Fick, Tammy Parish, Kevin McGowan, and "Frosty" Little presenting a version of the Dentist Gag for gag night during Ringling Winter Quarters in 1983.

Every year during Winter Quarters, the Ringling clowns would perform all of their new gags for the Felds in the hopes they would be chosen to be included in the show. From the records we have of the Blue Unit 114th Edition, this gag did not make the cut.

Nicolai "Coco" Poliakoff

From Wikipedia: Nicolai Poliakoff OBE (2 October 1900 – 25 September 1974; Latvian: Nikolajs Poļakovs; Russian: Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov) was the creator of Coco the Clown, arguably the most famous clown in the UK during the middle decades of the 20th century. 

Nicolai Poliakoff was born in 1900 to a Jewish family in Dvinsk (today Daugavpils), Latvia which was then part of the Russian Empire. His family were poor and worked at the local theatre to supplement the money his father earned as a cobbler. When his father was conscripted to the army in the Russo-Japanese War the five year-old Nicolai started singing for food to avoid starvation.^[1]

• 1908—Nicolai “ran away and joined the circus,” as the saying goes. He travelled 300 miles by train to Vitebsk, in Belorussia (today Belarus), where he persuaded a circus owner to give him a job, telling him that he was an orphan with no one to look after him. The director bought his story and placed him under the charge of Vitaly  Lazarenko, a clown and acrobat who would become a major circus star in the Soviet Union after the Communist revolution.
• Nicolai eventually persuaded his father to allow him to follow a circus career, and he was apprenticed for four years to Rudolfo Truzzi (1860-1936)—son of Massimiliano Truzzi, the founder of the great Russian circus dynasty of Italian descent. With Truzzi, Nicholai studied the fundamentals of acrobatics, trapeze, horse riding, and an array of circus disciplines. Russians are particularly fond of nicknames, and Nicolai was called Kokishka by Truzzi, a diminutive of “koshka” (cat in Russian), which in time became abbreviated to Koko—and rendered as Coco when Nicolai arrived in the UK.
• In 1915 Nicolai Polakovs was enlisted in the Imperial Army. During the ensuing Civil War, he was conscripted by the Red Army, escaped—only to be conscripted again by the White Army and escape again, disguised as a girl in a troupe of Mongolian travelling entertainers. Finally, when the political situation began to settle down, he returned to work in the circus.
• 1919— Nicolai was performing in Riga, when he met Valentina Novikova (1901–1983), whom he married in June of that year, and with whom he would have six children: Helen, Michael (1923–2009), Nadia, Sascha, Olga, and Tamara.
• 1920— He worked for the newly created (in 1919) Soviet state circus organisation, and travelled in the Soviet Union from one circus building to another.
• 1926— He had his own circus collective, a small but lively troupe of twenty based in Lithuania.
• 1929— Nicolai performed at Circus Busch (Before World War II, Soviet performers were still allowed to work in Western Europe.) in Berlin (and took the time to do a cameo in Karl Grune’s film version of Carl Zuckmayer’s play, Katharina Knie). He served with the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps of the British Army in World War II. He appeared with the Bertram Mills Circus for many years. His clown persona had two distinctive visual features that endeared him to television audiences: his boots, described as being size 58, and his trick hair with hinges in the centre parting, which allowed it to lift when he was surprised. He is a member of the Clown Hall of Fame.
• 21 December 1929 to 18 January 1930—Nicolai first appeared for Bertram Mills in Manchester.
• 1933–34—Coco’s contract with Mills was extended, and following the Olympia Christmas season.
• During the Second World War, Nicolai entertained troops as a member of ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association).
• In 1942 Coco and Michael were engaged at the Blackpool Tower Circus, for the Easter and summer programmes .
• 1946— Bertram Mills Circus reopened and Coco returned. He appeared on tour for every summer season until the closure of the touring show in October 1964.
• 1947–48 & 1966–67—He performed with Mills at the Olympia in London(Christmas show)
• 21 October 1949—Nicolai and Valentina eventually became naturalised British citizens.
• April 1957— During a performance at Chelmsford, Nicolai was knocked over and injured by a vehicle driven by Kam, "the only motoring elephant in the world"—one of Mills’s four elephants trained by Joan and Gösta Kruse.
• 1959— He was involved in a serious road accident prompting him to devote himself to the promotion of road safety awareness in children.^[2] However, at the same time he continued to work in the circus in the mid-1960s, seated ringside while selling programmes dressed in his full auguste's costume.
• 1962— he was the subject of This Is Your Life when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Olympia (London).

• 1973—He returned briefly to the circus world, when he toured with the Roberts Brothers Circus.
• 25 September 1974—Poliakoff died in Peterborough Hospital after a short illness, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's^[3]Woodnewton, in Northamptonshire, England.^[4]

Poliakoff was appointed an honorary member of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women^[5]. In 1963 he was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for this work by Queen Elizabeth II, one of the few foreigners ever to receive this honour. 

His eldest son, Michael, a longtime circus "Producing Clown", creator of a much imitated "soap gag" entree, and the Clown who designed the post 1960's Ronald McDonald^[6], was by then already using the "Coco" moniker. Michael had made his debut in the ring at 17, as "Coconut" and his sister Helen as "Cocotina" ('cocos' being the Spanish word for grinning face and applied to the coconut because of the three marks on its shell).^[7] Michael's Coco the Clown was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1991.

As well as Michael, Poliakoff had five other children with wife Valentina: Helen, Nadia, Sascha, Olga, and Tamara. Tamara was the founder, along with her husband Ali Hassani, of the first circus in the UK not to use performing animals.

Clyde Beatty Clowns 1994

The Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Clown Alley from 1994 performing the firehouse gag and balloon chase on the video Kids Love The Circus.

Just try and ignore the awful song and voiceovers.....

I see DuRay McManus, Rob and Andrew Torres, and Brian and Laurie Dwyer. Anyone know who the yellow wigged Auguste is?

Tweedy, Alexis, and Little Nick

Alan "Tweedy" Digweed, Kevin "Alexis" Twomey, and "Little Nick" on a circus in the UK in 1998. 

More info provided by John Cooper: the circus is Zippo’s Circus, and it is “Little Nick” Reid. Thanks, John!

Dead And Alive: Billy Vaughn and Mike Snider

Billy Vaughn, Mike Snider, and ringmaster Dan McCallum (a former Ringling clown) performing the classic American clowning standard Dead and Alive on a Vidbel Shrine date in Altoona, PA.

Ringling Clowns Early 1950s

 

Chest development? Must be all the hormones in milk...

Too well developed to pass as a girl acrobat? Must not have been chest development. 

Uncle Junior Project: Robert "Onionhead" Dunn

 

Photo credit: The Washington Post

Robert "Onionhead" Dunn, a thirteen year veteran of Universoul Circus, is just one of the African-American circus artists whose story is being told through the Uncle Junior Project.

From their website:

"The Uncle Junior Project lends an opportunity to discover and honor the achievements of the many extraordinary individuals and groups in the African-American circus community.

TUJP is a digital exhibit that is:

• inclusive of all groups of people

• told by those who lived it

• presented in an accessible format

• true to both the positive and negative

Through interview-driven documentaries, powerful historical imagery, and personal essays; the exhibition profiles performers of African descent."

On the site you can find a short video interview with Onionhead as well as Danise Payne. The ICHOF has also recently supplied the UJP with video materials for Bernice Collins.

Please check them out at https://www.unclejrproject.com

Leo Acton

Leo Acton on tour with the Culpepper Merriweather Circus. Leo graduated Ringling Clown College in 1996 and toured with both the Red and Blue Units before appearing with shows such as Circus Gatti, Loomis Bros., and Culpepper, which he has been on for several years.

Photo credit: Kirk Marsh

Cirque D'Hiver Bouglione: Rob Torres

I apologize for this being belated, but yesterday would have been Rob Torres' 47th birthday.

He started off graduating Ringling's Clown College in 1991, spent years as a road and advance clown for Clyde Beatty, street performed, worked for Disney, and then put himself on the world circus map by blowing people out of the water at the Budapest Circus Festival in 2008.

After that he worked all the best shows in Europe until he passed away in 2018, way too young and at the top of his game.

Here is probably his most well known act presented during his third and final contract with Cirque D'Hiver Bouglione in Paris for their 2017/2018 show, Exploit.

Cirque Du Soliel: The Pablos

The clown characters, "The Pablos", first appeared in the Cirque Du Soliel show, Alegria, and then joined La Nouba in Orlando from 2014 until the show's closing in 2017.

Circus Vargas: The Italos

Italo Fornasari and his family performing their musical entrée on Circus Vargas in 1987.

Kinoshita Circus: Jessi and Tucker

 

Jessi Hoffschildt and Aaron Tucker are currently touring Japan with Kinoshita Circus. They are two of the lucky few who are still able to perform during this pandemic.

Jessi and Tucker both began their circus careers on Ringling, and both have appeared for many seasons with Kinoshita.  

Ringling: Sideshow Clown Car 1977

Members of the Red Unit Clown Alley perform a Sideshow themed clown car for the 107th Edition of the Greatest Show on Earth in 1977.

I can make out Lou Jacobs, Frosty Little, Richard Mann, Mike King, Anthony Chino, John McHugh (?), Ruthie Chaddock, Kathy Herb, Garry White, Serf Rocha, Barry Lubin, and Tim Doody. Missing is Lenny Wolen as the fat lady.

Clown Alley Art: Les Francescos

 

Three of my favorite clowns, Les Francescos (Francois, Enrico, and Ernesto), as seen through the eyes of the talented artist, Elena Zaïka.

Acrobuffos: Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone

From the Acrobuffos website:

Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone met at a circus in Afghanistan, became engaged while street performing in Scotland, married in China, and occasionally go home to New York City.

Since 2005, they have created seven shows together, competed in international circus festivals, performed in over 25 countries, headlined at the Big Apple Circus, and were featured on a postage stamp.

Christina is a former ballerina who graduated from Princeton to become a clown; Seth is a former juggler who graduated from three clown schools, including an MFA in physical theater.

 Waterbombs!

 Madame & Monsieur on Big Apple Circus

Air Play

Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Clowns 1987

Robert Grissetti, David Gerard, Geoff Cobb, and Thomas Caguin, four of the 1987 Beatty Cole clowns.

Robert, Geoff, and Thomas were all fresh out of the Clown College class of 1986.

David had spent a year on the Ringling Red Unit after graduating from Clown College in 1980, and later worked for Clyde Beatty and other shows.

Blue Unit Clowns on Good Morning America 2001

David Solove, Marni Sussman, Todd Zimmerman and the rest of Clown Alley provide a backstage look at what it's like being a Ringling clown.

Les Fratellini 1948

François and Albert Fratellini with Gabriel Geretti performing a clown entrée at the Cirque D’Hiver Bouglione in Paris.

Carmelo

Carmelo, aka Jorge Rodrigo Celedon Bustamante (now you know why he goes by Carmelo) is a very funny and talented Chilean clown whom Ryan and I performed with on Circo Hermanos Vazquez.
It is rare to see a drunk act in American circuses, but Carmelo would consistently bring the house down on Vazquez. Many copycat acts sprung up after his success in Latin American circuses.

Photo credit: Rick Purdue

Photo credit: Rick Purdue