Doug Ashton

Doug Ashton was born into the circus. His mother was a bareback rider and trapeze artist and his father played trumpet in the circus band. Like his five brothers and two sisters, he was born as his parents toured Australia, although the family lived in Melbourne.

From the time he was born Doug was trained in the art of entertaining. He and his brothers practiced and acrobatic and tumbling act in the front window of an old store in Swanston Street, dazzling Melbourne lunchtime crowds with their somersaults and backflips.

By the time he was 16 Doug and his brothers Neville, Hoody, Dingie, Mickey, Goldie and his sister Ruva had turned professional with an act they called the Flying Ashtons. They signed a one year contract to tour South Africa with Boswell's Circus and set themselves on a course which would take them to venues all over the world as one of Australia's most famous circus acts.

"I was what they used to call the flyer," Doug said. "My brothers called me skinny, and because I was the lightest I was the one in the air most of the time." The Flying Ashton' lightning speed and pinpoint accuracy made them the toast of overseas circus and vaudeville acts.

After South Africa came a sell-out tour of England and within a year a Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium.

The Ashtons left Australia in 1947 and their fame and success kept them on the road - traveling between Britain, the United States, and Europe - until 1963, when they decided to split and seek their own fortunes. Ruva, Neville and Mickey returned to Australia, Dingie, Goldie, Hoody and Doug all decided to settle in the US.

"I went out on my own and it was then that I decided that clowning - making people laugh - was as good a way of making a living as I could find," Doug said. "I think I was just born silly."

While Doug was growing up, and practicing the tumbling routines with his brothers in Melbourne, he also worked with some of Australia's greatest stand-up comics. Those he admired were Roy Rene and George Wallace, and he learned a lot from taking bit parts in vaudeville shows at the old Tivoli Theater in Melbourne. "I remember seeing those men make audiences laugh and it always impressed me - there can never be enough laughter in the world," Doug said.

And, since his decision to become a clown, Doug brought laughter to people all over the world. He performed with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey for nine seasons, met and married a circus showgirl named Sally and together they toured the US and Australia as a double act for many years. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan show with Elvis and appeared in movies with Red Skelton and Mickey Rooney.

In 1987 he and his wife were invited to join the International Training Program for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Albury - Wodonga, a youth circus, where Sally taught web, trapeze and cloud swing and Doug taught what he knew best: slapstick, knockabout circus comedy.