Alfredo Landon; I don't know much about him other than, like Paul Jung and Lou Jacobs, that he also liked to work with small statured clowns.He must have been pretty good as he was chosen as one of the Producing Clowns on Abe Pollin, Karl Wallenda and Paul V. Kaye's massive Circus America at the Capital Centre in Washington, D.C. back in 1974.
And if you look closely, you'll see that the clown on the left seems to me to be a young Mike Padilla.
Yes that is Mike, he worked for Alfredo for many years, Alfredo did an act with the little guys. Landon's Midgets.
ReplyDeleteKTLA is a local station here in Los Angeles. It was the first one in the area and carried a lot good local shows. The ringmaster looks like Dick Lane, a local legend and wrestling announcer.
ReplyDeletePadilla was a funny guy. He pretended to not understand English after being here for 30 years. He worked hard, kept to himself, and still owes me $5.
About the act, "Landon's Midgets", it was an acrobatic act, and they did it straight. In fact they were on Polack Eastern in the mid '50's with Paul Kaye when he was clowning there. They didn't start clowning till later. As far as being Producing Clown on Circus America, Alfredo & Gene Randow were both Producing Clowns for Paul Kaye, & Al Dobritch before that. And, make no mistake about it, Circus Amarica was Paul Kaye's date!
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