Poodles Hanneford: The Circus Kid (1928)

"The only trained acrobat I ever saw who could take a fall and make it look funny was Poodles Hanneford, the great circus clown." ~ Buster Keaton


Mrs. Hanneford ("Nana") and her three children, George, Elizabeth, and Edwin ("Poodles"), arrived from Ireland via the Blackpool Tower Circus in England in 1915. George soon established his own separate riding act with his children, and Poodles became the great riding clown who set the whole tone for the popularity of modern equestrian comedy. He remained an active performer for fifty years, right up to two years before his death in 1967. His comic ways of somersaulting off a horse and his challenging "awkward" mounts without a "cushion" were both demanding and outlandishly funny. He also worked with his sister, Elizabeth, his daughter, Gracie, and his wife, Grace White.

Meanwhile, his brother George and his nephews, George, Jr. and Tommy, were performing similar comedy in their act, but they also mixed in difficult straight horse-to-horse somersaulting. Following their father's death, George, Jr. went off to develop his own Cossack act; he would eventually start the Hanneford Family Circus, working with such future stars as Timi Loyal and James Zoppe.

His brother Tommy's current Royal Hanneford Circus was built from their father's original act, and Tommy called himself "the Riding Fool," modelling his character on his Uncle Poodles' influential style. In recent years the show included the marvelous Mark Karoly, trained by Tommy to coninue in the Hanneford clowning tradition of expert horsemanship. The son of Evy Karoly, another bareback and dressage rider, Mark has a daring routine, including a horse-to-horse somersault with a full twist, which gives a good indication of the demands made on the great riding clowns of the past. In one hilarious routine that always brings roars of laughter, he is energetically propelled by a companion head-first into the south end of a very tolerant and large horse. And what he can do with a coat and hat while standing on horseback at full gallop is impressive indeed.

~LaVah Ho, Step Right Up! The Circus in America