"No, it isn't very pretty, what a Town Without Pity can do..."
From Raffaele de Ritis:
The legendary act of Karl Kossmayer, with his comedy mule, one of the funniest circus pieces of last century.
This is an unusual version from one of his performances during his many years with Holiday on Ice in the 60s.
The act in his original version was later filmed by Jacques Tati in "Parade" (1974).
Karl also did a very good (and frequently copied!) slosh act, which I believe you Americans call a soap act. He is no longer with us, although his wife remains in the land of the living, and was famous in her own right as a champion ice skater. I shall probably spell this wrongly, but her name was something like Sjouke Djikstra. Dutch lady.
ReplyDeleteJohn.
I was fortunate enough to skate with Holiday on Ice during this show and would hurry to get into my next costume and watch from behind the curtain. Karl was amazing as were clowns Paul Andre (his Cleopatra was one of the funniest clown acts ever) and Johnny Leech. And we could never forget Mr. Frick. The great and gifted clowns will live on in our memories! I never tired of watching their tremendous acts. How sad that the truly great ice shows are gone though, hopefully, not forever.
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