COCO: Bertram Mills Circus

Photo courtesy of Bobbo Roberts

PRINCE PAUL ALPERT

PAUL "CHESTY" MORTIER

CLOWN ALLEY: Bertram MIlls Circus (Circa 1940s)

Photo courtesy of Bobbo Roberts

...AND MAY ALL YOUR DAYS BE CIRCUS DAYS!

 

Remember the Titans

Clockwise from the top: Shorty Flemm, Paul Jerome, Charlie Bell and Jojo Lewis

BOBBY KAY

BEN LINDER: (July 7, 1959 – April 28, 1987)

Courtesy of the Zinn Education Project

“My son was brutally murdered for bringing electricity to a few poor people in northern Nicaragua. He was murdered because he had a dream and because he had the courage to make that dream come true.”

- Ben Linder's mother, at his funeral.

In addition to volunteering as an engineer, Linder participated in vaccination campaigns, using his talents as a clown, juggler, and unicyclist to entertain the local children. Linder and two Nicaraguans—Sergio Hernández and Pablo Rosales—were killed in a Contra ambush on April 28, 1987. Linder was wounded by a grenade and then shot at point-blank range in the head. Read more and find the free downloadable teaching guide on Nicaragua, including a section on Linder, here: http://bit.ly/1PSeCdJ

RINGLING BROS. and BARNUM & BAILEY: Waiting for Spec at Madison Square Garden (1955)

Photo by Marvin Newman

OTTO GRIEBLING: Shrine Circus Poster (Circa 1930s)

VARIETY (April 9, 1909)

Marceline

A national organization is being organized by the circus clowns of the country. The first step was a meeting of the Hippodrome funmakers, under the leadership of Marceline, held in the Hippodrome dressing rooms a few days ago. The purpose of the association is not protection, but social. The following committee was appointed to carry the movement further: Marceline, George Holland, James R. Adams, Clyde Powers and Frank Hansen, of the Hippodrome; Al Miaco and George Hartzell, of the Ringling Bros.' Circus, and Spader Johnson and Fred De Voe, of the Barnum-Bailey organization. Wells Hawks, the public disseminator of "The Hip," furnishes the information.

PIC: Photography Entree, Circus Roncalli (2008)

RAMPIN CLOWNS: Water Entree, Cirque de Noel (2015)

CLOWN ALLEY: Barnum & Bailey; Variety (April 20, 1907)

   

The press department of the Barnum-Bailey show last Saturday "pulled off" a publicity-seeking scheme with its clowns, which brought forth comment in the dailies not relished by the funny men. A large auto carried the entire force of clowns to the Consolidated Stock Exchange on lower Broadway, where they disembarked. All excepting Steve Miaco and Bell, of Bell and Henry, proceeded to the gallery, but these two marched in the pit to be marched out again almost immediately after some rough handling by the brokers who did not consider the intrusion comical.

AL MIACO Variety (April 1907)

    Al Miaco, one of the principal clowns with the Ringling Brothers' show this season is the oldest engaged actively in the ring. Mr. Miaco is father of Steve, at present a principal funmaker in the Barnum-Bailey aggregation. "Miaco" has been a standard circus name for years. There was a "Tom Miaco" years ago, who was a clown, and lived in Cortland N. Y. The history of the Miacos in the show business if compiled would fill a large volume. Everyone up 'York State believes Tom to have been the original clown of that name.

SLIVERS OAKLEY: Variety (April 1907)

   

At the premiere of the Barnum & Bailey show at the Garden last week "Slivers" Oakley, the chief clown, "walked off" in the middle of the performance. Questioned regarding this proceeding Slivers said: "I attempted to do some quiet pantomime work several times, but on each occasion attention was diverted from my efforts by the passing of a number of other clowns with slapstick comedy. This, of course, rendered my efforts void and there was nothing left for me to do but retire. I explained my position to the management and they saw the reasonableness of my attitude. Matter were immediately adjusted and I am now working at every performance in perfect harmony with the others."

CLOWN BAND: Ringling Bros. Circus (1897)

A Symphony in Q Flat

Being an Attempt to Describe a Subject That Baffles Description.



Josh Billings wrote more wisely than he knew when he paraphrased an old saying thus: “Music hath charms to soothe a savage, to rend a rock, or split a cabbage.” But “Josh” never heard the Ringling Brothers’ Clown Band, consequently must have taken his “cue” from some wandering son of “Sunny Italy,” whose inspired afflations emanated from the bellows of a barrel organ and breathed out upon defenseless Nature the soul-soothing melody of “Silver threads amongst the gold,” while concomitantly “de monk ” danced the variations.

The Clown Band

But the “Real Thing” really never happened until the year of grace, 1897, when Spader Johnson and his musical coadjutors established that now famous musical organization known as the “Clown Band.” When its organization was completed Euterpe smiled, for the sweet-faced muse knew that the divine art of music, over which she had presided so many centuries, was to rise to heights hitherto unattained, and that the soul of Spader and his symphonious swallows — or, in other words, Johnson and his jabbers of wind would scale the very peaks of the mountains of melody, and from the dizzy heights roll down upon a breathless and expectant world an avalanche of melody and engulf all mankind in an ocean of music. Did the glorious muse divine aright? Well, rather, and why not? Was not this collateral company composed of the very crem de la crem of the musical world? and had they not as director and cornet virtuoso that greatest of all living leaders, Spaderowski Johnsonicola, whom the vulgar once called Spader Johnson? Was the baton ever held in a hand that could so direct the impulses of his players and sway the multitude? When he waved his magic wand with the majesty of an emperor, were not the hearts of his musicians touched like when the winds of a tropical evening awaken into life the responsive chords of an aeolian?

But Johnsonicola was not only great as a director. He had but to breathe into the small end of his cornet, and lo, from the large end canaries seemed to flutter, filling the air with melody so sweet the thousands listened in mute wonder, for the sounds were such as had never been heard on this prosaic earth before, and a poet, who one day heard them, with beautiful sentiment, called them “unearthly.” But the great Johnsonicola could not only soothe his hearers with the sweetness of his playing; he could play so as to make their hearts as light and gay as a May morning, and then again he could touch the hidden depths of human passions and parade before the listener the more somber hues of melody. A man of deep feeling, he could display among the lighter tints the shadows of sadness and make the audience melancholy, so that many of them shed tears, and all agreed that it was very painful indeed. Such was Johnsonicola.

Those whose souls breathed through their various instruments at his supreme command were equally eminent in the musical world. Great among these great ones was Signer Spaghetti Natalie. A native of Greece, he learned as a child to worship art. Beneath that soft southern sky he listened to the native musicians, and on many a moonlit night drank in the melody of the boatmen’s songs that floated o’er the waters to his island home.