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Behind the Painted Smiles

One lingering effect of my year in the circus is that various words now mean different things to me than they do to the rest of society. One of these is the word “clown,” which I am distressed to observe has developed a surprising currency as an insult. Another is the word “circus,” which has somehow come to mean “chaos,” as in “It’s a media circus out there” or “My office is a three-ring circus.” After watching the world’s largest big top go up and down ninety-nine times and seeing two hundred people and two dozen animals move twelve thousand miles and do five hundred and one performances in slightly over eight months, I can say with a certain degree of confidence that I have never been around anything as well organized as a three-ring circus.

With that in mind I would like to thank the two hundred men and women of the 109th Edition of the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus, many of whom appear by name in this book. Their dedication is boundless, their skills unrivaled, and their unflinching hospitality in the worst of conditions made me a believer in the magic of the circus. In particular, I would like to thank the following people who welcomed me into their lives: Khris Allen; Gloria, Dawnita, Elvin, and Bonnie Bale; Elmo Gibb; Blair and Mark Ellis; the Estrada Family; Nellie and Kristo Ivanov; Jimmy James; Kris Kristo; Inna and Venko Lilov; Fred Logan and Family; Michelle and Angel Quiros; the Flying Rodríguez Family; Jenny Montoya and Sean Thomas; Royce Voigt; and the boys in Clown Alley: Brian, Christopher, James, Jerry, Joe, Marty, Mike, Rob, and Buck.

In addition, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to the men and women of the advance and marketing department (Jeff Chalmers, Bob Harper, Elizabeth Harris, Bob Kellard, Mike Kolomichuk, Tim Orris, Edna Voigt, Chuck Werner), and especially to Bruce Pratt and Renée Storey, whose encouraging words and spirited laughter have made them seem like equal collaborators in this project. Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to E. Douglas Holwadel and John W. Pugh, who invited me to join their show without restrictions and who guided me openly through the normally candy-coated corridors of the circus. Johnny Pugh, still on the road more than fifty years after being born into show business, is one of the most respected men in the circus business today and one of the most decent men I’ve ever met.

Meanwhile, an equally large number of people who don’t live on wheels helped bring this book to life. Jane Dystel, my agent, cradled this book from gleam to reality. Bill Goldstein, my editor, nurtured it from proposal to publication. Miriam Goderich read an early draft and made several helpful suggestions, and David Shenk, my friend and colleague, improved the manuscript with his painstaking edits and prudent advice. Numerous others offered support and escape along the way: Angella Baker, Hamilton Cain, Ruth Ann and Justin Castillo, Robin Diener and Terri Merz, Bill Fahey, Jan and Gordon Franz, Leslie Gordon, Leigh Haber, Allan Hill, LaVahn Hoh, David Hsiao, Michael Jacobs, Dominique Jando, Ben Kinningham, Ted Lee, Halcyon Liew and Arnold Horowitz, Evi Kelly-Lentz and John Lentz, Gordon Lucket, Chuck Meltzer, Irvin Mohler, Susan Moldow, Marcy Oppenheimer, Katherine and Will Philipp, Christopher Reohr, Karen Gulick and Max Stier, and last of all, David Duffy, who taught me how to juggle those many years ago.

Finally, I would not have been able to run away and join anything for a year, or sit at home in front of my computer for a year after that, were it not for the unparalleled support team that surrounds me every day: Aleen Feiler; Mildred and Henry Meyer; Jane and Ed Feiler, editors, advisers, masters of more than one ring; and Cari Feiler Bender and Rodd Bender, newlyweds for now and a lifetime to come. Above all, I would like to express my increasing and undying gratitude to my brother, Andrew. He never set foot inside the ring, but he was outside it, alongside it, and even above it, capturing the circus with his unflinching eye. One of his photographs graces the back cover of this story and this book is dedicated to him.

Read All About It

In the course of working on this book I came to the conclusion that the circus has joined the ranks of sports and war as one of the leading sources of metaphor in our language. A day would hardly go by when I didn’t read about someone “turning somersaults” for some purpose or another or “keeping eight or ten balls in the air at one time.”

Given this penchant for inspiring metaphor, it comes as no surprise that the circus has inspired many metaphor-laden books. Of the three dozen or so that I read, some were particularly enjoyable. In the area of history, John Culcane’s The American Circus (Holt) is delightful and comprehensive. Others that I found helpful include David Lewis Hammarstrom, Big Top Boss (University of Illinois), A. H. Saxon, P. T. Barnum (Columbia), Earl Chapin May, The Circus from Rome to Ringling (Duffield and Green), and George Chindahl, History of the Circus in America (Caxton). While these books provided important background information, most of the material presented in this book is previously unrecorded. Since much of it comes from first-person recollections by notoriously inaccurate circus personnel, wherever possible I have tried to confirm the dates and information presented.