The Autobiography of a Clown

by Isaac Frederick Marcosson

“It’s easy when you know how.” This always caught the crowd, for everybody is interested in a horse trade, and especially a trade in which one of the parties gets much the worst of the deal.

“TO BE A SUCCESSFUL CLOWN YOU HAD ALSO TO BE A GOOD PANTOMIMIST.”

In 1889 I went with the Ringling circus, and I have been with it ever since. It was their last year as a wagon show, for the next year it became a railroad show, and went from town to town on trains. Somehow I did not like the change at first. I had become so accustomed to the wagon traveling at night, to the wild, free, clean abandon of the life, that I did not fancy the idea of sleeping on a stuffy train, with smoke and cinders to bother me. Many of the other circus people felt the same way about it. The wagon life may have been hard traveling, but it was in the open. God’s air and sunshine were about you always, and although it rained and blew sometimes, the discomfort was not for long. It kept everybody sound and healthy. Many a millionaire would envy the appetites and health we enjoyed. And yet, in a way, our life was one of more or less constant hazard.

There was one big satisfaction about the change to the railroad shows. The circus remained under canvas. Strange as it may seem to an outsider, we can work better under canvas than any other place. This is true all up and down the circus line, from the highest priced “kinker,” as the performers are called, down to the cheapest “rough neck,” as the canvas men are known. They would rather get soaked to the skin under the “big canvas top” out on a North Dakota prairie than be dry under the roof of Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Of course the circus had been getting bigger all the time. Originally it was a one-ring affair. But the competition in the show business stimulated the various showmen to get new and greater attractions. The one-ring show became a two-ring show, and this in turn became the “monster three-ring aggregation of mastodonic amusement creations,” such as is now billed throughout the length and breadth of the land.

As the circus grew bigger, the talking clown ceased to exist. It was only natural that this end of his work should be eliminated. The tents became so large, the arena area so extended, that it was with difficulty that anyone could be heard in the seats. Besides, so many things were going on at the same time that the clown had to perform with his hands and legs in order to attract any attention at all.

With all the innovations that have come to the aid of the modern circus, such monstrosities as “the dip of death” in a somersaulting automobile, and various other freakish inventions calculated to divert the mind and thrill the young, the clown remains, and always will remain, the really picturesque and permanent feature of the circus business. Like the brook in the poem that the English poet wrote about, he shall go on forever.

But the clown has had to keep pace with the development of the circus. The average person who watches a group of clowns disporting themselves in the ring, and is amused at their grotesque antics, may think it is silly and easy work. Let him try it, and he will soon find out what hard work it is, and what careful thought is necessary for each act. Every act that is done must be carefully rehearsed. I have practiced on a trick fall for a whole month.

You may have noticed that clowns travel in pairs and trios. This is due to the fact that every clown act, no matter how ludicrous, or how simple, must tell a story. It is really a small comedy or a slight drama. We must not only have action, but something to suggest an incident or a series of incidents. If the clowns, for example, wear soldier uniforms, their act must give a hint of a camp, a battlefield, or some other definite martial picture. It may be hugely grotesque, but it must be a concrete picture just the same.