THE first circus job I ever had out of my home town of Springfield, Ohio, was with a show sponsored by the Elks in Delaware, Ohio, in 1903, and it hadn't anything to do with clowning. I was in a two-man acrobatic act with a fellow named Limber. Paul McCullough, my boyhood pal and lifetime partner in show business until his death a few years ago, was my regular partner but he had a job he couldn't leave at home.

Joe E. Brown was in a flying act called "The Casting Ashtons" at this occasion and a pair named Wooley and Piers had an aerial bar act with a net under it. The net they left up at night and I slept in it. The imprint of my makeshift "beautyrest" made me look like a waffle and amused everyone, so perhaps my pattern for clowning was settled even then.

McCullough and I had a comedy acrobatic act by the time we had finished school in 1905 so we went to New York and joined a minstrel show which stranded in Harrington, Delaware. We promptly went to Atlanta, Ga., to join another minstrel show, but our hearts were thirsty for pink lemonade so we kept writing for circus jobs. The second minstrel troupe stranded in Tampa, Fla., but the post office had good news for us: a contract with the Carl Hagenbeck Circus. We put in a season with it and then went to the Sells-Floto Circus for a Mexican and Central American tour.

The big thrill was in 1906 when we opened in the Chicago Coliseum with the Ringling Bros. Circus and stayed through 1911. This was when we began to clown in earnest, for every contract said that all acts must be prepared to clown and to make themselves "generally useful." That "generally useful" clause meant that when the show was up to its hubs in mud or otherwise engaged in battling the elements, the actors were expected to pitch in and help move the show. But most of us would have done it willingly without the contract requirement. That's show business.

In the years since our circus trouping ended, McCullough and I had a lot of fun with a lot of big musical shows like Strike Up the Band and Walk a Little Faster and in recent years I've had a grand time in some revivals, notably as Bob Acres in The Rivals and as Monsieur Jouraine in The Would-Be Gentleman and these are my two favorite stage roles. But the thrill of clowning with the old Ringling show was something special and of course it gave us the background we needed for theatrical work later on.

In a big circus tent the clowns must get laughs without funny lines. They must learn pantomime and they must please all kinds of folks. It is the best training a comedian can get and we worked hard at it once we stopped being acrobats and became comedians. The stage comedian has a much easier job than the circus clown who must really be "dynamite" to achieve fame and if he does reach the top bracket his field is limited.

Paul and I must have had some natural clowning talent, for we soon were ordered to stop working in front of the bandstand because our gags made the musicians laugh so hard they couldn't play.

Toward the end of our first season with the Ringling show I had sixteen pieces of baggage although in each clown's contract it said that he could carry only one twenty-four-inch trunk. Time came to sign up for the next tour and Al. Ringling said, "Bobby, you'll have to cut down on the baggage if you want to come back." So I replied, "You are going to bill the show as bigger and better, aren't you, Mr. Ringling?" He answered that he certainly was.

"Well, how can you do that if you cut down on my baggage?" I dared to ask, and he laughed and said "All right; I'll see you next year."

originally published in Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus Magazine, 1947 Edition.

copyright 1947 by the Circus Magazine.