How did I know her? On a tape of a Ringling show in the fifties,during one of the specs, as I recall, ringmaster Harold Ronk sang "Happy Birthday dear Jeanne Sleeter! Happy birthday to you!"
When I receive incoming news from Covington Connected, such as, just now, of the passing of Jeanne Sleeter, I am once again magically connected to that one magical I day I got to spend at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey when they played Pt. Richmond, CA. Of standing on the lot next to the big top -- the big top -- while the afternoon show proceeded, listening to the strains of the band from the other side of the canvas, while candy butchers dashed back and forth under a thick beating sun between the big tent and a small top stocked with coke.
I would take in the night show when they played to a full tent. Now, I was getting an advance listen, and so many images came through.
Only one day in my life, but one day can spell the difference between reading a book and experiencing the real thing, something that a thousand words over and over can never convey. The blue canvas containing a huge crowd and a spectacular three-ring spectacle was now in motion! And I was trying to picture what was going on in there through the muffled sounds of a blaring band tracking the action, drumming it in and out, softening down for an aerialist, racing up to match a juggler's thunder ... marching in parade with the great Holidays spec. What a thrill just standing for the first time on the lot of the Big Show ... Big Bertha ... The Big One.
Jeanne Sleeter was a part of it all, through the 1940s and 1950s. She doubled for both Betty Hutton and Gloria Graham in DeMille's monumental screen smash, The Greatest Show on Earth. Her work drew flattering attention from Hollywood, but she resisted any calls to convert from sawdust to cinema. "It's quite a temptation, and lots of young people would love it," she told columnist Vivian Brown,"but nothing can compare to the circus when you are born into it." Her parents were flyers Henry Sleeter and Mitdzie-Belle Moore, Hagenbeck-Wallace staples. Among her mentors, Art Concello and Tuffy Genders. She was the niece of Emmet Kelly.
Jeanne Sleeter retired 60 years ago. She got out well before the cultural wars against it commenced. In 1959, she told a reporter, "The circus hasn't changed, and never will." That was what many people once thought, what author Earl Chapin May once argued when he coined perhaps the most memorable ever description of this particular magic: "the ever changing-never changing circus."
Once thought, once upon a season ...
When I receive incoming news from Covington Connected, such as, just now, of the passing of Jeanne Sleeter, I am once again magically connected to that one magical I day I got to spend at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey when they played Pt. Richmond, CA. Of standing on the lot next to the big top -- the big top -- while the afternoon show proceeded, listening to the strains of the band from the other side of the canvas, while candy butchers dashed back and forth under a thick beating sun between the big tent and a small top stocked with coke.
I would take in the night show when they played to a full tent. Now, I was getting an advance listen, and so many images came through.
Only one day in my life, but one day can spell the difference between reading a book and experiencing the real thing, something that a thousand words over and over can never convey. The blue canvas containing a huge crowd and a spectacular three-ring spectacle was now in motion! And I was trying to picture what was going on in there through the muffled sounds of a blaring band tracking the action, drumming it in and out, softening down for an aerialist, racing up to match a juggler's thunder ... marching in parade with the great Holidays spec. What a thrill just standing for the first time on the lot of the Big Show ... Big Bertha ... The Big One.
Jeanne Sleeter was a part of it all, through the 1940s and 1950s. She doubled for both Betty Hutton and Gloria Graham in DeMille's monumental screen smash, The Greatest Show on Earth. Her work drew flattering attention from Hollywood, but she resisted any calls to convert from sawdust to cinema. "It's quite a temptation, and lots of young people would love it," she told columnist Vivian Brown,"but nothing can compare to the circus when you are born into it." Her parents were flyers Henry Sleeter and Mitdzie-Belle Moore, Hagenbeck-Wallace staples. Among her mentors, Art Concello and Tuffy Genders. She was the niece of Emmet Kelly.
Jeanne Sleeter retired 60 years ago. She got out well before the cultural wars against it commenced. In 1959, she told a reporter, "The circus hasn't changed, and never will." That was what many people once thought, what author Earl Chapin May once argued when he coined perhaps the most memorable ever description of this particular magic: "the ever changing-never changing circus."
Once thought, once upon a season ...
2 comments:
Jeanne was a treasure. Thank you for posting this wonderful tribute, Sir!
She was a treasure! I'm glad to have known her
Post a Comment