SUNDAY OUT OF THE PAST: Blundering “Biography” of Leitzel & Codona, a Book You Can't Put Down --

Peaked at 13,284 page views  

 This revised review is drawn from additional research following the posting of my earlier review of the book. More about this at the end.

Book Review, Revised
Queen of the Air: A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Dean Jansen, Crown Publishers

Here is a book for the ages, or so I originally thought and wrote.  The subjects tackled by author Dean Jensen — Leitzel and Codona, and Ringling in all its glory — are of course immensely compelling.

In her fiery heyday thrilling spectators with high-energy gymnastics under the big top, Lillian Leitzel was arguably the greatest solo star ever to grace the rings of Ringling. So transcendent a figure had she become, that American soldiers during World War I voted her “the most beautiful and attractive woman in all the world.” (5.26.25 -- confirmed by AI!*)  And that included Hollywood. Men of note, Henry Ford among them, are said in these precarious pages to have lined up to play suitor to the charismatic performer.  Did they or didn’t they?  I have my doubts.  Even with Alfredo, I have my doubts.

More likely, everything was carefully choreographed to build up an epic image bigger than life, bigger even than the circus itself.  A mythical image now made even more mythical (and at times heartlessly cruel) by an expedient author of dubious ethics. Make no mistake:  There is plenty here to enthrall and entertain readers with little interest in big top history.  Plenty here that may be genuinely rich and even revelatory. But for my money,  too much of it bears the mark of either incredibly careless research or slyly calculated distortion to inflate story-telling dynamics. Shame on Crown Publishers for daring to describe this a biography.          

Conceived in rape,  Leitzel grew up to be her own best agent, and once installed on the Ringling caravan — granted an entire car on the train, a private tent on the lot, and a maid, Mabel Cummings — she reigned like a self-appointed queen.  Nobody dared question the coming and goings of  their blazing headliner, whose first two ill-fated marriages come off looking more comical than sincere.  

She doted on giving circus children morning lessons in her tent.  And under the big top later in the day, her spectacular entrance pitted the diminutive dynamo — all of 4' 9", against the lumbering 6' 4" Willie Mosher, uninformed like a hotel doorman, who escorted her into the ring. (Believe it or not, there is no mention of Mosher in the book that I recall, nor does his name appear in the index.)  Lillian threw kisses to the crowds as she whirled furiously above them, teasing her way up to the big trick — her famous one arm rollovers numbering sometimes over a hundred. Those spinning revolutions composed, in Jensen’s own beguiling two-word description,  a “white blur.” I have never come across a white a blur in the scarce film footage of her act that I have seen.

A JOYFUL EXUBERANCE

How good was the act, really?  If I have a problem with Leitzel’s art and this sensationalizing treatment of her life, it is this: Of the footage I have seen from the  late 1920s,  I want — oh how I want — to feel a thrill I can’t quite feel. In photos out there, her leg extensions can be awkward, the transitions from one trick to the next, labored. Of the rollover plange, equestrian director Fred Bradna wrote in his book,The Big Top, “It was not a beautiful sight; it was not supposed to be.  It was a test of stamina.”  But there is something maybe more at work. By shunning  – or failing -- the polish of ballet that others such as Con Colleano incorporated, Leitzel may have intensified the passionate exuberance she projected, a rough tumbling spirit as lively as the three ring circus on the move.

ENTER HER GREAT LOVE          

Trapeze god Alfredo Codona comes through as a bit more humble, though in the end he turns stark raving mad. He and Leitzel in love – or playing to each other’s need for constant attention and rumorizing —  tangled ruthlessly in romance, tormenting the hell out of each other by flaunting side affairs.  Roll the drums!  Silence all vendors!  Leitzel wins the prize for Greatest Act of Cruelty on Wedding Day.  That is, if you wish to buy Jensen’s blundering tale of how Leitzel kept Alfredo and guests waiting for over three hours at the alter. Yes, three hours.  In fact, calm down, kids — they were married on time between shows in Chicago.   It was at a wedding reception following the night show that Leitzel lost herself for a couple of hours, driving Codona into a panic.             

TWO UNFORGETTABLE ENDINGS

When Leitzel’s rigging fails in Copenhagen, sending her to her death in 1931, I wept. So did I weep being pulled though the last punishing days of Codona’s tragic end, trapeze god felled by a fall, down to failed ringmaster, and then onto car garage mechanic in Long Beach, CA.        

With Leitzel gone, Alfredo, right, defaulted to his flying partner Vera Bruce,center, begging her over and over again to marry him. Really?  According to Jensen’s end notes, he drew this stormy account from a story, “The Mad Love of Alfredo Codona,” allegedly penned by Annie Bruce for True Story Magazine in 1938,  a tabloid-leaning periodical known for taking rewrite liberties with submissions, and also publishing the work of fiction writers   Why did Jensen not defer to more credible accounts at hand, one by Fred Bradna in The Big Top;  the other by author Robert Lewis Taylor in Center Ring?  In fact, Bruce had been trying all along to steal Codona away from Leitzel.  

RINGLING AS NEVER BEFORE REVEALED         

Beyond Leitzel & Codona, the circus of Ringling, as narrated by the masterfully fact-altering Jensen, rides high and wide on revelations so startling as to leave me dumbfounded.  How did it take so long for some of these things to surface?  As long, maybe,  as it took Jensen to concoct them.  He mentions dozens of taped interviews, and I hope these will end up in a legit space.  They could turn out to be a gold mine.

                  

For example, there is the sighting of married man Charles Ringling --- seen here with Leitzel and his son, Robert ---  spotted in a darkened movie house with his head resting on the shoulder of showgirl Anna Stais, his arm around her. The spotting of it was done in only a few nervous seconds by flyer Butch Brann, having just slipped into seats with “Dolores.”  In his own words, as quoted: “Then I saw who was in the row just ahead of us.  It was Charlie and Anna Stais ... Dolores and I hightailed it out of that row.” To the balcony they fled.  I have a question for those into movie house intrigue:  How could Butch have known for sure from the back of a figure sitting directly in front of him in a darkened theatre that it was his own boss. – one of the brothers who banned “accidental meetings” between the sexes on the show?  

 MISSING IN ACTION

Away from gossip and dirt in the shadows, how about something as important as who first threw the first triple?  Ernest Clarke was not the first flyer to nail it.  That honor goes to Russian-born  Lena Jordan, and if you don’t believe me, check out Wikipedia.   Still  don’t?  Okay, how about Guinness Book of World Records?  In fact, the record was impressively explored and certified on the Circus Historical Society history message board, July 1, 1965.

What makes these blunders more inexplicable is that Jensen drew from the likes of Fred Dahlinger (“how many times did I call on him while producing this book?”), Greg Parkinson, Fred Pfening III.  I have to wonder if any of these three were asked to read the manuscript or proofs.  

A LEGACY BARELY A BLUR

Curiously, the legacy of Lillian Leitzel does not hold up well in lists out there of all time circus greats, although these lists are so wildly different as to make each seem meaningless.Her name is totally missing in several I have examined. On others, she is never at the top. The History Channel places her at the bottom of a list of 8, below May Wirth.  She fails a list of 15, the most phenomenal female performers.  John Ringing North who saw her perform in her hey day, described her, "twirling like a human pinwheel high in the top of tent [who] may never find its equal as long as there is a circus anywhere."  

Sadly, we may never be able to see the Lilian Leitzel that North and others saw in her best years.   What I enjoy the most in film footage is the spectacle of her crossing the lot, with her maid trailing her, on her way to the big tent where the crowds are waiting to be thrilled.  I love the warm waving looks Lillian Leitzel gives to bystanders on the way. Her true love.

To me, Queen of the Air feels like contaminated goods, and I no longer have the faith in it to buy my own copy.  How would I know what to believe? Perhaps the experts of what qualifies as “biography” will find me off base. So be it.  I am not of the school that dismisses objectivity as out of date.   Some standards of conduct should forever be worth fighting for.  

TWO STARS, kindly awarded.

For more about the book, I discuss Queen for the Air with Timothy Tegge in an earlier post on the subject.  In fact, had Tim not answered my second e-mail asking for his input, this revised review would likely never have been.

 first posted 5.25.21, Park Your Memory at the Marquee.

SPECIAL BONUS FROM GEORGE BRINTON BEAL 

By sheer serendipity,  I came upon rare candor from author George Binton Beal, this found in his little magazine, The Call of the Calliope, from December 1955: “In public she managed to appear beautiful in a dainty, doll-like way that is difficult to describe.  Actually she was an ugly misshapen little woman  doing an ugly awkward act which by means of her great genius she made beautiful to behold.”

On her death” “Many show folk do not believe that her rigging broke and hint at fowl play ...I remember so clearly one  night when Leitzel and I were chatting ...She looked down at her taped and bandaged wrist, then up at her rigging ... Then, turning to me she said, ‘Some night, Mr. Beal, I’ll just let go and there won’t be any Lillian any more.'"

* Beware: I am learning that AI can be as wrong as right, and can't seem to self reconcile contradictory information it puts out in separate answers to essentially the same question,  differently worded. See my post a ways down, AI Goes to the Circus. re: the first triple somersault.

5.25.21   

41,620 3.10.26

Thanks For the Thrill, Phil!

 

 Best of all, he is my favorite golfer of all.

What an amazing weekend on the green!  I had not known that Phil stood to become the oldest player ever to win a major. And that electrified this affair from average to epic.  History might be in the making.  By Sunday, Phil was not lost somewhere in the end of the pack, as so often he is, but still in the lead. 

I was riveted this afternoon to every move Phil made, but had to think he was going to blunder his way out of  the running. This outing was  as compelling as when Tiger made his spectacular comeback at the Masters.

Is Phil Mickelson not now the greatest golfer who ever lived?

MIDWAY FLASH! ... MIDWAY FLASH! ... RINGLING HIRES NEW DIRECTOR FOR CIRCUS RETURN ... COULD IT REALLY BE? ... LET US SAIL FOR THE MOMENT

Is it real, or a clever figment of an overly ambitious choreographer?

Down the Covington Chute comes a link to Giulio-Scatola, announcing in effect the return of Ringling.

This he POSTED May 20:

I am very excited to announce that I have joined the iconic Feld Entertainment Inc. as Director - Casting & Performance for the new Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey - The Greatest Show on Earth. Lookout for future Casting Calls and news about this spectacular journey ahead.

https://www.facebook.com/Giulio-Scatola-290861240959604/ 

If this is so, I'm going to stalk the Feld website for more information.  So far, nothing I can find. It is by far theoretically the best news since Ringling suddenly shut both units down back in 2017.

Also, I've added a link to SOS Circus Facebook.  You'll find it to the right, bottom of the list.  Covers circus action around the world. 

More up ahead ... As for me, I hear a circus train coming! ...

Believe in Baraboo: Summer Season Promises Perky Circus Show ... Town's Charms, A Haven From Woke Insanity ... What More Could You Ask For? ...

 LONG LIVE the spirit of the Ringling brothers in this utterly enchanting burg. How I wish Lyft could whisk me there in an hour or so. Just thinking about Ringlingville puts me back in a comfort zone far removed from the social garbage and coddled lunatics across the bay. Barnum could not compete with what now passes for cutting-edge life in San FranFreako. That word woke. I HATE it.

CIRCUS WORLD is making a big little splash-back come June.  I’ve pre-screened one of the acts, and can promise you a slice of gold. 

  Was there ever a more beautiful circus wagon?

PIPES RINGMASTER-IN-CHIEF Scott O’Donnell, who is becoming an enduring staple of stability, expect two daily shows under the big top, at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.  And expect sideshow features, such as the Be a Clown performance, a guided wagon tour, and the Antique Musical Instrument Show.

OF COURSES, you’ll have possibly the largest collection in the world of red wagons, photographs and old souvenirs to get blissfully lost in.  Never has the past felt so much better than the present.  BTW: My mask is off!

Hurricane Hungarian Jugglers, Viki and Richie Zsilak 

 

ABOUT THE RING show O’Donnell & Co. are cooking up,  I can tell you this. I watched something new to my eyes: T.J Howell’s multi-bike acts (from zig-zag uni-wheel down to quarter-inch scale, a riot) and was shortly-in captivated by the guy’s zippy showmanship, his amusing dexterity and the way he BUILDS the act.  It’s all there.

TOP OF MY WISH list, Scott: Please be the one to RESURRECT the old Foley & Burke Thimble Theatre fun house, which was sent your way decades ago, and for all I know, may still be withering if not shamefully rotting away in the back area under a flimsy roof.  Is it there? Are you going to EVER give it its due? How many friggen wagon wheels must you re-spin before you honor a magnificent carnival attraction that those before you legally accepted?  I hereby offer to make you out a check for one-thousand dollars when I step up to buy a ticket to the Thimble Theater at Circus World.  One thousand dollars.  

Will somebody please rush this post to Scott. ...  Hello? ...  Hello? ... Anybody there? ... I thought I heard .... hello?

Sorry about that. I had better put my mask back on. 

 Now in the works: My re-review of the book Queen of the Air

Brief Family Brush with Royalty: When My Father Hosted Norway Durng the Rise of Hitler's Bloody Bombings

Last night, while watching Crossing the Atlantic on Masterpiece, the memory of an old family photo came provisionally alive in my mind.  Was that the time when my father hosted two royal figures from the Old World?

Crossing the Atlantic depicts the relationship between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and  the Crown Princess Martha of, Norway, on her second  trip to America, hoping to win FDR's military support for the war.  In the third episode, (I missed the first two), mention is made of a previous trip the Crown Princess made the year before, and with the Crown Prince.  Hold on! Could that be related to the old photo I have?

Yes!  There they are, in the western edge of Golden Gate Park in which I was raised.  How I wish I had asked my mother if she could recount the visit for me. I had not yet entered the scene.  My dad, I assume, must have shown them around the park, surely the windmill, not likely into our house that stood above it on a small crest. 

Why the royal visit?  Maybe something about the flowers.  Or the windmill.  Or Norway's close connection to Sweden, the country from which my grandfather had immigrated as a young man. Or my father being a member of the Coast Guard, with a station at the edge of the park.

I love this photograph, for in my father's eyes, gazing directly at us (he is seen here, left in the trio),  I see a soft and fulfilling sense of what --- pride, accomplishment, recognition? Surely a highlight in his short life -- I was only six-years-old when he passed away.  He was employed by the city of San Francisco as grounds keeper for the west end of Golden Gate Park, which included his tending its famed Dutch ("North") Windmill.  Across the street, he also worked as an electrician for Playland-at-the-Beach, and by night during the war years, guided passengers onto and off the thrill trains of the Big Dipper roller coaster, which was managed by my uncle William Schmitt.

Now, I've got to get my hands on the first two episodes of Crossing the Atlantic, to see if the Crown Prince and Queen's first visit is dramatized. And how far it may come to covering Golden Park and my dad.  On the back of the photo I have, there is this inscription in the most elegant hand: "Compliments of  Gron  [?] Foundation. To Mr. E Hammarstrom. May 1939.  Visit of Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha of Norway."

My dad was talked about in the family for how he scared my mother to the death when he took one his full circle rides  on a wing of the North Windmill.

I assume that is him here.

 

 

View of the Big Dipper roller coaster and the North Windmill, directly across the street

 

Digging For Truth Over Sinking Sawdust: Timothy Tegge Takes on a Book Parading as Biography, the American Circus Parading Into Obscurity

Timothy Tegge, practically born in greasepaint, is many things in a world he sees fast disappearing — circus clown, ringmaster for Royal Hanneford, collector and historian, producer and performer, and more.  He is currently working on a piece about Ringling photographer Ted Sato for Bandwagon.  And he will be hosting his own mini-convention of fans, Central States Circus Soiree, at his home in Baraboo, July 9-11. 

When I caught up with him to chat about his take on the book, Queen of the Air: A True Story of Love and Tragedy, Tim was at the wheel of his truck, heading east on one of the interstates to visit three locations, each offering a circus collection that might be “mediocre" or might yield some golden goodies. 

Cliff Vargas, at the Hollywood Bowl date in February, 1989, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Circus Vargas. 

I first met Tim during better, happier times for American circus, during its last great decade – make that the excellent 80s.  It was on a sunny Monday morning in Los Angeles at Philippes restaurant, sawdust on the floor, where fans and pros gathered weekly to share spangled memories and to dish out the latest gossip. I was then at work on a book about John Ringling North, and Tim virtually offered to help supply photographs, which he did.  And which he would do for another of mine, Inside the Changing Circus.  He always came through.

How far away, those wonderful days, days we took for granted. The circus they represented is now, at best, a pale and dying shadow of itself, and this Tim and I would face. But first, about the Lillian Leitzel and Alfredo Codona tome, a work which I may have prematurely and stupidly acclaimed.

Timothy, in fact, is something of an expert on the Codona-Leitzel story, having written his own book on the subject, and thus would be in a far better position than I to judge Queen of the Air’s overall historical accuracy. So I reached out to him.  On my own, I had found an ominous number of troubling assertions in Dean Jensen’s text, not the least being a gigantic blunder in giving credit for the first triple somersault to Ernest Clarke rather than to Lena Jordan. Might Tim have found others?

Indeed, he did. And we are not talking number of tent poles or sunburst wagon wheels. We are talking the lives and affairs of two legendary circus stars.  The holder of over two hundred letters, contracts, etc. by Codona and Leitzel–Vera Bruce,  Tim’s biggest letdown was the author’s failure, in his view, to capture the true spirit of their relationship. Of course, interpretation of such matters is always partly subjective.

Okay, let’s test his complaint anyway.  I mentioned how astonished I was that Lilian had kept Alfredo waiting over three hours at the alter on their wedding day. Not possible, replied Tim. “They were married between shows in Chicago.”  

Indeed, if you believe in the work of Fred Bradna (The Big Top), and author Robert Taylor (Center Ring), that is what happened.  At a post wedding reception after the show, Leitzel lost herself in the crowd, perhaps suffering from opening night jitters, and for a couple of hours, Codona went nearly mad trying to find his brand new spouse. Fearing she had already strayed?  BTW: Does anybody believe those two actually went for the whole Honeymoon package?  Okay, maybe a token once, and then never again.

I mentioned to Tim how, according to Jensen, Codona begged and begged and begged Vera Bruce, who flew in his act, to marry him. This was, of course, after Leitzel had taken her fatal fall.  Tim could not see that happening. It was the other way around.  Bruce, wanting to outshine Leitzel as an aerialist, had been after Alfredo.  I have all along assumed that a woman in her position would have likely done just that.   

In fact, a year into his marriage to Leitzel, according to Bradna,  Codona had become “emotionally involved” with co-flyer Bruce, seen above with him,  and thus was a triangle born.  “To steal Leitzel’s husband was a triumph for her.”  Their marriage ended in tragedy, when Codona first took a gun on Bruce, only 32-years-old, and then aimed it at himself.

All of which lends credence to Tim’s belief that Jensen saw a great movie in the story and “sensationalized” his narrative in order to enhance its marketability to movie producers.  So we are talking something closer to a historical novel, which is what I vaguely assumed the book to be when I first heard of its coming out and of its being compared to Water for the Elephants. If this is so, Jansen performed a con job on the American media and book world.  Shame on his publisher, Crown, for daring to call it a “biography.” 

I have reread parts of the book, and am revising my review. I will not be placing Queen of the Air high on my list, in fact anywhere on my list of favorite circus tomes. A novel is a novel is a novel.  And this book ill-serves the cause of history by being so blatantly misrepresented and sold to the pubic.  How I looked forward to buying my own copy and reading it again.  How gone is that feeling.  

In fact, to venture into its pages again, I would feel myself treading a minefield of hard fact and dubious misinformation, at every turn wondering, did that  really happen.  And still wondering how in the world Jensen could have overlooked a key component in Leitzel's extravagant showmanship: Willie Mosher, the 6' 4" footman attired as a doorman, who escorted the 4' 9" Great One into the ring, and sometimes carried her out following one of her notoriously staged fainting spells.  His name is nowhere n the index, nor do I recall reading of him.  How did the author miss that?  And ... what else might he have missed - or botched?  

Where We Are Now -- If Anywhere?

How quickly good intentions fall under troubled big tops.  Dr. Neil Kahanovitz lasted barely more than a single season of shining hope, trying to bring Big Apple Circus out of bankruptcy.  His successor lasted not much longer.  Circus lords are a rare breed.

Timothy Tegge is as much realist as an enthused exhibitor of circus history, of which he has assembled a formidable collection, sometimes taking parts of it on the road.   The White Tops editors, valuing Tegge's  "insider status,” asked him if he would “look into his crystal” ball and write a realistic piece for the magazine. Tim did just that. I have read the piece, thoroughly first rate, striking a fine balance between realism and hope.  

The editors received his prose with rapture. Came the eve of publication, and Tim received an e-mail from the same editors informing him that they hadn’t the room to fit his piece into the issue, but  invited him to “revise” and resubmit with more upbeat photos.  He walked away, obviously unimpressed.  I would suggest the CFA needs an overhaul.

Is the American circus dead, I asked Tim, still at the wheel, still heading east. “It’s been on seriously shaky grounds over the last 20 years,” he answered.  On life support? “That’s a good way of putting it.”  Perhaps what bothers him the most is how a new generation is viewing the circus as “no longer important,” but a relic of another time.

Okay, I press him for specifics on a few of shows: 

 Big Apple Circus?

“Gone.”  He caught the last edition produced by the new owners on Easter Sunday 2019, up in a suburb of Boston.   It was “a good show,” he granted, but rather average. Their biggest failure in Tim’s opinion is marketing.  He recalls people touring with the BAC show reporting around 20 people in the seats during the weeknights, and half houses at best on the weekend, the same, he learned for other dates, as well, including Lincoln Center.

A Ringling Return?

He doubts that Kenneth Feld might revive the circus, as he promised to do a couple of years back  Feld is no longer a young man, and he would “have to start all over from scratch,” nor can Tim see the daughters being able to carry on, were their father up to such a herculean challenge. Our ringmaster at the wheel figures that the Ringling press release touting a return (which not a single media outlet picked up) may have been simply an action necessary to legally retain possession of the show’s famous title.

“When you say ‘the greatest show on earth,’ people think elephants and tigers.” In other words, literally they can’t bring it back. 

 UinverSoul Circus?

The big winner. Maybe the “the only show that can capture the major city market nowadays, certainly more so than Soleil,”pipes the man at the wheel, "and it's a very good show!"  Very interesting, Tim. We agree on this: they can play the race card to the hilt — Black owned!  Black owned!  Black owned!  And maybe out-woke the wrath of PETA.  Cedric Walker has a loyal audience base among African Americans, and no doubt the groveling support of all Woke movements everywhere that together have been tearing down American big tops for years. I myself truly believe that American culture — “tree hugging morons, ”in Tim’s words — brought down the circus.

Carson and Barnes?

He is not so sure.  Tim can see two new forms emerging: For one, the Byrds offering a circus attraction the year around in Hugo, thus switching from touring show to tourist town.  Keeping their elephants “safe and at home,” and sparing themselves the stress of moving them across state lines and “sweating out individual state authorities acting out a witch hunt”.

Two: a new template for American circus, returning to the original form we “adopted “ from the Brits. A one ring with horses and ponies, enhanced with modern technology. Sounds a little like what Big Apple in its better Binder days was kind of doing. 

Tim with wife Barbara, daughter of foot juggler Miss Loni, whose act she continues on.  You've seen Miss Lonie in DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth.

There will come a day, Timothy Tegge believes, when the wild animals return, but it won’t be in our lifetimes.  And I agree.

We could have gone on for another two hours.  Even at its lowest point in history ever, circus is still the damnedest subject to talk about. 

first posted 4.26.21  

Staggering Achievement in Circus History Captures Tragic Lives of Leitzel and Codona, Reveals Ringling as Never Before

UPDATE, 4/17, 1:32 PST: Re: the book's troubling assertions, I am in communication with a well-placed source on the subject of Leizel and Codona which may result in significant revisions to parts of this review, or a separate post. Disregard the headline above.

Book review
Queen of the Air: A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus
Dean Jansen
Crown, 2013

Here is a book for the ages, and why did it take me so long to get to it?

In her fiery heyday thrilling spectators with her high-energy gymnastics under the big top, Lillian Leitzel was arguably the greatest solo star ever to grace the rings of Ringling. So transcendent a figure had she become, that American soldiers during World War I voted her “the most beautiful and attractive woman in all the world,” Hollywood included. Men of note, Henry Ford among them, lined up to play suitor to the charismatic dynamo, who stood all of four foot nine.   Did they or didn’t they?  I have my doubts.  Even with Alfredo, I have my doubts.

More likely, everything was carefully choreographed to build up an epic image bigger than life, bigger even than the circus itself.  John and Charles Ringling caved to the diva’s demands for a private car on the train, her own dressing tent on the lot, both concessions unheard of at the time.  The brothers also helped fuel her flame by encouraging her various affairs, believing the notoriety would bring more glamor and attention to the circus.

Conceived in rape,  Leitzel grew up to be her own best agent, and once installed on the Ringling lot, she reigned supreme, like a self-appointed queen.   Nobody dared question the coming and goings of  their blazing headliner, whose first two ill-fated marriages come off looking more comical than sincere.  

Perhaps more sincerely, Leitzel doted on giving circus children morning lessons in her tent, and over the center ring later in the day, throwing kisses to the crowds as she whirled furiously above them, teasing her way up to the big trick — her famous one arm rollovers numbering sometimes over a hundred. Those spinning revolutions composed, so it was written, a “white blur.”  Once back on the ground and back to theatrics, Leitzel cursed out her maid and fired her. Then rehired her. Happened every day. Which sounds a bit scripted to me. And why not? Every day on the circus, she had a whole new audience to play to.

A Joyful Exuberance

How good was the act, really?  If I have a problem with Leitzel’s art and this extraordinary book, it is this: Of the scarce film footage of it from the late 1920s that have studied,  I want to feel a thrill I can’t quite feel. That “white blur” does not come through.  Notwithstanding the photo, her leg extensions can be awkward, the transitions from one trick to the next, labored.  But there is something maybe more at work here. By shunning  – or failing -- the polish of ballet that others such as Con Coleano incorporated, Leitzel may have intensified the passionate exuberance she projected, a rough tumbling spirit as lively as the three ring circus.

Enter Her Great Love

Trapeze god Alfredo Codona (not, by the way,  Mexican, but of Scottish and French blood) comes through as a bit more humble, though in the end he turns stark raving mad. He and Leitzel in love – or playing to each other’s need for constant attention and rumorizing —  tangled ruthlessly in romance, tormenting the hell out of each other by flaunting side affairs.  But Leitzel gets the prize for Greatest Act of Cruelty on Wedding Day.  She kept Alfredo and guests waiting for over three hours. Yes, three hours. The groom might have walked away. The groom was being taught how to be a more pitiful person.
.
Two Unforgettable Endings

When Leitzel’s rigging fails in Copenhagen, sending her to her death in 1931, I wept. So did I weep being pulled though the last punishing days of Codona’s tragic end, trapeze god felled by a fall, down to failed ringmaster, and then onto car garage mechanic in Long Beach, CA. With Leitzel gone, he defaulted to his flying partner Vera Bruce, begging her over and over again to marry him.  She did not love the man, but finally she gave in, and likely did not give out. The doomed marriage ended the lives of both in the office of a divorce lawyer, where Codona, armed for the occasion, first took down Vera, and then himself.

Ringling Revealed As Never Before

Beyond Leitzel & Codona, the circus of Ringling, as magnificently narrated by the masterful Jensen, rides high and wide on fresh revelations, some quite startling, all of which makes for an enormously enthralling read. Some nuggets among many:

John Ringling, in the painting above, admired by his nephew, John Ringling North, comes through perhaps more vividly here than in any other book I have read. 

And then there is the lowdown on Charles Ringling and wife Edith (Edie) the latter described as “extraordinarily indulgent.” Perhaps this trait drove Charlie into the charms of other women.   He tried but failed to snare touchy-feely time in the private tent of his highest paid performer.  He did better in darkened bijous with at least one show girl. And her name was not Edith Ringling,  Her name was Anna Stais. As observed by another figure in the movie house essentially up to the same thing, Charlie “had his arm around her and his head was resting on her shoulder.”   Astonishing, considering how the brothers explicitly banned all “accidental meetings”between the sexes in various public places.  

The Wallendas Enter the Tent

Nowhere have I read a better account of the Wallendas first night at Madison Square Garden to a prolonged standing ovation, declared by The Billboard “easily the best act the circus ever had, and the most daring.” I can believe this, oh can I. For, many years later when the troupe performed their legendary 7-high pyramid at the Santa Rosa fairgrounds pavilion, to the eyes of an 11-year-old, it felt as if circus gods from on high had briefly descended to give him a revelation of true wonder.  That day sealed my fate.

Troubling Assertions

Nothing is perfect, and small errors are to be expected.  Bigger ones?  Red flags must be raised here.  First and foremost, hard to understand why Jensen did not go deeper to learn, easy to learn at the time he was nearing publication, that British born Ernest Clarke was not the first flyer to nail the triple.  That honor goes to Russian-born  Lena Jordan, and if you still don’t believe me, check out Wikipedia.   Still  don’t?  Okay, how about Guinness Book of World Records?  In fact, the record was talked about  on the Circus Historical Society history message board, July 1, 1965.

Nor was Jensen without expert guidance in his research, drawing from from the likes of Fred Dahlinger, Greg Parkinson, Fred Pfening III.  I have to wonder if any of these three were asked to read the manuscript or proofs. Why oh why such an inexplicable blunder?  

Leitzel did not always get the entire performance area to herself, as Jensen fanfares.  I’ve seen her listed in old Ringling programs as appearing in seven-act displays.  Once, solo.  Here if the 1925 program:

A Legacy Barely a Blur

Curiously, the legacy of Lillian Leitzel does not hold up well in lists out there of all time circus greats. Although these lists are so wildly different as to make each seem meaningless..Her name is totally missing in several I have looked at. On others, she is never at the top. The History Channel places her at the bottom of a list of 8, below May Wirth.  She fails a list of 15, the most phenomenal female performers.

Sadly, we may never be able to see the Lilian Leitzel that others saw in her best years. What I miss the most is the white blur.  What I enjoy the most is the spectacle of her crossing the lot, with her tall maid trailing her, on her way to the tent where the crowds are waiting to be thrilled.  I love the warm waving looks she gives to bystanders on the way. Her true love.

The childless Leitzel with Dolly Jahn, 1926, celebrating the girl's birthday.

This book must rank as one of the greatest big top tomes of all time.  Need I say any more, America?  

FIVE STARS

 

Sprng is Here, They Say. Where Is the Circus?

UPDATE 3.22, 12 pm: Carson & Barnes did show in Austin with Circus Funtastic. Event official Carrie returned my call to confirm. They gave two shows, no animals, and pulled in around 300 people at one of the shows, which she observed from afar and deemed very good.  Two sets of bleachers and several rows of chairs in front of them appeared to be full. This little date should cheer up the Byrds and put wind in their wings. Go, Hugo, Go! 

 

Hello there, Carson & Barnes! Are you still there?   Where did your website go?  Your Facebook looks stranded  back in 2020   Say, how did your “Circus Funtastic” turn out at the Austin County Fair?  I said Austin County Fair. What?  Only a few days ago, I read about it.  I got a call into Austin to confirm. No reply yet. Is Austin still there?  

Calling Circus Vargas!  Your website seems MIA.  I did spot slivers life —  you were giving trapeze lessons recently in San Luis Obispo.  Any takers?

Has anybody seen UniverSoul? Their website looks good and solid.  And what about the Big Apple Circus?  October at Lincoln Center is only six months away. What I see on their website, which looks like an empty house, tells me they are not up to it.   

Come to the circus!???  I can almost hear the winds of a strange new spring blowing hollow across baron lots, lonely for tents to punch around. Lonely for the noise it it all, the shrieking crowds, lions screaming, the band fanfaring brass and boom all the way.   Looking into what’s up at The White Tops magazine, I see too little of what’s up.  Last issue dated last fall.  Spectacle magazine is still down.  Did the CFA go on hiatus? Have circus fans collectively closed down?

A Chilly Landscape

The trouping wounded are making do on other jobs , tutor to rotor rooter.  Roman Boilshchuk, 20 years wowing Cirque du Soliel audiences around the globe, now wowing leaky faucets back into dry compliance.  Plenty are those out of spangles, humbling themselves to such toil.  Another Cirque du Soleil refuge in Sarasota is aerial strap artist Darren Trull, 34, now teaching students at Sailor Circus  Teaching has become the number one default option for the rising pool of the out of work. When everything ends up the classroom, you will know it’s over.  Are you still with me?

The American circus — I am charitably regarding it as still technically alive — may be timidly slow in catching up to potential crowds hungry for live entertainment,  now returning to public events, especially those out in the open. Hint. Hint.  I got my second Morderna shot last Sunday at CVS, and what a feeling!  Even the mild side affects next day (the chill, a new sensation  for me) made me feel like a deserving survivor.  Called my barber to tell him I’ll be in there in two weeks. He was ecstatic. Now if I lived in Sarasota, I might have grabbed a chair with a scissors man who once dazzled me with juggling.  Or had my carpet steam-cleaned by a certified clown. My Dream Sarasota Vacation would feature a wire walker turned bell hop scampering up the stairs to show me my room, wheel of death daredevil at the wheel of my taxi rattling my teeth around corners.  Hold on, sucker!

Sad, isn’t it?  We are now in spring, the time when white tops usually dance high. I don’t see any out there.  Do you?  Maybe fall? How icy cold it feels putting these words down.

He’s got a right to sing the blues, too. Even performing animals may be hurting.  The learned argue they have emotions. Our pushy pachyderm up there may be down to his last resort, into a pub for relief.  Maybe missing the noise he caused when lumbering in circles then sitting up. Missing the routines. Can you blame him? I can almost hear him roaring,  “Hey, when do I get to stand on my head again? Will somebody out there please beat some life back into me!  I'm really okay with this stuff, forget what those idiots are saying. Do any of them have trunks?  I want the circus back!"

So do we, fella.

Ranking the Circus Websites – A Walk Down the Cyber Midway

first posted on November 18, 2007

From Showbiz David Consumer Courts Division

How Appealing Are They? How Easy to Use?

Joining me for this round of reviewing is “Honorable Judge Kathy,”my sister in Omaha, and Doug, a San Francisco-based technical writer, bicyclist, and yogi, who has created some basic websites of his own. Both bring unique and useful outsider points of view. We reviewed 10 sites, rating each on six key elements: 1 — Immediate first impression at the opening page; 2 — visuals (video or photos) of the acts/show; 3 -– general feedback from press reviews and/or customers; 4 — route information; 5 — ease of purchasing tickets on-line; and 6 — last impression: overall appeal of the site and ease of navigating through it.

We each made a reasonable effort to find and rate each of the elements — short of embarking on a History Channel expedition. If anything seems clear, it is that most of these sites could benefit from easier linking to and between key elements. There was absolutely no discussion between us while we were rating the sites; thus, no opportunity for any of us to try influencing the others. Nor were any of our ordinals changed once they became known to all of us. These rankings were determined by adding our respective total scores for each circus. With a possible high of 5 points in each of the six measured categories, the most any circus could earn from a judge was a perfect 30 — or a perfect 90 total from our combined three scores

Also included are selected comments from your three peerless adjudicators.

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1 Big Apple Circus (65 points)

Big Apple has accelerated its immediate impact and appeal by a total revamping of its previously slow and passive opening page: Now, we see their tent going up in Lincoln Center. Even then, for all its assets, it is a far from a perfect website and it did not win over all three of your judges.

Kathy: “I am VERY impressed with the ease in which I could navigate around this website. And I loved the way, when the website went up, that it showed, amidst the hustle and bustle of the city life, the big top going up.” Kathy was also charmed by the initial imagery of clowns and ringmaster. “The bios are great, as I love reading about the history of the performers.” Her one qualm: “Not enough photos.”

Doug found the site somewhat confusing. “Performance schedule was nice and clear” but Ticket Master showed certain performances as being sold out that elsewhere appeared available. “I finally found some photos that looked promising, but they weren’t enough, and the way they were hidden wasn’t inspiring.”

2 New Cole Bros. Circus (64 points – the winner of a tie with Circus Vargas by virtue of its being ranked above Vargas by two of the judges.)

Honorable Mention from Judge Kathy

Another circus showing redesign savvy. A video of performance highlights probably gives too much of the show away. (Ringling’s video teaser bears superior editing.) While I was delighted to discover a new opening page, and set to the most captivating music (circus owners should check this one out), Kathy questioned the image on it “For some reason, motorcycle riders just don’t seem to me to be a part of the whole circus picture, but I feel this one deserves an honorable mention.” And Doug noted, “Can’t control which seats you buy. There’s no seat map.”

3 Circus Vargas (64 points)

Honorable Mention from Showbiz David

I continue to admire this site, finding it mainly lacking — like Ringling — in customer or press quotes. It’s overall clarity and simplicity, combined with a compelling color scheme, makes it a theoretical leader in the field.

Kathy “Really liked the colorful front page. Would like to have seen a few more photos and bios.”

Doug discovered a problem that I encountered when I rated this site last April: “Ticket page needs info about seats earlier. I put my seats in the order basket, and only then saw where they were.”

4 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey (61 points)

The generally excellent Ringling site, distinguished by superb video samplers, suffered in our overall ratings for lack of reviews or customer feedback and for some frustrating navigational problems. From Doug, “They have three shows but I couldn’t figure out the difference. Clicked on ‘about the show’ and was taken to a new window about schedule and tickets. Not what I wanted.” Nor was he pleased being referred to the cumbersome Ticket master, which requires the deciphering of a code, “which I always find annoying.”

5 Cirque du Soleil (47 points)

Honorable Mention from Doug “Visually appealing.”

Our marks varied widely. I’ve grown less enchanted, finding the opening page somewhat Halloweenish and creepy, whereas Judge Kathy found it “like sci-fi ... very disappointed.”

Doug’s high score came with acute reservations: “Images alluring, music sets a nice tone. Navigation horrible and confusing — I felt like I was in maze going in circles. High on style, low on function. Too many choices left me feeling confused.”

6 UniverSoul Circus (44 points)

None of us were very engaged by this sprawling and problematic website. I found the newspaper stories and/or reviews virtually impossible to read and therefore off-putting.

Reported Kathy, “I just could not get excited about the front page.” She also found navigating a little slow. “I missed seeing any reference to a big top, and also, I do not feel ‘hip hop’ belongs at the circus.”

Doug was not sold, either, left unimpressed by stories you can’t read and links sending you off in directions you never intended to take. “Clicked High Res photos, and it took me to a page to enter an e-mail address, but the page didn’t say what I was doing this for.”

7 Carson & Barnes (38 points)

While I liked the site’s simple functionality, both Kathy and Doug were left wanting. “Very basic,” said Doug. “Need more pictures on first page of web site, noted Kathy. "Most photos made me feel like I was visiting the zoo.”

8 Kelly-Miller (35 points)

Honorable Mention from Judge Kathy “The pictures and WELCOME on the front page are great!” said she. “I would definitely want to go to this circus if it came to my town.”

Doug: “When I clicked the Video link, I thought it was a mistake that I was watching a video about sponsoring the circus. Then I realized the entire site was about bringing the circus to my town, not about selling tickets to people."

9 Walker Bros (24 points)

Although all three judges registered equals scores of 8 points each, I must say that I was charmed by this cozy little site, mainly because it appears to be new, (I could not find a site for Walker Bros. at the last ranking in spring). At this humble stage, Walker Bros reminds me the little engine that maybe, just maybe could ....

10 Circo Vazquez (21 points)

There simply is far too little here, although Doug found it “sort of a nice site, but it’s extremely slow, which ruins it.”

Individual Bests in the Six Categories:

Best First Impression: Circus Vargas
Best Visual Images: Ringling Bros.
Best Reviews and Quotes: Big Apple
Best Route Information: Big Apple
Best On-Line Ticketing: Circus Vargas, New Cole Bros., and Ringling Bros.Best Last Impression: Circus Vargas and New Cole Bros.

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So, what do you think? All comments and alternative points of view are welcome. And, thank you, Honorable Judges Kathy and Doug!

 11.18.07