This weekend, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that after 146 years, they’d be folding up the tents and coming to town no more. It was pretty shocking news to see. The circus just seemed like one of those forever things. But I guess forever ain’t what it used to be.
When I was a little fella, my family took me to see the Barnum & Bailey Circus at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena. I was immediately transfixed. Animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams, an Aryan superman, was instantly a new hero. Also, he had a really cool name. The oversized program my folks bought for me — with a poster inside! — became a treasured possession.
Flash-forward to my senior year in college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The circus was coming to town. But this wasn’t just any appearance by the red or blue units that criss-crossed the country. This was the end of the season, and the very end of Gebel-Williams’ two-year farewell tour. His final performance would be on November 18, 1990, at Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena. I quickly bought a ticket. There were not many other 21 year olds in attendance that night, but I had to cheer for the great trainer one more time.
I’d make it to the Barnum & Bailey Big Top only once more. It was a few years later, and I was working on an article about clowns for a children’s magazine. To contact Ringling Bros.’ Clown College in Baraboo, Wisconsin, I had to go through publicist Barbara Pflughaupt, who also had an incredibly cool name. Barbara promised that when the circus came through New York City, she’d take me. She was good to her word, so I found myself at Madison Square Garden. Two things stick in my head from that day: Riding an elevator with Joe Franklin, and once again being under the spell of that old circus magic.
Those of you with kids have maybe been to the circus more recently. Perhaps it was no longer the Greatest Show on Earth. Without the elephants — removed after much, much protestation of animal cruelty — maybe some key element (elephant?) was lost. I kind of loved reading about the elephants walking through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and into Manhattan to the Garden each year; it seemed like such a cool throwback in our ever-changing world.
I went to a few other circuses over my lifetime — including a parking-lot circus in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, with a date in the very early ’90s (my only memory being that she made me pay for everything), and a Soviet Union circus on a high school trip in 1987 just after my senior year, where the cheap netting didn’t seem like ample protection from the tigers. All I can say is, nothing else came remotely close to the majesty, mystery, professionalism, and wonder of the Barnum & Bailey show. Seems a real shame for it to disappear, for tomorrow’s kids. And what of P.T. Barnum’s legacy? Will it only be the (likely misattributed) quote “There’s a sucker born every minute”? We already know that all too well.
Barbara Pflughaupt a true pro and a pleasure to work with always. Fond memory: weaving may way through clowns, jugglers, dromedaries, and pachyderms in the tight backstage confines of the Garden on my way to interview a young acrobat.
I too was inspired by Gunther Gebel-Williams in the 70s and made my parents buy the big book and poster. Both are probably still at my parent’s house.
Wish I had realized how close I was to his last show in Pittsburgh.