James Anthony Bailey, born James Anthony McGinnis, was an American circus ringmaster and impresario.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros. or simply Ringling was an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessor shows ran from 1871 to 2017. Known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, the circus started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, was merged with the Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows. The Ringling brothers had purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. following Bailey's death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919.
Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows was a circus founded in Baraboo, Wisconsin, United States in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers: Albert, August, Otto, Alfred T., Charles, John, and Henry. The Ringling brothers were sons of a German immigrant, August Frederick Ruengling, who changed his name to Ringling once in America. Four brothers were born in McGregor, Iowa: Alf T., Charles, John and Henry. The Ringling family lived in McGregor, Iowa for twelve years, from 1860 until 1872. The family then lived in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin in 1875.
In 1907 Ringling Bros. acquired the Barnum & Bailey Circus, merging them in 1919 to become Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, promoted as The Greatest Show on Earth. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey closed on May 21, 2017 following weakening attendance and high operating costs.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College trained around 1,400 clowns in the "Ringling style" from its 1968 founding until its 1997 closure.
A circus train is a method of conveyance for circus troupes. One of the larger users of circus trains was the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (RBBX), a famous American circus formed when the Ringling Brothers Circus purchased the Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1907.
In 1872 the P.T. Barnum Circus had grown so large that it was decided that they would only play at large venues, and that they would travel by train. P.T. Barnum had two of his partners, William Cameron Coup and Dan Costello, come up with a system to load the circus wagons on to railroad flat cars. Using a system of inclined planes, called runs, and crossover plates between cars, they developed a system of ropes and pulleys, along with a snubber post to get the wagons on and off of the flat cars. They used horses to pull the wagons up the run and then would hitch a second team to pull it down the run cars (flats). The off-loading was much the same as loading, but a snubber post was used to help brake the wagons' descent down the run. That system, first used in 1872, was used by the RBBBC until its closing, although through more modern methods.
When the circus switched to travel by train they began by using flatcars from the Pennsylvania Railroad, which turned out to be hazardous because the Pennsylvania Railroad's cars were in poor shape. In mid-season it was decided that they would buy their own cars, and when the P.T. Barnum Circus left Columbus, Ohio, it traveled on the first circus-owned train. It was made up of 60 cars, including 19-45 flatcars carrying about 100 wagons.
Circus trains have proven well-suited for the transportation of heavy equipment and animals, despite tragic accidents over the years.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circuses separately and together grew to dominate live entertainment through their frequent purchases of many other American circuses. In modern times, they traveled in two circus trains, the blue unit and the red unit, following an alternating two-year schedule to bring a new show to each location once a year. The RBBB circus trains were more than one mile (1.6 km) in length, and included living quarters for the performers and animal keepers. There were also special stock cars for the exotic animals and flatcars for the transportation of circus wagons, equipment, and even a bus used for local transportation at performance sites.
Kenneth Jeffrey Feld is the CEO of Feld Entertainment, which has operated the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Disney on Ice, Doodlebops Live, Disney Live, Monster Jam, International Hot Rod Association, and AMA Supercross Championship. He is also the producer of several Broadway plays. The business was started by his father Irvin Feld who also promoted Beatles concerts, and Ken became CEO upon his father's death in 1984.
Irvin Feld was a business entrepreneur who built a chain of record stores, promoted rock groups, produced concerts involving some of the biggest names in popular music. He was also the head of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and founder of Feld Entertainment. He was a music promoter who is credited with discovering Paul Anka.
Steve Smith, professional clown and circus director, is best known to audiences as the clown character, "TJ Tatters."
The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was a circus that traveled across America in the early part of the 20th century. At its peak, it was the second-largest circus in America next to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was based in Peru, Indiana.
John Nicholas Ringling is the best known of the seven Ringling brothers, five of whom merged the Barnum & Bailey Circus with their own Ringling Bros World's Greatest Shows to create a virtual monopoly of traveling circuses and helped shape the circus into what it is today. In addition to owning and managing many of the largest circuses in the United States, he was also a rancher, a real estate developer and art collector. He was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 1987.
Circus World was a theme park built north of Haines City, Florida in Polk County, on the east corner of the intersection of US 27 and Interstate 4. It was originally a property of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Combined Shows Inc., and was intended additionally to be the circus's winter headquarters as well as to have the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and its museum located there.
Greg and Karen DeSanto are a husband and wife comedy/clown team currently in their third decade as professional circus clowns.
Otto Griebling was a German-born circus clown who performed for many years with the Cole Brothers and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circuses. He was one of four clowns given the title Master Clown by Irvin Feld.
Bill Ballantine (1910–1999) was a writer and illustrator of circus subjects, as well as a professional clown. A prolific writer, Ballantine contributed circus and travel essays to major magazines. His many stories of circus life appeared in Collier's, Holiday, Harper’s Bazaar, Saturday Evening Post, True, Saga, and Seventeen. Ballantine also authored ten books, including Wild Tigers and Tame Fleas, Horses and Their Bosses, and Clown Alley, which chronicles his years as dean of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. Over his long career as a writer/illustrator, he published nearly 100 articles on circus and travel and regularly illustrated True magazine's backpage feature “Strange but True” with his graceful and warmly humorous pen-and-ink line drawings.
Elvin Bale is a former artist and daredevil with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, among many other international circuses. He is known especially for his single trapeze act, which finished with a heel catch, as well as his “wheel of death,” “human space shuttle,” “mechanical monster,” “motorcycle on the high wire”, and “human cannonball” acts. His career as a performer ended with a technical mishap on 08 Jan 1987, when, performing the human cannonball, he over-shot his landing cushion.
Frank Bartlet Adler, born in Clinton, Iowa, was a circus performer and entertainer known as "The King of Clowns" who performed for Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey for 20 years. He was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1989.
The Ringling brothers were seven American siblings of German and French descent who transformed their small touring company of performers into one of America's largest circuses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Four brothers were born in McGregor, Iowa: Alf T., Charles, John and Henry, and the family lived in McGregor for twelve years, from 1860 until 1872. The Ringling family then moved to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and finally settled in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1875. They were the children of harness maker Heinrich Friedrich August Ringling (1826–1898) of Hanover, Germany, and Marie Salome Juliar (1833–1907) of Ostheim, in Alsace. They merged their Ringling Brothers Circus with America's other leading circus troupes, ultimately creating the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Timothy J. Holst began his circus career in 1971 graduating from Clown College, touring as a clown in 1972, and then became the singing ringmaster in 1973 with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Glen "Frosty" Little was a circus clown who served with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for over 20 years. He was one of only four clowns ever to have been given the title "Master Clown" by the Ringling organization.
Barnum's Kaleidoscape was an American circus staged by Feld Entertainment, the owners of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, at a start-up cost of $10 million. It ran for one season, 1999–2000.
Inspired by both European traditions and the contemporary circus movement, it was the first Ringling show to be held under a tent since 1956 and also its first one-ring presentation in more than a century. The tent was carpeted with wood flooring and amenities to create an intimate setting with seating for 1,800 on cushioned seats and sofas and no one further than 50 feet from the circus ring. Besides traditional circus fare like popcorn upscale items such as cappuccino and veggie wraps were offered. The show consisted of 62 performers, 54 crew members, 8 horses and 27 geese, with 50 trucks involved in moving it from site to site.
