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Lulu Adams (born Louise Cranston 1900 Mechelen - 1989) was a British circus performer and one of the first female clowns . [1]
Louise Cranston was born into an English circus family. [2] Her grandmother was a tightrope walker, and her mother, Martha Cashmore, performed equestrian acrobatics and dog training Her father, Joe Craston, was a clown and also practiced acrobatics. [3] [1]
Her career began when she was twelve years old. She played several instruments, including the bagpipes, also danced, sang, and spoke French and German fluently. Her numbers combined musical aspects and comedic parts. She was one of the first female clowns in the United Kingdom. She performed at the Olympia London. [4] She usually wears a short white wig and a small conical hat .
In 1927, she met the clown Albert Adams, who became her husband and partner in their duo act “Lulu and Albertino Adams”. They performed in the United States with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1939. When World War II broke out; they returned to the United Kingdom; she joined the British Red Cross, and he joined the Entertainments National Service Association . [5]
She also created stage outfits, for herself and other shows, such as those at the Windmill Theater. [4]
In 1948, they returned to the United States to relaunch their careers, but Albert died suddenly. However, she finished the tour alone with the Barnum circus . [6]
Lulu Adams retired in 1962 after touring with the most famous English and American circuses . After this date, she ran a bed and breakfast, with her sister, while continuing to sell dolls. [5]
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclists as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term circus also describes the field of performance, training and community which has followed various formats through its 250-year modern history. Although not the inventor of the medium, Newcastle-under-Lyme born Philip Astley is credited as the father of the modern circus.
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros., the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Barnum & Bailey, or simply Ringling, is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessor have run shows from 1871, with a hiatus from 2017 to 2023. They operate as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. 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 purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. in 1907 following Bailey's death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College was an American circus school which trained around 1,400 clowns in the "Ringling style" from its founding in 1968 until its closure in 1997.
Circus clowns are a sub-genre of clowns. They typically perform at circuses and are meant to amuse, entertain and make guests laugh.
Nicolai Poliakoff OBE was the creator of Coco the Clown, arguably the most famous clown in the United Kingdom in the mid-20th century.
John Boyden Adams was a famous California mountain man and trainer of grizzly bears and other wild animals he captured for menageries, zoological gardens and circuses.
Lillian Leitzel was a German-born acrobat who specialized in performing on the Roman rings, for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. The inaugural (posthumous) inductee to the International Circus Hall of Fame, Leitzel died in hospital two days after a fall during a live performance.
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Barry Lubin is an American circus performer best known for his Grandma character. His Grandma character was a headline act at the Big Apple Circus in New York City for 25 seasons from 1982 until his 2012 retirement and relocation to Sweden. Lubin's return to the Big Apple Circus in late 2017 was cut short in January 2018 when he admitted to having pressured an underaged, sixteen-year-old circus performer to pose for pornographic pictures in 2004.
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.
Vander Clyde Broadway, stage name Barbette, was an American female impersonator, high-wire performer, and trapeze artist born in Texas. Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s.
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The Ringling brothers were five American siblings who transformed their small touring company of performers into one of the largest circuses in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Four brothers were born in McGregor, Iowa: Alfred T., Charles, John and Henry William, 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 of German and French descent, the children of harness maker Heinrich Friedrich August Ringling (1826–1898) of Hanover, and Marie Salome Juliar (1833–1907) of Ostheim, in Alsace. While there were seven Ringling brothers, Alfred, Charles, John, Al and Otto Ringling were the main brothers in charge of the circus shows. All of the brothers were Freemasons. In 1919, they merged their Ringling Brothers Circus with America's other leading circus troupe, Barnum and Bailey, ultimately creating the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which has operated continuously since except for a hiatus from 2017 to 2022.
The namsadang is a Korean itinerant troupe which consists of male performers who present various performing arts such as acrobatics, singing, dancing and playing like a circus. It is said that namsadang was spontaneously formed before 1900 during the Joseon period and used to wander about marketplaces and villages. The troupe was considered the lowest class in society along with cheonmin or baekjeong (butchers), so that very few historical documents remain on them. However, since a record that a puppet show was performed during the Silla period has been found, it is assumed that similar types of itinerant companies appeared in Korean history a long time ago.
A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with intersex variations, those with extraordinary diseases and conditions, and others with performances expected to be shocking to viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have attention-getting physical performers such as fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.
Patrick Walshe was an American dwarf character actor and circus performer who specialized in impersonating and portraying animals. He is best known for playing Nikko, the head of the Winged Monkeys in the MGM film The Wizard of Oz (1939). He appeared in only a few films, as most of his work was in theater, vaudeville and circus. Throughout his vaudeville career, he was a frequent collaborator of Lew Fields and Joe Cook.
David Larible is an Italian clown.
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Zachary "Skeeter" Reece is an American clown. He became a clown after serving in the Vietnam War.
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