Document text
Pcs o a_:!. i I .;L
STATE Nrw York
Terry Roth
Ar1rIESS 47 W. 69t- St.
rAIF January 17, 1939
SI:J7-CT *CIRCUS_ PEOPLE IS LINE OTHER HUNAN BUN'S.*
Irish
2. P160e dcte of birti
Buffalo, 1896
No children
1. Place:
trouped all over country
not given
6. Ocupati(Als
Wire trapeze performer
7. !:_p(ci,-.1 afti io erk.sts
Gardening
8. CLi1uiit LLd X1IIOUS it
Not given
9. DcbcrIption r.f inroritat
EOLhL
yoaK
Informant ii42 years old, although she appears to be a bit older. Rer hair is
bleached& straw color and the singed ends tell of many oe.reless attempts to put
10. ()tiler Points gainorl in intervievva curl into what normally is straight coarse
hair. Ras blue eyes, very heavily masearaed;
make up is very vulgar, with bright red circles on the shooks, such as one
finds on Russian dolls. Lipstick is smeared an unevenly which gives her a
grotesque mouth. She stands about 6 feet 3 inches in heig)tt, and weighs about
FORM A C ONTIMUISD
133 pounds. I found her very friendly and a trifle uneasy at first. She made
several attempts to enunciate carefully, and tried in the beginning to give the
impression that the vas exceedingly cultured, but as the story vent on she
forgot herself and spoke more naturally. Her husband vas playinvf cards in the
club room and couldn't leave the game to see me.
Forms to be Filled out tor Eacn interview
FORV
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NPO,T OF w,Olif:E1 Terry Roth
AT:IL3FF47 N. 89th St. New York
DA1E January 17, 1939
SUJECT *CIRCUS PEOPLE IS LIKEOTHER HUMAN BEDS'S*.
1. Date and time c jlterview jan. 16th
2. Place of interview Officio of Nat'l Variety Artists
3. Name and address of informant
Maude Cromwell
Long Island
4. Same and address of person, if wy, wno put you in
touch with informant.
N. V. A.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surrounditr:,s, etc.
Described previously in Chiny Money Vans.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
(Use as many additional sheets as necessar, fur any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
STATE
NE OF
ADDRESS
DATE
FORM C
-Text of Interview (Unedited)
Bow York
wonun. Terry Roth
47W. at"; 6t.
January 17, 1939
SUBJECT "CIRCUS PROPLE IS LIE; OR HUILLN
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
"How I started was I met my husband in Buffalo at a onosert Hall.
Ho was doing a wire set and we mg married six months after. In those six
months time we went out to do our first sot. It was in Canada. I guess it
felt kinds strange dein' a double trapse act the first time, see, I was never
in front of an audienee before, but I guess havin' my husband there fixed us
up, 'eau.. I can't say Iwas nervous, I muin't soared, anyway. We got to
workin' with fairs until in 1912 we joined Hirgling Bros. 4rous. We mop
with the Cireus 12 years until 1926. That's when wo had our smoident. In
the meantime we 'worked vaudeville. I had nine falls and still lived. Then
my husband and me fell 40 feet twice with Ringling. You know, before we
want up we would examine our stuff very carefully. We won't let nobody do
it for us. but the trouble is when you buy new parts or hooks, or samsthin's
it looks perfeot but somethinl is defected so you can't toll when you look
the act over before you go up. In the meantime, while I wus at the Circus, I
worked with Madam Leiters, who was one of the greatest women performers that
ever lived.
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In 1926 my husband and me both fell with the Circus in Chicago
in wnion we laid nine weeks in the hospital and it took one month before we
were troupine. Ihen we worked Fairs and Parks. And we done a couple shorts
for the movies, like we wuz in Glorifying the American irl.
Now we have a home in Long Island. 14 have flowers, we both loves
flowers, and in the summer we have a trapeze in the back yard and we go through
our acts and keep in shape.
Would you like me to tell you something about circus life? In the
circus there's a dressin' tent and everybody has their own trunks. When you
come down to the lot your trunk sets in that same place every day. We all
have our two buckets for to wash in. Some of the women make a little extra
change, like with ions, you know, gasoline ions, one rents out for 25 cents
an hour. Another woman has finger wavin' the hair for fifty cents. Another
does washinl olothes, 10 oents apiece for the clothes. Most of the performers
has silk tights which has to be washed just so, they oost 15 and 16 dollars a
pair and you gotta be careful they dont shrink. So you might wash them
yourselves but generally the woman what does the eashin', she knows all about
them and takes good care, so she does them.
There are so many things people doesn't know, that people on the
outside dont roan,* how circus people live. They think that oirous people
are just livin' in box cars. If they wus to 0 down to the oars at night and
see haw their berths are like a stateroom, 'shy it takes 12 yards of 'cretonne to
cover a berth. And then you bring with you your little things personal to fix
it up. Every berth has their little ice water tanks and little cabinets which
are made by a man in the circus. He sells them to the performers for six dollars
each. Every year he takes them back to minter quarters and puts their names on
each tank and each cabinet and every year when the show opens again they will
find this cabinet and tank in their berth in their oars. Another thing, circus
-3
people all have box mattresses, cotint eight to ten dollars each and sometime
more. Also, the berths have electric inside from batteries that's in each oar,
and we have a privelege oar which is like a club oar. As far as satin', we eat
on the lot, family style. Hut at night, say if you want a sandwich or a cup
of tea, you make it up in your awn berth in the oars. Everybody goes home in
the winter when the show goes to winter quarters. Some as their homes in
Sarasota ari. oies with the circus down there. Others just go here and there,
evoryWhere. 74 meet at Madison Square garden when the show opens again.
7e do the lonest Breaka-ay in any double trapeze act alive. He
holds me by the fingers like this and I sving high. I'm hanging in my hooksj
after the fourth 'wing, he swings loose from one finger and sends me out into
the al.idience for a 40 foot drop. At the end of the drop I scream an it terrifies
the audience, it ;ets them soared. They all think I'm Yellin'. Then I run off
and jump into the audience and with a great surprise, I rur to the front, stand
an the rik; curb and make my bow and at that moment the audience is in a gasp
of laughter, thinkinl that I've fallin'. The times we really did fall we didn't
know anything was wrong until it was all over, it feels just the same when it's
a accident as Ahen it's just part of the act, the fallinl I mean.
While mister and I wus sittin' in the cook house on a Sunday,
satin' our dinner, the side wall mous up and a lot of people on the outside lox
lookinl in, wonderine haw to eat and what we eat. One man spoke. "Oh, le*,
they sat with knife and forks." have you got that? Jest then we ant the man
if he would like to come in and have dinner with us and he said, *Why, sure
I would. It would be a pleasure to eat with the circus" and that ne never et
with circus people. And when he oame in and sat down and seen what we had to
eat and haw nice and clean the table was sot, in the meantime we paying 75 cents
a meal for him, the man was so surprised, after he got through dinner he took
our address and said, "I'll never forget it the longest day that "he lives
and how wonderful circus people live and the cleanness of their camp sites.
The way they have it in the cook house is actors on one side,
side shm; rieole an the other side, freaks on the other side, cowboys, cowgirls
oL thu ot'n3r side. Then a partition in etymon the tents for the working people
an they its the same food as we sit.
In the summer we hire a big bus and Lo out on picnics, mil:LAO, some
elfin', n Sunday. Circus life isn't what people thinks it is. We jest sit
around In letween showy with our knitting or sewing. We all make what they call
a trousseu iAox, blouses, underwear. The circus has their awn doctors and
&lief of
OW?( "fixers'
oompensation
And ir I had
only 175 and
and when you
vaudeville,
polioe, and pressman and in case of an aocident, they have their
like a lawyer. Puc down that in my times they didn't have no
but all the times I wus with ilingling they took well care of me.
to pick, I'd take circus any ime, even though the circus pays
vaudeville 300, 'cause in a circus you get everything for you
get your pay it's clear and you kin save something. But in
you get, say 300, and you have to pay your room and your meals, and
handlinl of ba6gage, an' checking and everything extra like that and you ain't
got a thin 6 when you 6et to pay day. See what I meant