Saturday, August 05, 2006

Althoff's Bears #1


Another set of outstanding pictures from Mr. Beheim showing Jackie Althoff's bears with the Blue Show in 1970 at San Diego.

Mike Aria told me that first job in the circus was working for Mr. Althoff, Mike's girl friend Janice was already employed by the show, having gone thru Clown College. Both units were in Venice but no jobs available on the Blue Show so Mike got into the bear business with the Althoffs on the Red Show.
Almost immediately there was a beef between Jackie, Bobby Wyman and Tuffy Genders that came to blows, resulting in the bear act being transferred to the Blue Show which was a windfall for Mike since he and Janice were now on the same show.
There was still a problen tho, along with the transfer came a demotion to an end ring. After the act, on dress rehesal night, a young man came screaming at Jackie demanding to know where the good wardrobe was and accusing him of trying to ruin the show.
This was Mike's introduction to Kenneth Feld.

I might add that these Althoffs are not immediate relation of the Adolph Althoff family previously shown with the horse and tiger.

Posted by Buckles at 8/05/2006 06:40:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

THE NEW YORK TIMES OBIT FOR HAROLD RONK.

Harold Ronk, the stentorian-voiced ringmaster who sang “Welcome to the Circus!” at the start of thousands of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey performances for 30 years, died on Wednesday in Canton, Ohio. Mr. Ronk, the circus’s first singing ringmaster, was 85.
Skip to next paragraph
Robert Walker/The New York Times

Harold Ronk with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey in 1966.

His death was announced by Jerry Digney, a longtime friend who was the spokesman for Ringling Brothers in the 1970’s. Mr. Ronk was with the circus from 1951 to 1981.

A robust figure with wavy blond hair, nearly always attired in red-sequined coattails, Mr. Ronk would wave his top hat and intone, “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages ...” before bursting into his welcoming song. Introducing a famous trapeze act, he would pause for a drumroll and then proclaim: “All eyes on the Flying Gaonas. Waaaaatch them!”

In full-cast circus pageants and parades and resplendent sendups of Broadway productions, Mr. Ronk’s opera-trained voice filled arenas around the country, like Madison Square Garden, as he was accompanied by the circus’s band.

In 2004 Mr. Ronk was inducted into the International Circus Hall of Fame, in Peru, Ind., with a plaque honoring him as “the legendary voice of the circus.” After his success, other circuses began hiring singing ringmasters, and the tradition continues today at Ringling Brothers.

Harold Wilson Ronk was born on Jan. 31, 1921, in Peoria, Ill., the son of Robert and Dorothy Wilson Ronk. Throughout his childhood Mr. Ronk took singing lessons and appeared in school productions. He graduated from Bradley University in 1941, then served as a Navy communications officer in the South Pacific during World War II.

Mr. Ronk’s companion, Robert Harrison, who was an assistant performance director with the circus, died in 1995. He leaves no immediate survivors.

Mr. Ronk got his start in show business in 1948 when the Broadway composer Sigmund Romberg hired him for a national tour of the musical “My Romance.” When it ended, Mr. Ronk went to Washington, where he taught voice and became a soloist at the National Presbyterian Church.

He also made appearances and recordings with the National Symphony and performed on concert stages throughout the country.

Then, in 1951, he auditioned for John Murray Anderson, who Mr. Ronk thought was casting for a Broadway show; he was actually the Ringling Brothers circus director.

Mr. Ronk got the job, and over the next three decades, pointing from one ring to the next to the next, he would introduce the kaleidoscope of Ringling Brothers acts: a man with a 30-foot pole on his shoulder, supporting a woman hanging by her knees from a trapeze; a woman on a unicycle rolling along a slack wire; a man standing on his head atop four chairs on a swaying, narrow pole reaching close to the roof of the arena.

And always in the center ring, lions and tigers in the spotlight, and always, cavorting in and around the rings, a multitude of clowns.

“And now, for the first time in the world ... ,” Mr. Ronk would say. Or, “The most enchanting extravaganza ever conceived.”

In 1953 the climax of such an extravaganza included 63 green-spangled women whirling on ropes 25 feet above the ground with Mr. Ronk’s baritone blasting a ballad titled “Minnehaha” over the loudspeaker. The song was written by John Ringling North, the president of the circus at the time.

In 1965 the first act of the show closed with a musical pageant based on “The Wizard of Oz,” with Dorothy snatched up in the trunk of an elephant and carried that way around the three rings. Throughout the act Mr. Ronk narrated the tale in song.

In an interview that year he said: “Some friends of mine in musical theater feel I have wasted my talent, but I don’t think so. Popcorn and lemonade is certainly a far cry from ‘Pagliacci,’ but essentially, a stage is a stage. I feel I have given something in the way of fun and razzle-dazzle that they cannot give.”

05 August, 2006 20:35
Buckles said...

I once asked Harold about trouping with the show under canvas and was surprised to learn that he never had.
He said that during those years he only announced in New York and Boston, the only exceptions were the indoor dates the show played on tour such as San Francisco and St. Louis which he was flown out to do.
He never made a full season until the show moved indoors.
I also asked if he ever lived on the train and he said he didn't even know what the inside of the train looked like.
I don't think Harold had an enemy in the world. At show time he would appear and afterward he was gone to the hotel, never involved in the daily scuttlebutt and contention.

06 August, 2006 07:12
Buckles said...

Actually Harold missed one of the indoor seasons. He said the show wasn't exactly flush with money at that time and they used his same picture in the program year after year. When he complained, he was told to come up with a better photo and they would use it.
So the following winter in New York he had a portrait made and took it down to Harry Dube's office and while waiting was informed by an office boy that he had been replaced and was no longer with the show.
He said that John Ringling North was still composing some of the music for the production numbers and his lyracist convinced him to use his boy friend for the job.
Needless to say the boy friend was a disaster and by the time they got back to Harold he already had a job in a New York Show.
I don't know what season this was but it was the year they did the "Greatest Show on Earth" TV Series with Jack Palance.
In some of scenes actually taped during the performance, the Announcer in the background is Cleo Plunkett.

06 August, 2006 09:04
Anonymous said...

Kindness, wit and a great big smile. Those three things pop to mind as I recall my good friend Harold Ronk. He was kind and gracious to everybody he met.

Wish I could see the ringmaster's costume that Don Foote must have all ready for him in the hereafter. This time DIAMONDS, not rhinestones, will add to the flash. And what acts Harold has to introduce in that heavenly performance! The Flying Concellos, Bird Millman, Leitzel, Codona, Emmett and Otto, Gunther, Ella Bradna. So many others. It will be a helluva show.

06 August, 2006 09:52
Anonymous said...

I went to Clown College with Janice, and had the pleasure of meeting Mike Aria at that time. I was on the Red Unit and I remember when Jackie was sent over to the Blue Show. I have fond memories of Jackie... training Mike... training bears. Mike was a big hairy guy. It was hard to tell who was who without a program! Mike was a wonderful man who left us way to soon.

07 August, 2006 15:25

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