Monday, December 22, 2008

From Walt King

Rex Young ----------circus funny car fame--------------passed away Sunday----------------after a fall on stairs in his Holland, Michigan home------------he was many years on the Castle Circus.

Walt King

Posted by Buckles at 12/22/2008 10:01:00 PM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A great circus clown and one of "The Good Guys". I am pleased to have known him for many years.

23 December, 2008 08:30
Anonymous said...

I trust others may give a more complete obituary for Rex. He was on Mills Bros. for many years, and with Castle as Boss Clown. He wore his tramp make-up one season, and his Chaplinesque make-up alternately. The funny car was his feature, and he ran the boxing gag along with the clown hunter who shot the rubber chicken which floated down in the parachute. One date in Canada, Rex got in too late for his chicken block to be hung, so in order not to lose the number, I volunteered to help. I climbed the ladder up the building wall with the chicken in tow, and out through the girders to a spot high above the ring. Not being an aerialist, I soon realized someone was going to have to hang that block since I wasn't climbing out there again. Rex fired his shotgun and I dropped the chicken as sort of an anticlimax, as the whole audience had followed my trek among the girders. I don't recall which act followed, but the crowd was watching me stumble my way back to the wall and down again. If that was stealing the show, I wanted no more of it.

On a date near a lake, one of Rex's clowns purloined Joe Zoppe's horse-watering trough for use as a boat to go sailing. The trough got to the middle and promptly sank. The culprit made it ashore, but the Sheriff's dive team had to search for the trough at $80 an hour. Joe Zoppe was cool and thought the whole thing funny once he got his trough back. But Castle took Rex to task over his clown, and animated conversations continued for several hilarious hours.

Rex adhered to his well-known philosophy of "You only go around once", and was known for his grand appetites, especially at pitch-till-you-wins. One such joint barred him every year since Rex could empty the long buffet table by himself.

I believe it was over the winter of 1972-1973 that Rex married Sandy, who clowned with him and assisted the funny car. My condolences to Sandy and Rex's family and many friends.

Roger Smith

23 December, 2008 18:01

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