| The title "Engford Family Show" signifies the very best and cleanest form of entertainment. It is reputed in established territory of presenting at all times the highest class of clean, wholesome amusement. (Circus Magazine 1932) |
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Engford Family Show #1
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5 comments:
Isn't Ruthie Clark an Engford?
I was first introduced to The Clarks when the Vargas Show played the East Coast in the 1970's. They had their "Frank and Estrelita" aerial perch and "Francarro" head-balancing trapeze on the show at the time.
Frank retired the head-balancing trapeze and turned his Francarro foot juggling into a widely popular act.
I thought, here's Frank, all that time on the trapeze looking down and now he is doing the foot juggling where he looks up. So show business is all about how you look at things.
Later, Frank and Ruthie had the best looking comedy cannon.
Trivia-The Hawaii 5-0 Theme song was used during the head-balancing trapeze on Vargas. I thought it was cool because the music was so familiar to the TV watching public.
I chatted with Frank and Ruthie at the Club last Saturday.
Very nice people.
There's an orange truck at the CWM with a musical instrument in back. Isn't that from the Engford family Circus?
Bob
To Bob Cline... Yes, the orange truck at Circus World Museum is from the Engford family Circus.
To Mike Naughton.......Yes, Ruthie Clark was an Engford.
Dean Jenson of Milwaukee wrote on March 30, 1983:
Ruthie's grandfather, Robert Engford of Plover, WI. operated the Engford Family Shows - a one-ring circus of a half-dozen or so performers that made the rounds to tiny Wisconsin towns in the 1920s and 1930s
In the arly 1930’s, her father, Harry Engford, decided he, too, wanted to be a Big Top Impresario. Plover became the home base for a second Engford circus - this one employing the family name of Harry’s wife and titled the Forges Bros. Circus.
Her grandfather’s truck circus began sputtering during the Depression years and finally ran out of gas in 1938. After the 1939 season, her father’s circus returned to its winter quarters in Plover and never again went out on the road.
She met Frank Clark, who was also a performer, while on the on the road
The couple decided they should do something a little different to get their marriage off the ground.
Friends and relatives of the bride and groom gathered in a field in London, Ontario. Suddenly a helicopter appeared overhead. Ruthie and Frank opened the door of the chopper and lowered a rope ladder. As a minister inside the helicopter addressed them over a radio, the couple said their "I do’s" while hanging, upside down from a trapeze ladder, several hundred feet up in the air.
For several years , the Clarks performed their helicopter trapeze feats at fairs and rock concerts. Then their pilot was killed in a helicopter crash that did not involve their act. The Clarks decided to discontinue the stunt.
The Clark's billed themselves as "Francarro & Estreleta, America’s premier aerialists". They had a hanging perch act.
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