por There is historical circus characters charismatic and world-renowned, such as contortionists, escapists, clowns or jugglers. In addition, in each of these professions there have been people who have stood out for their skills and expertise.
In the 19th century and early 20th century, the circus reached its greatest splendor. Here we present the story of 25 circus artists who left their mark with their performances.
List of historical circus figures
1. Isaac Van Amburgh
He was the most famous lion tamer of the 19th century. His act was famous for its extreme He would boldly enter the cage of lions dressed as a Roman gladiator and get the lions and leopards to mount on his back.
At the close of his acts, he drenched his arm or head in blood and introduced it into the gaping jaws of a lion.
Most of Van Amburgh’s stunts were accomplished through animal brutality, but they won him wide acceptance in the United States and Europe.
2. Dan Rice
Dan Rice first entered the spotlight in the 1840s with a clown act that mixed physical comedy and horseback riding with witty quips and musical numbers.
He managed to earn $1,000 a week as a star and owner of his own traveling circus. Rice had a knack for mixing humor and political satire with traditional circus stunts.
He retired in the 1890s. He has been hailed as one of the fathers of the modern circus.
3. Annie Oakley
Phoebe Anne Moses developed her rifle skills during her childhood in Ohio. After marrying Frank Butler in the 1870s, she took the name Annie Oakley and toured the world in circuses as a professional sharpshooter.
Her tricks included putting out a candle with a bullet, blowing targets while riding a bicycle, and even shooting a lit cigarette out of her husband’s mouth.
4. Jules Leotard
French acrobat Jules Leotard is remembered as the first man in history to attempt an act on the flying trapeze. He appeared in 1859 at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris.
He then took his performance to London, where he wowed audiences by jumping between five different trapezes with only a bunch of old mattresses protecting him from an eventual fall.
Leotard’s deadly actions made him a sensation during the 1860s, but his career was tragically cut short by illness that led to his death at age 28.
5. zazel
In 1877, the teenage acrobat Rosa Richter (better known as «Zazel») was filmed at the Royal Aquarium in London.
The «cannon» that ejected her was invented by William Leonard Hunt and consisted of coil springs attached to a platform. As the springs ejected Zazel from the cannon, a circus worker would release a charge of gunpowder to recreate the look and sound of a cannon shot.
Zazel’s fame spread rapidly, and it wasn’t long before crowds of up to 15,000 people gathered to see her.
His luck finally changed in 1891, when he had an accident during a performance in New Mexico, which left him with fractures that forced him to retire from the circus for good.
6. charles blondin
Charles Blondin was a skilled acrobat and athlete, who became famous for his feats on the tightrope. In June 1859, at age 35, he made history by crossing Niagara Falls and strolling across the chasm, pausing to enjoy a few glasses of wine.
This act was repeated numerous times, most famous of all when he crossed a kitchen stove and stopped halfway there to prepare an omelette, while balancing on a 2-inch-wide rope suspended some 160 feet above Water.
“The Great Blondin” would make a fortune displaying his tightrope heroism traveling across the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia.
7. May Wirth
She was born into a circus family in 1894 and began working as a child dancer and contortionist before jumping on horseback at age 10.
He later joined the Barnum and Bailey Circus in the United States, where he dazzled audiences with an act that combined acrobatics with incredible horsemanship. She was the first woman to perform a kneeling flip and she perfected a trick in which she jumped from one moving horse to another.
He also displayed his physical strength by leaping from the ground onto the back of a galloping stallion, sometimes blindfolded and with heavy baskets on his feet. Wirth’s good looks and daring stunts won him thousands of admirers. He retired in 1937.
8. Lillian Leitzel
Lillian Leitzel was German. She wowed audiences with acrobatic tricks while hanging from Roman rings suspended 50 feet above the ground, with no safety net below.
She was voted “the most beautiful and attractive woman in all the world” by American soldiers during World War I, and became the first star to be given a private car on tour by the circus.
Leitzel continued his act until he was 30, but his career ended tragically in 1931, when one of the metal hoops broke loose at a performance in Copenhagen and fell with a crash to the ground. He died of his injuries two days later.
9. Maria Spelterini
Maria Spelterini became the first woman to walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls on July 8, 1876, when she was just 23.
This stunt was just the first in a series to celebrate America’s centennial. Four days after performing his tightrope feat, he made the crossing again with baskets of peaches tied to his feet.
A week later he did it with a paper bag over his head as a bandage. Three days later, she crossed Niagara in shackles on her wrists and ankles.
10. Arthur James
Commonly known as Colonel Routh Goshen, he was given the name Middlebush Giant by PT Barnum. Arthur James was listed as the tallest man in the world.
At 2 meter 41 centimeters and 281 kilos, the giant was part of the circus tradition in the mid and late 19th century.
11.Katie Sandwina
Katharina Brumbach was born into a family Austrian circus and performed acts of force throughout his childhood. Standing over 7 feet tall since her teens, Katie was soon wrestling with men who bet her rings and sought a victory against her. Katie won every fight she faced.
Katie’s biggest challenge was posed by an incredibly strong man named Eugene Sandow. In New York, Katie would challenge men to lift more weight than her. Sandow accepted the challenge but lost, as Katie lifted 300 pounds over her head with one hand.
12. Maud Wagner
Maud Stevens was a contortionist from Kansas who traveled across the United States with the circus. At the Louisiana Purchasing Exposition in 1907 she met Gus Wagner, a charismatic tattoo artist, known as «the most artistically tattooed man in America.»
Maud was intrigued by her craft, and offered to trade a date with her soon-to-be husband for a lesson on tattooing. That was how she got the many tattoos of hers.
The Wagners went on tour as artists and «tattoo attractions,» later training their daughter Lovetta in the art of tattooing. Today, Maud is considered the first female tattoo artist in the United States.
13. Mario Zachini
Mario was an artist Italian The last of his family to perform in circuses and carnivals as a human bullet, being shot from a cannon into a net on the other side of the circus tent, a trick he performed thousands of times in his decades-long career.
14. Mabel Stark
Mabel was small in stature, barely 1.52, but she was acclaimed among the crowd for being the bravest lion tamer in history. In the early 1920s, her act was the most popular of the six Ringling Circus animal acts.
In 1928 she slipped and two tigers attacked her, clawing at her shoulders, arms and chest, and tearing at the muscles of her back, thighs and hips.
Her injuries required 378 stitches, but within weeks Mabel was back in the steel cages, wrapped in bandages and walking with a cane.
In 1950, Mabel was so brutally attacked by one of her tigers that it took 175 stitches to save her right arm.
He died of a self-administered overdose after performing his last show, at a theme park called «Jungle Land.»
15. Gargantua the gorilla
The gorilla, known as Gargantua the Great, saved the Ringling brothers from bankruptcy when he joined the show in 1938.
The circus claimed that the gorilla had been captured in Africa, and they said that it hated human beings. In his early years, Gargantua was known as «Buddy,» but he was renamed after Gargantua, a giant of French literature, since he sounded much scarier than «Buddy.»
16. Harry Houdini
His real name was Ehrich Weiss. He began his artistic life with the Welsh Brothers Circus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1895.
For 26 weeks, Harry Houdini and his wife, Beatrice, sang, danced, and performed a trick called «metamorphosis.» Houdini invented a kind of large sealed water tank, into which he would enter in handcuffs and then untie the handcuffs and get out of the tank in a few minutes.
17. The Wallendas
In 1922, Karl Wallenda formed a quartet called «The Great Wallenda». They toured Europe, performing daredevil acts such as forming a pyramid of four and riding their bikes across a tightrope above the crowd.
John Ringling was so impressed with a performance he saw in Cuba that he hired them to perform at the Ringling Brothers Circus. They debuted at Madison Square Garden in 1928, and performed without a net.
The act was very eye-catching to people, but it wasn’t always fall-proof. At a performance in Akron, Ohio, the group fell from the heights to the ground, but were thankfully uninjured.
Approximately forty years later, on March 22, 1978 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Karl Wallenda fell from the heights to the ground, dying at age 73.
18 Zip, cone head
William Henry Johnson was a rarity. His body was normal, but his head was small and tapered at the tip. The Van Emburgh Circus in Somerville, New Jersey, paid Johnson’s parents to show off his son and had him called «the wild black boy» trapped in Africa and put on display in a cage.
Johnson’s popularity reached PT Barnum, who gave him a new look and renamed him «Zip, Conehead.»
19. General Tom Thumb
In 1842, Barnum hired a four-year-old dwarf, Charles Stratton, who soon became the world-famous General Tom Thumb.
Just 0.63 centimeters tall, Stratton began touring the United States with Barnum’s Circus, impersonating Cupid and Napoleon Bonaparte. He also sang, danced and participated in different shows.
But it was his wedding to Lavinia Warren (who is almost the same height…