American Experience (1988–…): Season 31, Episode 2 - The Circus Part 2 - full transcript

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It had taken nerves of steel

and months of meticulous
planning to pull off.

But finally,
on November 12, 1897,

the Barnum and Bailey Circus

was on its way to England.

In the last moments
before departure,

scores of handlers
scurried to load

the chaotic jumble
of wild animals



onto a converted cattle ship.

And then performers...
High wire artists, equestrians,

and clowns,
set sail to conquer Europe.

The daring scheme to tour
the colossal circus overseas

was the brainchild
of James Bailey,

a showman whose improbable
rise to the top was legendary.

The audacity of this move
was spectacular.

Bailey was taking his circus
to the place where it all began,

back in the 18th century,

and taking a version
of the circus

that was virtually
unrecognizable

and now distinctly American
in its ostentatiousness.

In the century since
a skilled English equestrian

had brought the first one-ring
show to the United States,



the circus had become

the most popular
of American entertainments,

appealing to presidents
and farmers,

teachers and coal miners,

grandparents
and school children.

The American circus
turned entertainment

into an industrial enterprise.

The scale of the endeavor,
the exuberance of it all,

and the way it's packaged
for a broad, mass audience

is totally transformative.

In an age before radio,
in an age before film,

in an age before television,
the circus offered audiences,

in vastly different
geographical locations,

a common cultural experience.

It transforms America
into a nation

with a shared cultural identity.

♪♪

By heading to Europe,

James Bailey was playing
a dangerous game.

Some 200 circuses were traveling
the country that year,

including ambitious young rivals
eager, in Bailey's absence,

to challenge his dominance.

♪♪

More gigantic, elaborate
and daring every year,

the warring circuses
would battle over audiences.

But even as they did,
forces beyond their control

began threatening to push
the circus

from the center
of American life.

♪♪

No one on James Bailey's staff
had ever seen anything

quite like the throngs of people
who turned up in Manchester

on April 9, 1898.

The sidewalks were packed and
people spilled onto the streets

for the first Barnum and Bailey
parade in England.

When the circus opened
two days later,

there was a scramble
for tickets.

The matinee was sold out
within an hour.

The scene in Manchester
was repeated in towns

across England.

Schools closed.

So did factories and shops.

The circus took possession of
the towns in which they showed.

Life stops.

Whereas the English circus
was a very modest affair,

the American circus
did not allow life to go on

as we knew it.

It shut towns down.

Bailey toured the United Kingdom
for two seasons,

before taking his circus
to the European continent.

On March 22, 1900,

astonished residents
of Hamburg, Germany,

stopped what they were doing

to watch as the
U.S.S. Michigan

was relieved of its
highly unusual cargo.

There, dangling above
the onlookers,

from the port's largest
steam crane,

swung a freshly painted
60-foot-long railway car.

No one had ever shipped
a vehicle of that size before

without taking it apart first.

Though unseasonably cold weather

plagued the four-week run
in Hamburg,

audiences packed the tent
for almost every performance.

♪♪

What's interesting
about the tour

is it throws what's American
about the circus

into sharp relief.

And certainly the spectacle

of how the circus operated
proved to be fascinating,

endlessly fascinating
for European audiences.

And it garnered interest
even from the Prussian military

that was of course involved
in moving large groups of men

from one place to another
in different contexts.

They showed up to see
how the operation worked.

♪♪

Over the next three years,

the Barnum & Bailey show
performed in almost 300 towns

across Germany, Hungary,

Austria, Holland,

Belgium, France,
and Switzerland.

Bailey returned to New York
in the summer of 1902

boasting of how he had overcome
every obstacle:

the Atlantic Ocean,
a babble of foreign languages,

and endless red tape.

"Most people spend their lives
trying to dodge trouble,"

he said.

"The best fun
in the world is dodging trouble

you've made for yourself."

You're gonna have to tie
that one down.

In Bailey's absence, his rivals,
the Ringling brothers,

had been hard at work

expanding their circus
into his territory.

"Probably there is not
a busier man in America today,"

a reporter noted,
"than Al Ringling,

equestrian director
of the Ringling Bros. Circus."

Some 15 years after starting his
circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin,

the eldest Ringling brother
still began his day before dawn,

confirming the route
for the parade,

which he led off with a shout
of "Forward!"

Forward!

Al inspected
the performers' equipment

before the afternoon show began,

and he stood at
the dressing room entrance

to direct
the entire performance.

He insisted that all three rings

start and end their acts
in unison.

No circus director
had thought to do that before.

♪♪

And then, finally,
when the evening show was over,

Al Ringling supervised
the circus's departure.

At midnight, he was often
one of the very last men

still on his feet.

Al Ringling,
definitely "Mr. Circus."

If there was ever a person who
really kept the family together

to really move
this circus operation,

it was Al.

And he really became

such a important person, putting
the performance together.

♪♪

If Ringling drove himself hard,

he expected as much
from those around him,

docking the wages of performers

who showed up late
to the parade,

or put on a lackluster show.

Though he was demanding,

he was remembered
for being generous with praise.

"Nothing so discourages
a performer," he would say,

"as an utter lack of
appreciation."

♪♪

While Al grew to be loved
on the lot,

his younger brother John
came to be feared.

"John Ringling,"
a reporter wrote,

"is known as a cold
and phlegmatic man."

Of all the brothers,
John Ringling,

felt the hardships of the
family life more than others.

And very early on,
he wanted to be out of Baraboo,

which he would call
"Baraboobians,"

and leave to go to Chicago.

My Uncle John

was imperious.

Would that describe him
in one word?

If AI's talent
was running the show,

John's was knowing
where to put it.

"His memory was as colossal
as his circus,"

an employee recalled.

"He knew every railroad junction
in America.

"He quoted the prevailing price
of hay in Tucson,

"and the cost of unroasted
peanuts in Tallahassee.

"He was aware of the towns in
which money was flowing freely,

and those in which
it was tight."

John Ringling
was the world's greatest

at planning circuses.

What are the times people work?

When do they get out?

When is payday?

You always wanted to play
a place after payday

because then people would have
money in their pockets.

Through hard work and ingenuity,

the Ringlings had grown from an
inconsequential 12-wagon show

into one of the most prominent
circuses in the country.

Show's about to start.

Please line up.

Their most surprising innovation
was the addition in 1897

of a dark canvas tent
they called the black top.

Inside the brothers showed
a movie of a boxing match

using a projectoscope,

a brand new invention
of Thomas Edison's.

Many Americans
saw their first moving image

at the Ringlings' circus.

One of the continuing
attractions of the circus

is that more often than not
you're going to see something

that you didn't expect to see
or had never seen before.

So it's that ability of the
circus to offer a new experience

to see something fantastic,
transformative.

You're going to see something
unbelievable.

The circus starts to introduce
people to movies.

The Ringlings were using,
for our amusement,

the very things
that were ultimately going

to see them become much less
central in the American soul.

♪♪

By 1900, with Bailey away,

the brothers felt emboldened
to steal his slogan

claiming their circus was:
"The Greatest Show on Earth."

Some attributed the brothers'
meteoric rise

to their honest advertising,

noting the Ringlings
never publicized an attraction

they didn't own or exaggerated
the merits of one they did.

Others believed that
the brothers had made it so big

because each possessed
a different talent

essential to the show's success.

Whatever the reason,

the Ringlings made hay
of their rags-to-riches story.

FRED PFENING Ill:
Their longtime attorney
was quoted as saying,

"The Ringling brothers
didn't come up the hard way,

they came up
the impossible way."

They really did start
without a dime,

and it really is
an extraordinary story.

And I think taken as a group

they were the best
circus managers,

the best circus men
in American history.

♪♪

What's really important
about the Ringling story

is that it isn't just
a circus story.

The Ringling heritage is
really about the American dream,

that you can have an idea
and a vision

and that you can bootstrap
your way

and build something
really magnificent.

Those five visionaries
held a vision

and never let go of it
and made it real.

♪♪

There are so many crazy acts
that have happened

under the circus tent.

It's one of the draws
of the circus,

is this idea that you try things

that people would never
imagine trying.

As long as there
has been circus,

there have been people trying
seemingly insane acts.

It's extraordinary.

It doesn't accomplish
any concrete purpose.

It doesn't mean
that cancer is cured.

But it's a feat.

We only are here once.

And we only go round once.

If you can do something,
if you are good at something,

that is what you do.

♪♪

The danger acts,

they just remind us
that we're alive.

It's life at its utmost.

It's life on the
Mount of Transfiguration.

It's life sweating blood
in Gethsemane.

It takes so much mind,
body and spirit

to be a great daredevil.

It comes back to the
overall gospel of the circus.

It's giving you life
in all its fullness,

with all the daring chances too.

♪♪

In 1902, the year James Bailey
returned from Europe,

some 650,000 immigrants
arrived in the United States.

They came from Hungary
and Italy, Germany and Russia,

Norway and China.

Over the first decade
of the 20th century,

the country would absorb
almost nine million newcomers.

Most of them couldn't speak
a word of English

and a quarter couldn't read,

but neither was a handicap
at the circus.

The circus was the big unifier.

Everybody could see
the same thing.

Immigrants of German descent
in the Middle West,

Latino in the South,
Jewish in New York,

they all had and could
understand the same circus.

So, it was also an image
of America in a, not a nutshell,

but in a big top.

♪♪

When the Ringlings returned
to Baraboo, Wisconsin

over Christmas 1902
to plan their season,

the knowledge that
James Bailey was back

shaped all their
major decisions.

For the first time,
the brothers decided

to hire a theater director to
produce their opening pageant,

known as the spectacle,
rather than doing it themselves.

In the first two decades
of the Ringling Show,

the brothers were
really committed

to the circus performance,
to the purest form of circus,

the circus that they
had grown up with.

So they did not mount
these large spectacles.

In 1903, with the return
of Barnum and Bailey's show

they want to make sure
that they're competitive.

And so they put on
"Jerusalem and the Crusades,"

a real large-scale spectacle.

♪♪

The circus spectacles were very
much a product of their age.

So, you're in a colonial
to post-colonial era,

and Americans are learning more
about foreign cultures.

This idea of colonialism
became very interesting,

how the Western world
could bring its influence

to other lands.

Like many circus spectacles
of the time,

"Jerusalem and the Crusades"
was a full-scale drama.

Playing out in two acts,
it included a ballet,

a grand oriental procession,

and a battle on the ramparts
of Jerusalem.

The spectacle became the focus
of the Ringlings' advertising.

The brothers claimed it involved
a cast of 1,200...

Including 300 dancing girls...
And more than 2,000 costumes.

Bailey's publicity men countered

with some hyperbole
of their own.

The coming season would be
the most elaborate ever,

they boasted.

The Barnum and Bailey circus
would travel on 94 railway cars,

cost $8,000 a day to run,

and feature an enormous tent
with 21 tiers of seats

and all new private boxes.

Once the circus started
traveling, however,

it became apparent that Bailey
had a host of problems,

many of his own making.

PFENING Ill:
Bailey was a brilliant showman

and it's really confounding
to find how unsuccessful

the Barnum and Bailey Circus was
in 1903.

He spent a little over $40,000

on having 13 parade wagons
built.

$40,000 was an extraordinary
amount of money

to spend on a parade wagon.

The other problem that he had

is he had this
really comfortable seating.

He called it
opera chair seating.

It took forever and a day
to set all the equipment up.

Disgruntled at having to move
the heavy seats,

150 working men
demanded more pay.

When they didn't get it,
they went on strike.

Bailey ended his self-imposed
ban on hiring African Americans

to keep the show on the road.

Even so, many performances
were late and 42 were canceled.

FRED DAHLINGER, JR.:
Bailey was up against it.

He had created
a giant juggernaut

that was just almost impossible
to keep going,

whereas the Ringling brothers
had this efficient money machine

that just kept making money
day after day.

PFENING Ill:
In 1903, the Barnum show
made about $106,000

and you compare that to the
$602,000 that they made in 1882,

that's terrible.

Desperate to make a comeback
in 1904,

Bailey hired Ugo Ancillotti and
his daring loop-the-loop act.

The following year,
Ancillotti was joined

by the sensational
Mauricia de Tiers

and her dip of death.

Imagine a big top that seats
over 10,000 people

with hurtling automobiles
inside of it.

This was an extraordinarily
dangerous act,

providing this audacious display
of technological subversion...

Making cars fly.

Despite featuring

some of the most astounding
daredevils ever seen,

each year Bailey made less
profit than the year before.

In the spring of 1906,

as he was in
Madison Square Garden

frantically throwing together
his show,

Bailey started to feel unwell.

♪♪

Just three days later,
on April 11,

the veteran showman
died unexpectedly

surrounded by doctors
and his distraught wife.

He was just 58 years old.

Eulogies in newspapers
across the country

praised Bailey for his
many achievements,

most notably
taking American culture

to the rest of the world.

"He was like Napoleon,"
one reporter said,

invading Europe with
"one thousand men,

women, and children."

The unraveling
of Bailey's circus empire

didn't take long.

His widow, Ruth Louisa Bailey,

inherited her husband's
entire fortune,

valued at somewhere between
$5 and $8 million.

Mrs. Bailey put her brother
in charge of the circus.

But in 1907, when a financial
panic rocked the country,

she began negotiating secretly
with John Ringling

to sell her husband's show.

It was not a unanimous decision
to buy the Barnum Circus.

They ended up paying
$510,000 for it,

which was by far
the biggest transaction

in circus history at that time.

What the Ringlings saw
was potential.

In just two decades,

the once humble owners
of an insignificant show

had risen to become undisputed
"Kings of the Circus World."

♪♪

The American circus
entrepreneurs,

from the very beginning,

went to get their talent
in Europe.

Why?

Because there was
very little talent in America.

♪♪

In Europe, circus family
have their own circus

and created circus performer
long before circus school.

They worked in buildings

in which they had time
to prepare an act

and to rehearse in the morning
in nice conditions.

In America, if you travel
and do two shows a day

and move every day, there is
no time for a rehearsal.

So, the American system

was not encouraging
to try to do something new

or create acts.

In early 1908,
John Ringling toured Europe

to scout circus talent.

To be the
"Greatest Show on Earth,"

you need to be
the greatest show on earth,

and that means drawing from
all corners of the world...

The unique, the wonderful,
the incredibly talented.

♪♪

The circus brought together
people from all countries.

It was a United Nations
before the United Nations.

♪♪

In Berlin, Ringling signed
four female aerialists.

The Leamy Ladies swung from
a rotating contraption

devised by their agent.

In time, Lillian Leitzel,
the youngest,

would be one of the most famous
women in America.

When the 1908 circus season
began,

the two shows toured separately.

John accompanied
the Barnum and Bailey show

eager to supervise every detail

and prove that he'd been right
to buy it.

His older brother Charles

traveled with
the Ringling Circus.

♪♪

With the Barnum show
setting out from New York

and the Ringling show
starting its season in Chicago,

the two circuses traveled more
than 26,000 miles altogether,

stopping in almost 320 towns
and cities across the nation.

It was a banner season.

It's been said
that the Ringling brothers

were able to pay off the entire
loan that they had taken out

to purchase the Barnum show
in one year.

A hundred percent payback
on a $510,000 purchase.

Now, that was circus management
at its best.

Step right up!

With profits
from the two largest circuses

in the nation pouring in...

A reported million dollars
in 1909 alone...

The Ringlings began spending
lavishly on their families.

Even the freewheeling
bachelor John had settled down,

his heart claimed
by Mable Burton.

Mable said it was love
at first sight.

And this was a girl who had
run away from home at 15,

worked in a shoe factory.

And all of a sudden
she falls in love with this man

and she's a multimillionaire.

Enchanted by Sarasota,
on the gulf coast of Florida,

John and Charles
began heading there

to relax during the winter.

With a Fifth Avenue apartment
in New York,

a house in Sarasota

and the largest yacht
moored at the city's pier,

John in particular embraced
his new opulent lifestyle.

Over time, with Mable's help,
he would remake himself.

John and Mable studied books
on etiquette,

they studied books on fashion,

they studied books on art
and antiquities.

They developed exquisite taste.

They became a class of people

that they hadn't started out
to be.

"There were nurses, teachers,
cooks," a reporter noted.

"There were women
who work with their heads

"and women who work
with their hands

"and women who never work
at all.

And they all march
for suffrage."

♪♪

On May 4, 1912,
an estimated 15,000 people...

Women and their male
supporters...

Brought New York City
to a standstill.

An even larger crowd

cheered them from windows
and sidewalks

all the way
from Washington Square

to Carnegie Hall.

Though the campaign to give
women the vote was decades old,

so far only six states
had enfranchised women.

The dramatic rise of women
in the workforce

since the turn of the century,
however,

had swelled the ranks
of the suffragists,

making them more determined
than ever.

The women of the
Barnum and Bailey circus

had already signed up.

A few weeks earlier

they'd held their first
"votes for women" meeting.

"You earn salaries,"

equestrian Josie De Mott
had told the gathering.

"You want to establish
clearly in your husband's mind

that you are his equal."

The circus is a space where
women did have opportunities

that were unavailable
in other areas of American life.

Big Top headliners
were paid just as well

as their male counterparts.

The circus offered women a life
of independence and freedom

from the watchful eyes of
communities and family members.

The female performers met with
leaders of the suffrage movement

before setting out on tour.

They were eager to learn
how best to spread their message

as they traveled the country.

Strongwoman Katie Sandwina,

vice president of the circus
women's Equal Suffrage Club,

was among those present.

The Ringling brothers
called her Lady Hercules.

♪♪

Though they boasted
of her strength,

the Ringling brothers were keen
to present Sandwina

as demure and ladylike,

particularly to the men
in their audiences.

Reporters were told she depended
chiefly on housework

to keep herself in shape.

Sandwina is tall.

She's statuesque.

She's muscular.

But she's billed
as a lady dainty,

whose femininity
is extraordinary.

The Ringling brothers
loved to present

this juxtaposition
of seeming opposites.

On the one hand with
muscles coiled like pythons,

but on the other gentle,
dainty, and sweetly feminine.

♪♪

The public was astounded
to learn that Sandwina

had pulled off two performances
the evening before giving birth,

lifting her husband
over her head

and bending iron bars
into horseshoes.

Sandwina's fellow performer
May Wirth had also joined

the suffrage cause,
though she was only a teenager.

Adopted into
an Australian circus family

when she was seven,

Wirth had soon begun
astounding audiences

across Australia and New Zealand
with her contortion act.

When she learned to ride,

it was clear she had discovered
her true talent.

May Wirth was obviously
extraordinary.

You just look at her
and knew that she was unusual.

May Wirth did what we call
trick somersaults,

when you twist the somersault
in the air

so you go and you start
in a direction,

you arrive in another one.

Even today, it's a rarity.

She did, of course,
somersault from horse to horse.

Only the few best men
could do that,

and she was a woman!

At that time, it was,
"A woman can do that?"

And that was big.

At stops around the country,

the women
of the Barnum and Bailey circus

advocated for suffrage.

The Ringling brothers
supported their efforts,

allowing activists to campaign
on circus grounds.

But in the end it was the
performers' feats in the big top

that made the biggest impact.

"There is no class of women,"
one activist said,

"who show better
that they have a right to vote

"than the circus women
who twice a day

prove they have the courage
and endurance of men."

♪♪

It really, really stunned people
to see women doing these things.

And so, for a certain part
of the audience,

it was undoubtedly empowering.

Practically every firefighter
in Cleveland, Ohio,

raced to work on the night
of May 25, 1914,

after sparks ignited timber
in the city's lumberyards.

As the fire raged,

embers rained down on
the Ringling Brothers circus,

which was playing
five blocks away.

It took nine hours
to extinguish the flames.

Al, the only brother on the lot,

had made sure the big top
was evacuated safely.

But by the time it was all over,

the fire had destroyed
43 cars of the circus train.

Determined to keep to schedule,

Al worked through the night

persuading the railroad
to loan him equipment

to take him to the next stop,
Marion, Ohio.

Then he directed two shows.

The stress,
his brothers believed,

took a permanent
toll on AI's health.

On New Year's Day 1916,
after two years of illness,

Al Ringling died
of Bright's disease

at the age of 63.

"When the news reached
Winter Quarters,"

remembered one of his nephews,

"clowns and cooks,
hostlers and equestrians, wept."

The entire Ringling clan
descended on Baraboo

for the funeral,

as did circus people
from across the country

and townspeople who admired
the old man.

Al Ringling was really part
of the fabric of Baraboo.

He loved the community
and the community loved him.

So, it was with great sadness

the news came out
that he passed.

Everybody felt that the main guy
had really died that day.

Without their eldest brother's
firm hand at the helm,

the Ringlings struggled.

The next year their problems
only multiplied.

In the spring of 1917,

America entered World War I,
alongside Britain and France.

Working men became hard to find,

as millions of Americans
were drafted.

To meet the demands
of the military conflict,

President Woodrow Wilson
took control of the railways,

prioritizing the movement
of troops and materiel.

Struggling with understaffed
crews and war shortages,

the Ringlings were now fearful

they wouldn't even be able
to move their shows.

Then the Spanish flu struck.

By the early fall the epidemic
had spread across the country.

More than 10,000 people died
in September alone.

Areas on the route
are facing quarantine,

and show dates
have to be abridged.

So, the combination of the war
and its shortages,

its government mandates,

and then the flu epidemic,

present huge challenges
for the Ringling brothers

as they're trying to operate
two giant circuses.

The brothers felt forced
to make a decision

they never would have
anticipated a few years earlier.

After quarantines shuttered
performances

several days in a row,

they packed up the Ringling show
two weeks early.

Then, for the first time

since launching their circus
decades before,

the brothers sent
the Ringling circus to winter

not in Baraboo their hometown,

but in Bridgeport, Connecticut,
with the Barnum show.

Everyone on the train knew
that after decades of expansion,

the unthinkable
was about to happen.

The brothers were consolidating.

Instead of presenting two shows,

they would combine them
into one.

Anxiety was rife in Bridgeport
that fall.

Employees of both shows
were unsure about their futures.

DAHLINGER, JR.:
You had the Barnum show,
and you had the Ringling show.

And each had their own
little ways about doing things.

And the brothers,
who were very, very supportive

of their longtime staff members,

just didn't know what to do
with this duplicity of staff.

In the end, some 1,000 people

of a staff of 2,800
lost their jobs.

It was the biggest layoff
in circus history,

and an ominous sign
of things to come.

On March 28, 1919,

gale-force winds
buffeted New York

as a late winter storm
pummeled the city,

leaving roads and rails
coated in ice.

Despite the treacherous
conditions,

inside Madison Square Garden,

circus staff were making
final adjustments to the show.

They didn't wrap up
until midnight.

♪♪

The following day,

doors opened for
the first performance

of the Ringling Bros.
Barnum & Bailey combined circus.

Even though the city was still
picking up after the storm,

crowds swarmed to see the show.

It was the largest circus
anyone had ever seen.

I don't think there is
one circus person who would say

if they could walk
into a time machine,

that they wouldn't want to be

at Madison Square Garden
when it opened in March of 1919.

To see the great performers,

the cavalcade of clowns,

everything jam packed into the
three rings and four platforms.

It would've been
the show to see.

The circus kicked off with the
two combined herds of elephants,

followed by seven troupes
of aerial performers,

May Wirth with her
backward somersaults,

and some 600 other performers.

♪♪

When the show took to the road,

audiences were staggered
by its size.

The circus had mushroomed
into a moving town

of more than 1,100 people,
735 horses,

and nearly 1,000 other animals.

♪♪

There were 28 tents on the lot,

including three stable tents,

and a massive sideshow pavilion,

as well as canvas
to cover the blacksmith shop,

the barber's,

the dressing rooms,

the wardrobe department,

and the dining area.

The big top alone
was 560 feet long

and could seat 16,000 people,

more than twice the number
that could fit

into Madison Square Garden.

It had a big top
with eight center poles in it.

The distance between
most of those poles was 60 feet.

That was an immensely long
big top.

That's why you had to have
so many acts going on

at the same time.

Because you sit at one end
of the big top,

and an act is going on,
on the other end of it

and you'd be far away as you...

in one end zone
of a football stadium,

trying to watch something
going on in the other one.

By season's end,
the show had traveled

more than 15,000 miles
and grossed almost $4 million...

More than
the two individual shows

had made together
the previous year.

Though elated by the success
of their first combined season,

the Ringlings were struggling
with sad news on the home front.

After a long bout of ill-health,
Alf T. Ringling,

creator of the great spectacles,
passed away at the age of 55.

The death of financial wizard
Otto a decade earlier,

left just Charles and John.

Five brothers had charted
the evolution

of a modest one-ring show
into a vast circus empire.

Now responsibility
for the massive organization

lay with just two.

♪♪

Freaks are called freaks

and are treated
as they are treated...

In the main, abominably...

Because they are human beings

who cause to echo,
deep within us,

our most profound terrors
and desires.

James Baldwin.

♪♪

Even the most hardened
performers

never got used to
the humiliation.

"I feel like an outcast
from society,"

a bearded lady said.

"I used to think when I got old
my feelings wouldn't get hurt,

but I was wrong."

♪♪

Respectable people
would skip the sideshow tent

because it did have
a reputation.

It was supposed to be
a little bit racy,

a little bit dangerous,

but you didn't want it to be
fundamentally disturbing.

♪♪

So the circus is always
trying to toe this line of,

"What can we put in the sideshow
tent that titillates

but isn't going to get
anyone arrested?"

The same traditions
played out over decades.

As the crowds thronged
the midway

past the sideshow tent
towards the menagerie,

they could hear the talker who
ballyhooed the talent inside.

There were fat ladies
and skeleton men,

hirsute children
and albino twins,

giants, midgets,
sword swallowers,

and William Henry Johnson,
known as "Zip, What Is It?"

a performer who started with
the Barnum show in the 1870s.

♪♪

He was billed as "What Is It,
The Missing Link,"

very much reifying

racial stereotypes of the day
regarding people of color,

but at the same time,
he was so gifted as a performer

that he fooled people that
he suffered from microcephaly

or he couldn't speak.

On his deathbed after decades
of playing a mute idiot,

Johnson allegedly said,

"Well, we fooled them
for a long time, didn't we?"

To entice the crowds
into the sideshow tent,

the Ringling brothers
had for years featured

an African-American
sideshow band.

In 1919, Charles and John

hired the best jazz bandmaster
in the business, P. G. Lowery.

As a young man in the 1890s,

Lowery had trained
at the Boston Conservatory.

He'd been heading up
black circus bands ever since.

Though he was one of the best
cornetists of his generation,

like all black musicians
of the day,

Lowery was almost always
confined to the sideshow.

He won over fans nonetheless.

P.G. Lowery becomes this pillar

in the African-American
community.

The black newspapers say, "Yeah,

"the circus is coming to town,

"but P.G. Lowery is going
to be here.

P.G. Lowery's band
is going to be here playing."

It was a really big point
of pride.

When Lowery had started out,

black circus bands
mostly played minstrel music.

Lowery got rid
of blackface makeup,

added women to his troupe,

and performed a repertoire
of ragtime and the blues.

The circus was a kind of
back door

into American popular culture
for black musicians,

who didn't have a whole lot
of avenues available to them.

It wasn't necessarily
respectable,

but it was work and it was a way

not just for white people
to hear black music

but for black communities

to connect to what was happening
in Chicago, New York,

and this very vibrant
music scene.

I think the circus
doesn't get enough credit

for just the amazing work that
the African-American musicians

did in spreading ragtime
and jazz music.

♪♪

We think about
the Harlem Renaissance,

but the circus musicians
were coming a generation before.

One African American newspaper
said,

"And all the white people
got wobbly, too."

A cat act, anyone can tell you

they are fraught
with very real danger.

The threat to life and limb,
the threat of death,

is a genuine constant danger

that the big cat people
all understand.

♪♪

Early one Sunday morning
in July 1921,

a slip of a woman
barged onto the back lot

of the Ringling circus,

angling for a job with
the biggest show in the country.

Mabel Stark was one of the most
celebrated big cat trainers

in America,
and one of the only women

wrangling tigers in the big top.

She told the astounded
Ringling team

that she broke in her cats
herself.

They offered her a job
on the spot.

Stark had started out
as a nurse.

But after seeing
her first big cats

on the Al G. Barnes circus
in 1911,

she knew she'd found
her true vocation.

She hated nursing.

She hated the kind of confines
of ordinary life.

So, she too runs away
and joins a circus.

Running away for her
was liberation.

This young blonde comes busting
through a rickety old gate,

asking to be a tiger trainer

and everybody was ready
to throw her out.

She realized very quickly,

if she was going to be anything,

she had to get around
the genius wild animal trainer,

the best that ever worked
in this country,

and that was Louis Roth.

And to do that,
she had to marry him.

She got everything that he knew

and she took it from there
as a tiger trainer.

Then she got rid of Louis.

She never loved him.

Mabel Stark quickly became

one of the most popular
performers

at the Ringling circus,
yet the cat acts

left some members
of the audience dismayed.

By the mid-1920s, a small group
of animal welfare activists

began calling for a boycott.

John Ringling had never been
all that fond of cage acts

involving big cats.

They were cumbersome to carry.

They were a logistical problem,
as far as he was concerned.

He is acutely aware
of this growing movement

that is questioning the ethics
of animal performances.

John Ringling gambles on it,
essentially, by thinking that,

"The time is right to do away
with those cage acts."

♪♪

The loss of the cat acts

didn't affect
the Ringlings' bottom line.

As the circus roared
into the mid-20s,

large profits kept rolling in

and the brothers found new ways
to spend their money.

Charles built a house
of pink marble on Sarasota Bay.

John and Mable designed
a 56-room Venetian palace

next door.

They called it Ca' d'Zan,
House of John.

Wherever they were,
John and Mable were surrounded

by the affluent and celebrated.

Titans of industry
and Broadway stars

dined at their home.

Presidents and first ladies
accompanied them to the circus.

Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the big top.

You will see a menagerie
of beasts from the wild...

In a decade
when America was booming,

the Ringling Brothers' big top
was the place to be.

"Never was the circus greater
or more fun,"

remembered the Ringlings'
equestrian director.

"Everything was perfect."

He had every reason to say so.

Americans were flush with money.

Each season was more profitable
than the one before.

No circus could rival
the Ringling show.

And the brothers' big top
had never been so full

of such extraordinary talent.

Every winter, John Ringling
brought back from overseas

ever more daring stars.

One of the most striking

was Australian wire walker
Con Colleano.

♪♪

He remembered practicing
as many as seven hours a day,

determined to perform a feat
on the wire

no one else had ever
accomplished:

a front somersault.

The problem
with the front somersault

is when you do your rotation,
your head goes first,

and then your feet arrive,

but your head cannot see what's
going to happen,

because your head is looking up
at that point.

So it's called a blind landing.

♪♪

Colleano failed
thousands of times.

Sometimes the rebounding wire
left him paralyzed for days.

The hidden dangers
of the circus,

you think of people in the air,

but the danger is
in places you don't think of.

For instance, a tight wire,

it's a steel wire,
and it's hard like rock.

If you fall badly on that,
you'll really hurt yourself.

It took five years
of failed attempts

before Colleano successfully
executed a front somersault.

From then on, that's how
he always finished his act.

That was
the great impossible feat

of the time.

It was absolutely unique.

Colleano was rivaled on the wire
only by a German act,

the Wallendas.

Troupe leader Karl had become
a tightrope walker

almost by accident.

At the age of 16, he responded
to an ad from a circus owner

looking for someone
to do a handstand.

Karl didn't realize
he'd need to perform the feat

on a wire 60 feet in the air.

Soon he was executing the stunt
over rivers

and between buildings.

Then he brought his family in
on the act.

They developed these incredible
feats on the tightrope.

My grandfather was doing
a remarkable handstand

on his brother's shoulders.

My grandfather standing
on the top of a chair

with his wife standing
on his shoulders,

while he was on a bar
that was balanced

between Joe Geiger
and his brother Herman.

It's hard to even conceive

that they were doing
such incredible feats.

When the Wallendas
first appeared

at Madison Square Garden,

they brought down the house.

At the end of the performance,

the audience were whistling,

and they were stomping
their feet,

which in Europe would be
a great insult.

So my grandfather
and the rest of troupe,

they snuck away quickly
into the dressing room.

The ringmaster came and said,

"Sorry, no, no, no,
you're wrong.

They really liked what you did."

And so, the Wallendas had
to come out for a bow.

And to my understanding,

it's the first and last time

that a show
has ever been stopped

for 15 minutes of applause

waiting for the Wallendas
to come back to the ring.

Many Americans, however,

agreed on their favorite
big top performer.

Hands down, Lillian Leitzel.

She was the greatest superstar
the circus had ever seen.

Leitzel came from a family
of circus acrobats in Germany.

She began performing
with her mother and aunts

when she was just 11.

Almost immediately,

she began taking attention away
from her jealous mother.

♪♪

In the 20 years

since John Ringling
had brought the family act

to the United States,

Leitzel had become one of the
nation's biggest circus stars.

Now a soloist,

her fame rested
on the second half of her act,

a series of swing-overs,

that would dislocate
her shoulder

on every turn.

The crowd would count each one
out loud.

Her record was 240 rotations.

She had those
shoulder dislocation,

which were very well staged,

because there were moments
when the hairpins went away

and her hair get
while she was doing that.

♪♪

Technically it was okay.

Physically it was, eh.

But she had this
immense charisma.

Everyone, sing along.

And in a place
like the Ringling tent

with these thousands of seats,

everybody was totally hypnotized
by what she did.

♪♪

Lillian Leitzel was
a tremendous actor.

When she wiggled her toes,
that got people's attention.

She was a performer

from the time she took off
her sandals

until she came back down.

Lillian Leitzel was a performer.

♪♪

Leitzel's fellow performers
found her theatrics amusing.

"She was a storm center
every day she lived,"

one aerialist remembered.

"But she never had a tantrum,

unless there was a good audience
around to enjoy it."

The bandleader,
Merle Evans, feared her.

When she finished her act,

he would yell to his drummers,
"Drummers, take cover!"

because Leitzel would go
after them.

She would be angry about
the inadequacy of the drum roll.

Performers got ready
in the communal dressing tents.

Leitzel had demanded
her own private dressing tent,

fresh flowers daily,
and a maid to go with them.

"As a rule,"
one journalist observed,

"Leitzel fired the maid before
and after each performance."

Her relationship with
Mexican aerialist Alfredo Codona

was just as stormy.

Known as
the Adonis of the Altitudes,

Codona's celebrity rested
on his skillful execution

of a triple somersault.

♪♪

The power that it takes to do
a triple

is very hard.

It takes years and years,

and dedication,
mentally, physically.

It's very demanding.

And he made it look so easy.

His triple somersault
were absolutely neat.

It was not the big event
with a super drum roll

and "Will he catch it?"

He caught it, period.

I mean, there was no suspense.

He just did it
totally naturally.

Leitzel and Codona tied the knot
in Chicago,

between a matinee
and the evening show.

Their marriage was
very tempestuous,

as any marriage
with Lillian Leitzel

would be with anybody,

and they both had
a gigantic ego.

They were both big stars,
and they knew it.

He was beautiful.

She had this wonderful charisma
and charm.

So, it was the sort of
Hollywood kind of

marriage made in hell, actually.

But for the audience
it was made in heaven.

♪♪

♪♪

Circus life was unpredictable,

unconventional, magnificent,

and boisterous.

Little girls and boys thought it
the epitome of glamour.

To those in the know,
it was anything but.

"If you think circus life is
glamorous," said one performer,

"spend your honeymoon
in the married people's car,

which carries 64 persons."

At night you pulled
a curtain shut.

You were in your own little
cubby hole,

and that was...
that was your privacy.

Everybody would wait
till the train started,

because then it makes noise.

The noise covers up
everything else.

They'd start the train
and they'd say,

"Everybody mount,
everybody mount."

Honest and true,
that was really done.

There was never anything easy
about life with the circus.

Even the most basic commodities
were in short supply.

Water is the most precious thing

that we have,

because there is no water there.

Each performer got two buckets,
one to wash and one to rinse.

And I will admit,

it was rare for anybody
to shower every day,

because it isn't practical.

I had been exposed
to modest nudity

in dressing rooms
with ballet school,

but nothing like that.

I finally just decided
that's it,

so I got up,
took my clothes off,

and started taking
a bucket bath...

and got over that hump.

It was a beautiful scene.

Everybody was doing something
that they liked.

Some like to play cards,

some play dominoes,
some play chess.

The performers would be
together,

the clowns would like to be
together,

and the working men,
they had their own groups too.

♪♪

For decades, children traveled
with the show,

and together,
the community raised them.

I had more babysitters.

I could never find my baby.

Everybody had my boy.

Every time I look around,
"Where's Gilbert?

Where's Gilbert?"

Somebody had him.

Here is this wonderful
working woman.

She's performing in the show,

plus she's got to look
after her children,

and they raise
talented children.

In diapers they're standing

on their daddy's palm,
balancing.

The show went on,
no matter the weather.

The pay was meager,
the work, never-ending.

But for workers
and performers alike,

circus life was simply
too exhilarating to give up.

You were the celebrity,
not just the performers.

The town came to see you.

Even in Manhattan you could see
the Empire State Building.

Big deal.

New York came to you.

It's a life.

I'll never forget it.

It's still part of me.

I still have my buckets.

Everybody teases me, but I do.

♪♪

In the fall of 1926,

62-year-old Charles Ringling
suffered a stroke

at his home in Sarasota.

When John heard the news,
he sprinted next door.

He was at Charles's side
when his brother died.

John just collapsed, sobbing.

He said,
"I'm the last one on the lot."

And I think he was crying
about two things,

not only the loss
of his favorite brother,

but also the loss
of the camaraderie

that the five Ringling brothers
had held together.

Family was extremely important
to them.

John took charge

as the show set off
the following spring.

Though he owned the circus

in partnership
with his brothers' heirs,

he made all the decisions alone.

In March 1927, he revealed plans
to move his winter quarters

from its old home
in Bridgeport, Connecticut,

to 152 acres outside
of Sarasota.

♪♪

That Christmas,

the circus opened its doors
to Sarasotans,

who, for 25 cents,

toured the grounds
for the first time.

From then on, the quarters
were open to the public

twice weekly

as circus personnel
and animals prepared

for the following season.

I had never seen
a winter quarters like that.

In Europe they had
a little place,

just a small building.

This was like a town.

There was all kind of big wagons
with machine shops,

and it was humongous.

There was a tent
and wardrobe building,

a railroad car shop,

a woodworking mill,

an elephant house,

a dining hall,

and practice barns.

Some 70,000 people visited
that first winter alone.

♪♪

That totally transformed
this area

because Sarasota, Florida,

maybe 50,000 people
in the whole county,

all of a sudden would see,
annually,

100,000 people coming down

to see the cocoon

from which
the great show emerges.

To many of the visitors,

the immensity of the operation
confirmed their belief

that the Ringlings' domination
of the entertainment world

was unshakeable.

But the truth was,

John was facing a much more
precarious business scene

than he ever had
with his brothers.

As the Greatest Show on Earth
took to the road

in the spring of 1928,

Charlie Chaplin was drawing
visitors by the millions

to his off-kilter vision
of life under the big top.

A trip to see Chaplin
was cheap... about a quarter.

A visit to the Ringling circus
cost three times as much.

When one wants to go
to the cinema,

the films were there every day,
every week,

whereas the circus is only there
once a year.

And, suddenly,

the kind of specs
that were staged

under the big top

can't match the close-up reality
of having that screen.

Entertainment choices
only proliferated.

By 1928,

eight years after the first
commercial radio broadcast,

a quarter of American households
had radios.

The first broadcast
of the World Series in 1921

had helped launch
a surging interest in sports.

Star players had become
national celebrities.

Prizefighting had also become
tremendously popular

and profitable.

In 1921, 90,000 spectators
had watched Jack Dempsey

knock out his opponent

to retain the heavyweight title.

It was the largest audience
for a sporting event ever.

In 1929, John Ringling
confronted

the lucrative boxing industry
head on.

When the time came time to sign
the traditional four-week lease

at Madison Square Garden,

Ringling discovered
the Garden insisted

on reserving Friday nights
for prizefighting.

When Ringling refused to sign
the contract,

his most formidable rival,

veteran showman Jerry Mugivan,
stepped in.

As head of
the American Circus Corporation,

Mugivan took the deal.

Ringling was incensed.

Determined not to lose
his opening venue

to the competition,

Ringling bought out the entire
American Circus Corporation,

comprised
of five substantial circuses.

He had to borrow $1.7 million
to do it.

Ringling made the purchase
without consulting his partners,

his brothers' heirs.

It was a decision

that would split the family
apart.

The date was inauspicious,

September of 1929.

Just six weeks later,
the stock market crashed.

John Ringling had made
the biggest mistake of his life.

♪♪

♪♪

After a lackluster 1930 season,

Alfredo Codona
and Lillian Leitzel

headed to Europe to perform
for the winter.

♪♪

It had become
an annual tradition they loved.

After several weeks
in Paris together,

Codona headed to Berlin.

Leitzel had an engagement
in Copenhagen.

On the night of February 13,

Leitzel was halfway
through her act

at the Valencia Music Hall
when a swivel snapped.

♪♪

She plummeted some 45 feet
head first,

shattering her skull.

♪♪

Codona hastened to her side.

Over the next few hours,
Leitzel woke on and off briefly,

but only to shriek
in excruciating pain.

♪♪

The following day,

Lillian Leitzel succumbed
to her injuries.

The tragedy crushed Codona

and shook
the entire circus world.

Bandleader Merle Evans put away

the music he'd chosen
for her performances.

He never played it again.

♪♪

In the year and a half
since the stock market crash,

the country had plunged

into a devastating
economic depression.

Entertainment was a luxury
few could afford.

In two years,

attendance at the movies
dropped a third.

Around the country,

circuses began folding.

Determined to fill seats,

John Ringing brought back
the cat acts,

hiring Clyde Beatty,

the most celebrated
big cat trainer in America

for the opening run
in Madison Square Garden.

Clyde Beatty's act
was a fighting act.

He came out
through the safety cage,

tossed aside his jungle helmet,

and went in the arena
with the lions all in there,

picking up his chair

and cracking his whip,
sorting them out.

Everything about the man leapt
into the back seat

on the back row.

He ran around in that cage
with such energy,

and such projection,
that he involved everybody.

We were on the edge
of our seats.

He gave the audience something
to take home with them.

But even Beatty failed

to deliver
a profitable 1931 season.

The show closed on September 14,

the earliest date
in its history.

♪♪

John Ringling's
personal finances

were also beginning to unravel.

In the spring of 1932,

he was unable to make
a loan repayment.

The creditors
and his brothers' heirs

joined forces.

Without adequate
legal representation,

Ringling caved to their demands.

He would be the titular head
of the operation

but have no authority
or power whatsoever.

And he would also have to pledge
all of his own personal assets

as collateral for the loan.

It was really almost
a punitive action against John.

That was no way out.

With Mable's death
a few years earlier,

Ringling was essentially
all alone.

He rarely had more
than a few hundred dollars

in the bank.

In 1936, Ringling made
one last trip

to the opening of the circus
at Madison Square Garden,

where manager Sam Gumpertz was
in charge.

Ringling rampaged
through the building

as performers warmed up,

finding fault with everything.

Sam approaches him
in the menagerie,

then a fight ensues.

Sam had him escorted out.

It must have felt like he was
thrown out into the alley,

like a common criminal,
from his own show.

♪♪

That November
John Ringling fell ill.

He died a few days later.

After more than half a century
in the entertainment business,

the last of
the Ringling brothers was gone.

In a performance,

you see one extraordinary feat
after another.

And every now and then,
you send in the clown,

and everything comes down
to earth,

and you just feel relieved.

♪♪

The clowns act out
the resentment

that we all feel towards people

who are more successful
than we are.

♪♪

The greatest clowns are
the quietest.

They do simple things.

They allow you to look at
the absurdity of your humanity,

and they allow you to laugh
at yourself.

They remind us
you're not that great.

And yet, you are.

You're fabulous...

but you're not that great.

You're just human.

The clowns remind everybody
of their fragility.

They remind everybody
of their mortality,

with a laugh.

In response to the gloomy mood
of the country,

the clowns seemed
to have taken over at the circus

in the late 1930s.

Burdened by the heavy weight
of failure,

many underemployed Americans
were drawn to their antics.

Among the most popular
were tramp clowns,

who acted out the role
of sad and lonely misfits.

No one did that better
than Emmett Kelly,

a former cartoonist,

who first drew his hobo
character Weary Willie in 1920.

During the hard times,
his tramp clown act took off.

Emmett Kelly tramps
around the arena,

and acts in ways
that are very familiar

to circus audiences.

They recognized him

in the thousands of Americans
who are out of work.

And so this tramp
clown character,

Weary Willie,

sad, woebegone,

becomes a real signature
of this age.

Within a year
of John Ringling's death,

his nephew John Ringling North
was able to secure a loan

to wrest the circus
from its creditors.

With North in charge,

the show began rehearsals
in March 1938.

But forces sweeping the country

were conspiring
against the successful season.

As the economy had worsened,
Americans nationwide

had joined unions
to protect their jobs.

In 1937,
almost two million workers

had gone on strike.

Circus employees
would soon join them.

The American Federation
of Actors,

representing both performers
and labor,

had forced circus management
to agree to a wage increase.

When North took charge,
he refused to honor the deal.

After the circus arrived
in Scranton, Pennsylvania,

a pro-labor town,

union leaders called
a meeting of workers.

I knew there was going to be
a strike.

And I went over
to the silver wagon

and told John North
that there would be a strike.

"Oh, no, there won't.

Go back and start
selling tickets."

Which we did.

Then it was announced,
"There'll be no show."

Then all those people
came pouring out.

They were all mad and upset
and wanted their money back.

That wagon was actually shaking
a little bit.

I had an ice pick.

I said, "The first one
of you guys in the window

is going to have the ice pick
in you."

In the end,
the only agreement reached

was that workers could help
pack up the show

for the return
to winter quarters in Florida.

The first tour
under John Ringling North

ended four months early.

It had been a fiasco.

A turning point
had been reached,

because in this era
of unionization,

the circus strike marked
a departure

from an older era

in which circus workers were
extraordinarily expendable.

If you were injured on the job,
so be it.

That was too bad.

Working people
across the country

now demanded the kinds
of protections

that they deserved.

This made the operation
of the circus

increasingly expensive.

♪♪

North was determined that
his second season be a success.

When workers finally agreed
to work for reduced wages,

North tried to update
an entertainment

that had remained
essentially unchanged

for half a century.

Johnny North was very interested
in the circus.

It was his passion.

He understood the fact that
the circus was one and the same

for so many years,

and maybe there was other way
to approach that

if you looked at the theater,

if you looked at the movies.

North brings
in Norman Bel Geddes,

who is a well-known
industrial designer,

and who helps resurface
all of the presentations

of the circus.

And all of the painted props

and all of the pieces
are modernized,

color palettes are changed.

You get brighter,
more fluorescent colors.

And it's this idea

that the world has changed
and modernized,

and North wants to bring that
to the circus.

Perhaps inspired by
Walt Disney's movie Fantasia,

which featured dancing
pachyderms in pink slippers,

North commissioned
his own elephant ballet.

The nation's most distinguished
choreographer,

George Balanchine,

designed
the elephants' dance moves.

Composer Igor Stravinsky
wrote the music.

The thing that struck me most,
I can still see it,

are the elephant men,
big old burly elephant men,

strapping these pink tutus

around the hindquarters
of the elephants.

It was really sort of
a preposterous-looking thing.

It's one of the most

extraordinary
circus production ever,

and for me, I have a tenderness
for it.

Frankly, I believe it was bad.

But, you know,
John Ringling North did it.

You know, hats off.

Though old-timers hated
the aesthetic changes,

borrowing from Broadway
and Hollywood

seemed to help revive
the circus's fortunes.

The show frequently received
rave reviews.

"Although nothing new has been
added in the death-defying way,"

wrote one critic,

"the Greatest Show on Earth
is greater than ever this year.

"It is more colorful,
better costumed,

and better displayed
than ever before."

July 6, 1944,

we came to Hartford.

It was a brilliant, beautifully
clear sunshiny day,

hardly a cloud in the sky.

So, naturally, we had
a lot of people on the lot.

The show was underway.

The Alfred Court cat act
had just worked.

When the first flickering
fingers of flame,

they called it,

went shooting up

and everybody realized
there was a fire in the big top.

A tent weighs 12 tons.

The sides are now on fire,

and basically everybody's
inside of a giant furnace

that's igniting all around them.

They had those big cat tunnels
across the hippodrome track.

And people piled up
on those things.

And they got trapped in there.

The fire spread
with alarming speed.

As was traditional,

the tent had been treated
with a highly flammable mixture

of gasoline and paraffin

to keep it waterproof.

♪♪

Paraffin begins falling
like rain,

melting and incinerating
on its path downward.

Frantic people
jumped off bleachers.

Frantic parents came back
into the arena to find children

and were killed in the process.

We're in the dressing tent,
and then all of a sudden,

we become aware
of hearing other voices.

And it got louder and louder.

And somebody took the sidewall,

picked it up
as high as he could,

and we looked out,
and the whole tent was on fire.

In the horrible panic,

people were taking
these dead bodies

and dragging them to the doctor,

bringing them there,
and they were already dead.

My husband was standing there,

and this lady came

and handed him a little girl
who had been burned,

and she said, "Take her."

And my husband grabbed her

and went outside
and laid her down.

That little girl,
no one ever identified.

In less than 15 minutes,
the fire destroyed the big top.

It was over before you knew it.

I mean, it was over
in seconds, almost.

The whole tent was gone.

"How do you absorb this?

Where do we go from here?"

You know,
"Oh, my God, what happened?"

The shock
must have been terrible.

168 people had been killed.

Nearly 500
were seriously injured.

♪♪

Though no one knew for sure
how the blaze started,

investigations revealed

that the circus
had not fireproofed its big top

and that fire extinguishers
were not in place.

Many performers were convinced

the greatest tragedy
in big-top history

signaled the end
of the Ringling Brothers Circus.

My father turned to me,

and he said, "Jackie, I'm sorry,

"but I'm afraid you're going
to have a very short life

in circus business."

He didn't think that they'd ever
pull out of this.

♪♪

Within the big top,
as nowhere else on earth,

is to be found Actuality.

Living players play with living.

At positively every performance

Death Himself lurks,

glides, struts,

breathes, is.

E. E. Cummings.

In the circus performance,

there is always danger lurking,

and the audience perceives it.

And what circus performer do

is just to play this image
or this performance of danger.

The people who were watching
the performance...

Some of them rather hoped
that someone would fall.

It's not that if they had the
power to cause someone to fall,

they would have exercised it,

but they kind of hoped
someone would fall,

you know, that there'd be
a disaster.

And it happened.

A lot of people fall.

Some, it's not bad,
some got killed immediately.

You got to keep on working.

You can't let it interfere.

It's your job.

Your show must go on.

The hardest truth

ever uttered

is, "The show must go on."

In the face of terrible mishaps,
in the face of deep sorrow,

the show must go on,

because the fact
that life works that way, too.

The world doesn't stop
for your pain.

The Greatest Show on Earth
didn't fold.

After playing in stadiums
in 1944,

it opened
in Madison Square Garden

the following spring,

as it always had.

In the aftermath of the fire,

management tried to repair
the circus's public image,

pledging the show's
future profits

to compensate the many victims.

Still,
as the show took to the road,

the tragedy was
on everyone's mind.

And I know that my mother was
very worried,

worried about fire.

They had all these
"No Smoking" signs

lit up inside the big top,

and there were Atlanta firemen
there

with the fire trucks sitting

between the menagerie
and the big top.

To inspire public confidence

for the first performance
under canvas,

a fire marshal tested
the flameproof canvas

with matches
and a cigarette lighter.

By the end of the year,

Ringling publicists boasted

that their show was back
on track.

"The people of America,"
they declared,

"are not going to let go
of the circus

"any more than they are going
to relinquish pride

in the Pilgrim Fathers."

"Abe Lincoln
and Teddy Roosevelt,

"the first flight at Kitty Hawk;

"these things happened
and live in books.

But the Circus is still here."

That feeling of confidence
wouldn't last very long.

In some sense,

the American circus writes
its own ending.

At a certain point,
this idea of,

"You can always get bigger,
there's always more acts,

there's always more elephants,"

it runs out of places to go.

There's a certain kind
of exhaustion

that overtakes the industry.

By the early 1950s,

the future of circuses
nationwide looked grim.

Even the Ringling circus
was struggling.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum
and Bailey was still touring

with more than 1,000 people
traveling with the show.

It's insane.

You couldn't run
a traveling circus

the way you had.

Everything cost much more
than it had been.

The wages couldn't be the same.

It was a totally
different world.

With transportation costs
doubling over the last decade,

John had been forced
to cut the train down

to 70 cars from more than 100

and confine the tour
to 15,000 miles.

Even that wasn't enough
to make ends meet.

In the end, though,

it was
a groundbreaking innovation

that would bring a century
of circus tradition to a close.

In 1946, there had been
just 8,000 television sets

in the country.

By 1955,
half of American households

had a TV.

Television was running
old movies,

bringing them back.

There was television news,

television was giving us
football and sports,

where you could stay at home.

Here she comes!

Lo and behold, up comes
i Love Lucy in 1951.

In '52, she was a sensation.

You had all the variety acts
you could ever want to see

in your living room,

if you would sit there
on Sunday night.

Look at Ed Sullivan.

♪♪

There were your circus acts:

jugglers, wire acts,
animal acts, trapeze,

whatever Sullivan had.

In the spring of 1956,

a clash with the Teamsters Union
was the final straw.

North refused to sign a contract
with union leadership,

and pickets followed the show
on the road.

After a storm destroyed
the tent,

crews set up seats
in the open air.

At almost every stand,

crowds were thin
and shows were late.

By mid-July,

the operation was
one million dollars in the red.

North finally showed up
in Alliance, Ohio,

to take stock.

He was thoroughly disheartened.

John Ringling North
had to reflect

on everything
that had gone wrong.

His show was dingy,

a number of things
hadn't been repainted

from the season before.

John Ringling North
felt like this circus

was not the circus that
his family was meant to present.

Something had to change.

♪♪

On July 16, to the shock
of his staff and circus fans,

John Ringling North announced
that he was closing the show.

The big top would be raised
in Pittsburgh later that day

for one final
tented performance.

A slew of news reporters
documented

the last ever Ringling Brothers
and Barnum & Bailey performance

under canvas.

Then, in the early hours
of the morning,

circus staff packed
the big top away forever.

We have people that love circus
so much,

they'll travel everywhere
to follow the shows.

They're the ones
who was really heartbroken

that the tent
would not go up anymore.

I heard it, you know,
on the radio.

That was a bad and sad time.

I felt like part of my life
had ended.

That was one
of my raisons d'être.

Reason for being.

♪♪

That night, the circus began
the long trip to winter quarters

in Sarasota, Florida.

The New York Times called it
the big top's "funeral ride."

The iconic power
of the tented city,

spread over nine acres,

during the Gilded Age
and the years thereafter,

had taken hold
in the American imagination

to such a degree

that people around the country
viewed that form of circus

as the only circus.

♪♪

For more than a century,

the circus had brought
daily life to a standstill.

Shows took over rail yards.

Parades clogged Main Street.

Acres of billowing canvas
appeared, mirage-like,

on the outskirts of town.

And then, when day broke,
the miracle had vanished.

♪♪

Equestrians,
sideshow performers,

clowns, roustabouts,

an enormous collection
of curious beasts...

All became figments
of a glorious dream.

When the greatest show of all

could no longer perform
these annual rituals

or take this enchanted journey,

it was clear the circus
had lost its place

at the heart of American life.

♪♪

♪♪

You can see in the circus
both the good and the bad:

industrialization, immigration,

all the problems that
characterize American society

and then also make
American society move forward.

The circus captures
the American experience,

both in its exuberance,
its commercialism,

and really, its bigness.

♪♪

What makes America great
is our daring.

The whole experiment of America
is daring.

The circus was the artistic
testament to that spirit,

that spirit of innovation,

that spirit
of wild impossibilities.

We all love miracles.

And what we find out is,
they're simpler than we thought.

♪♪

The circus comes as close
to being the world in microcosm

as anything I know.

Its magic is universal
and complex.

Out of its wild disorder
comes order;

from its rank smell

rises the good aroma
of courage and daring;

out of its preliminary
shabbiness

comes the final splendor.

E.B. White.

Your whole body is like
you are welded into the circus.

You will dream of it,
because that was your life.

I'll never forget.

You are a performer,

and you stay a performer
till the day you die.

♪♪

Am I proud of being a Ringling?

I'm damn sure...
Pardon my French.

I'm not ashamed of it,
I can tell you that.

Yes, I feel pretty darn good
about it.

It was a defining part
of my life.

A part of my life
that now I can't go back to.

Careful now.

You're bringing...

You're going to see,
I'm getting choked up a little.

So I must have had it
in my gizzard here,

or somewhere.

♪♪

Yes.

It was a part of my life.

♪♪

♪♪