The harlequin character of the commedia dell’ arte, began life in the Middle Ages as a figure of the Devil. The sinister is an inherent element in clowning: even the most innocent of circus clowns makes his grease paint mouth a diabolical leer…
No clown can be exclusively one thing or another, butt or knave, oaf or acrobat, ninny or fox, innocent or evil, for then he would cease being a clown and become merely a character.Some sinister clowns are beautifully dressed; and thus, Chaplin, the greatest clown of the twentieth century, got kicked but kicked back,moved with wondrous grace yet shuffled in outsized shoes, stole hot dogs from street vendors and shy glances at fair maidens, and sported a dandy’s walking stick as well as baggy trousers.
—1947: Marcel Marceau creates Bip, his world-famous striped-shirt mime. Marceau performed around the world, and taught L’art du silence at the mime school he established in Paris.
1968 – Ringling Brothers Circus establishes its clown college in Venice, Fla. Tuition was free for the 13-week course that teaches juggling, acrobatics, pantomime, make-up application and stilt walking. One later, infamous alumnus of the school: Steve-O from Jackass.
1969: Wavy Gravy, the peace activist clown, gets his name from B.B. King at the Texas International Pop Festival. He decides he is less likely to be arrested at demonstrations if he is dressed as a clown, because “clowns are safe,” he said.—click image for source…
The clown embodies the central truth that there is no such predictable being as “Man” but only a plurality of men, that every definition of man is false. It is because the possible combinations of oaf and dancer, dolt and fox, dupe and dupester, glutton and swain, are infinite that no two clowns- like no two men- are never exactly alike, although each and everyone plays the fool.
—Achille Zavatta (May 6, 1915 – November 16, 1993) was a French clown, artist and circus operator. Achille Zavatta was born in La Goulette, Tunisia, the son of Federico Zavatta, a circus owner. He started performing in his family’s circus show at the age of three, forming with his brothers Michel and Rolph, the Zavatta Trio. He became famous for his skills as a pantomime. He committed suicide and died in 1993
Read more at http://www.ranker.com/review/achille-zavatta/395877#5lDIV4fAgxoKgtVG.99
A clown, in the end, has only one fixed attribute, his indestructibility. He never learns, he never changes,he is irredeemably what he is, a fool. He wreaks havoc and brings down the roof, but he survives. How is it that one fool is so often able to escape common folly? Because- and this, too, is the lesson of the clown- there is no such thing as the common folly; there are only individual fools…
—In his immense new work of scholarship*, Professor Hilton Park traces the etymological roots of all the key service stations, and offers us detailed histories of the great men and women after whom they are named.
Take Gordano, for instance. To many people, the Gordano service station, situated on the M5 at Junction 19, and also accessible to traffic on the A369, is just another convenient place to fill up with petrol and stretch one’s legs. But in his day, the original Gordano, after whom it is named, was probably the most famous clown in the West of England.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1383606/Did-clown-M5-Your-guide-motorway-service-stations.html#ixzz2H74OMSxp
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