Queen of the Air
Page 30
I was immediately exhilarated when, after so many years, I finally I finished the story. But I also felt a sadness, one that still abides. While engaged in research, I interviewed more than a hundred of the circus’s nomads, among them such legendary figures as Karl Wallenda, patriarch of the great and still-performing family of wire-walking daredevils; Merle Evans, bandmaster of the Ringling circus for about a half century; May Wirth, the dazzling, Australia-born equestrienne; and Victoria Codona, Alfredo’s sister and the princess of the high and low wires. All the troupers were retired and in their advanced years when I started my visits with them, and they are all gone now. How I wish they were still here to let me know if I got anywhere close to accurately describing their world.
My thanks go first to Eileen Cope, the agent who represented me in the sale of Queen to The Crown Publishing Group. At the time I contacted Eileen, she was with the Trident Media Group, LLC, and was still with that agency when she negotiated the sale. She has since started her own New York agency, MCM, Mark Creative Management. Whether in her phone calls or emails, Eileen tends to be stinting about giving out a lot of words—or so it has always seemed to me. She seems to value them at about a hundred dollars each. But she gave me three hundred dollars’ worth all at once after I wrote her a short letter, telling her of the Leitzel–Codona story. “This sounds fabulous,” she responded immediately. My heart soared. And what a glorious ride it has been since she agreed to represent the book.
I am equally adoring of Crown’s Jenna Ciongoli. She was acquisition editor for the book and then took on the role of its working editor. Jenna never gave me an impression that she was anything less than over the moon about my creation, and the suggestions she had for fine-tuning the narrative’s musicality—its idyllic passages as well as those that are more somber and grave—were so numerous that she could almost be credited as the book’s coauthor.
I am also indebted to another Crown editor, Domenica Alioto, who ably took over the stewardship of Queen during a short period while Jenna was on maternity leave. I am beholden, too, to the mighty triumvirate that Crown assembled to design a campaign to bring the book to attention in the marketplace. This team was made up of Dyana Messina, publicity manager; Julie Cepler, associate marketing director; and Danielle Crabtree, marketing department.
Queen of the Air benefited enormously from help that was provided by some of the world’s most distinguished circus scholars. First and foremost in the august group was a longtime friend, Fred Dahlinger, Jr., curator of the Circus History, John and Mable Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, Florida State University, and before that, director of the Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin. There may hardly be a movie or significant book on the circus of the last twenty or twenty-five years that does not have Fred’s handprints all over it. How many times did I call on him while producing this book? Any figure lower than fifty would be too low.
I would have been absolutely at a loss in writing about Europe’s late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century circus landscape had it not been for the considerable help I received from Dominique Jando, former associate artistic director of the Big Apple Circus and today the editor of Circopedia.org.
The book’s evocation of the early lives of Alfredo and Victoria Codona, when the brother and sister were touring Mexico with their father Edward’s tiny circus, would have been impossible to develop without help from Greg Parkinson. A former executive director of the Circus World Museum and now deputy director of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Greg generously turned over his files on the Codona family to me.
David Kinchen, once a colleague at the Milwaukee Sentinel and later a writer at the Los Angeles Times, also had a major role in the book’s development. He ferreted out numerous old newspaper stories that filled in blanks about Alfredo’s life and death in California, and also provided me with a place to stay while I carried out research in Long Beach and Los Angeles.
Also contributing importantly to Queen were Maureen Brunsdale, rare book and special collections librarian at the Milner Library at Illinois State University, one of the country’s richest repositories of circus reference materials; Peter Shrake, current director of the Circus World Museum’s library, along with a staffer there, Ralph Pierce; Fred Pfening III, editor and publisher of Bandwagon, the bimonthly journal of the Circus Historical Society; Prof. Vanessa Toulmin, director of the National Fairground Archive at Sheffield University, Sheffield, England; and Ole Simonsen, Copenhagen, vice president of Danish Circus Fans Association.
I must extend thanks, too, to Janet Bergstrom, professor of Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA. She is not a circus specialist, but rather a distinguished scholar of émigré film directors of the early twentieth century, among them F. W. Murnau. The book’s pages describing Alfredo’s part in the making of the now-vanished movie, 4 Devils, could not have been developed without the help Janet gave so freely.
Finally, but really firstly, too, I extend my gratitude and love to Rosemary Arakelian Jensen, my wife of nearly thirty years. It should be well more than enough for anyone to have a partner who is as loving and constantly encouraging as mine always is. But Rosemary has also always been a partaker in every important project I have undertaken in the past three decades, including the creation of Queen of the Air. She is a librarian by profession, and a marvel at carrying out difficult research work. She is also a master at indexing books, and, of course, carried out that work on this one. Finally, she is talented as an editor, one whose natural gifts in this regard have likely come to her through a long habit of devouring about one new book a week. Could any other writer be more blessed than I am? I have a live-in editor, one who is beautiful, and one who regularly spreads the table with divine Armenian dishes.
NOTES
PROLOGUE
The description of the circus’s appearance in Boston, along with many of the direct quotations, were drawn from a feature article on Leitzel that appeared on the front page of the Boston Sunday Herald’s Sunday Magazine Section of June 13, 1920. The article carried the byline of Janet Mabie, and, in fact, was based on a visit Mabie had with Leitzel in 1919 when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus appeared in Boston from April 14 through 19. Leitzel had saved the article in a scrapbook that came into the author’s possession, a gift from Leitzel’s late brother, Alfred G. Pelikan, of Milwaukee.
1 “How splendid you were tonight”: “How Folk Work and Live Under the Big Top,” Boston Sunday Herald, June 13, 1920.
2 “Look out for the mud:”: Ibid.
3 “Beautiful dreams for honorable little lady”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 1
Most of the descriptions presented in this chapter were related to the author by Alfred G. Pelikan, the son of Nellie Pelikan. Alfred was not a direct witness to the events described, but learned of them through Nellie. She lived the last several years of her life in his Milwaukee home. Alfred had a great interest in recording his family’s genealogy. He interviewed his mother at length about her girlhood in Breslau, Silesia, along with her travels as a child circus performer, first with her father’s show, Eduard Pelikan’s Family Circus, and then with the Willy Dosta Circus. Many earlier accounts published about Leitzel and Alfred identify their father as having been a “Hungarian army officer” with the name “Edward J. Eleonore,” whom Nellie supposedly married in Prague. These accounts are false. Both Leitzel and Alfred were fathered by Willy Dosta, the operator of the gypsy circus with which Nellie toured. At no time were Nellie and Dosta married to each other.
Alfred Pelikan was director of the Milwaukee Art Institute, a predecessor institution of the Milwaukee Art Museum, and also director of art education for the Milwaukee Public Schools. The author came to know him in 1976 while employed as an art critic and feature writer at the daily Milwaukee Sentinel. Because of the author’s fascination with circus performers, and especially with Leitzel, the big top’s greatest artist ever, he visited Alfred on numerous occasion
s in the late 1970s and early 1980s to interview him and pore over his large collection of family photographs, letters, scrapbooks, and other materials that came into his possession after the deaths of Leitzel and Nellie. Over time he presented the author with numerous items from his collection. He also gifted many items to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, an institution maintained by the Wisconsin Historical Society, which has the world’s largest archive of important circus research materials.
1 Nellie Pelikan was twelve: Copy of church birth record now maintained in Wroclaw, Poland, which, at the time of Nellie’s birth, was Breslau, Silesia, a part of the German Empire.
2 All of the author’s searches to find any published accounts of Willy Dosta or the Willy Dosta Circus failed. This does not seem unusual. Small, one-horse circuses of the kind Dosta operated were rarely recorded in the press. A partial copy of an article that appeared in London’s World Pictorial News identified Leitzel and Alfred’s father not as a Willy Dosta, but rather as “Willy Dehosta.” This variation may have resulted from a misspelling by the reporter who wrote the article. The article was in one of Leitzel’s scrapbooks, and was headlined “Romantic Search by a Circus Queen/Heroine of a Thousand Thrills, and Giant Scottish Father She Has Never Met.” Like many of the newspaper cuttings Leitzel saved, the date of the publication had been clipped away, presumably to accommodate the size of the scrapbook’s pages. The clipping’s content suggests the article was probably published sometime in December 1921, when Leitzel was in London, headlining Captain Bertram Mills’s International Circus and Christmas Fair.
3 Almost from the time: Frances Stover, “Aunt Tina Tells the Story of Little Pelikans of Circus Days,” Milwaukee Journal, June 1, 1939.
4 She had been an equestrienne: A. J. Leibling, “Here Comes the Clowns, profile of clown Bluch Landolf,” New Yorker, April 15, 1939, 25–26. Landolf was an uncle to Leitzel.
5 Often the nun: Alfred Pelikan.
6 “This will be your forever”: Ibid.
7 Once the circus came upon: Stover.
8 “I used to be able to throw down”: Pelikan.
9 “I’d like Nellie”: Ibid.
10 “No. No. No”: Ibid.
11 “Arghrr.… Arghrr … Arghrr.…”: Ibid.
12 A few months: Copy of Leitzel’s birth certificate, church record now maintained by Poland in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau, Silesia).
CHAPTER 2
1 “Oh, if any man could do”: Victoria Codona, Palm Springs, CA.
Interviewed by phone at her home in Palm Springs, CA, by author, October 2, 1976.
2 Edward arranged: Ibid.
3 Though the show had no printed programs: Letter to the author from Victoria, dated November 8, 1976.
4 The Buislays appeared: Parkinson, 11.
5 “I only wanted a home”: Parkinson. Recorded interview conducted by Marilyn Parkinson with Victoria at her Palm Springs home, February 1979, cited in Greg Parkinson’s “Poster Princess—Victoria Codona.”
6 By the time Alfredo: Phone interview with Victoria, October 8, 1976.
CHAPTER 3
1 Even though Eduard and Nellie: Alfred G. Pelikan.
2 She told Nellie: Ibid.
3 When Nellie moved to the wagon’s: Undated article from one of Leitzel’s scrapbooks, identified as being from a publication titled the News of the World, presumably the London newspaper. The article, which quotes both Nellie and Leitzel, is believed to have been printed sometime in December 1921 when Leitzel was engaged at the Bertram W. Mills International Circus and Christmas Fair, a show Mills presented annually at London’s Olympia for many years.
4 “My mother had been born”: Pelikan.
5 Possibly because his wife: True Story magazine article, quoting both Leitzel and her mother, circa 1921, p. 56, from a Leitzel scrapbook.
6 “His methods were so cruel”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 4
1 The man Julia admitted: Toni Rainat (née Pelikan). Letter received by Alfred Pelikan from his aunt, Christmastime, 1914.
2 White cuffs fastened with diamond: New York Times, August 2, 1914.
3 As imposing a figure: Ibid.
4 Prof. Edward J. Leamy, Mgr.: Leamy business card, author’s collection.
5 “The cross at his neck”: Rainat.
6 After taking a seat: Ibid.
7 The drawings: “Tricks of the Trapeze: How Aerialists Are Taught to Perform Graceful and Sensational Acts,” Dublin (Ireland) Telegraph, April 14, 1894, 1.
8 The inner part of its frame: E-mailed description of the trapezone rotaire to author from Dominique Jando, author, circus historian, and, for many years, associate director of the Big Apple Circus in New York City.
9 Eduard looked at Leamy: Rainat.
10 The trapezone rotaire was entirely Leamy’s invention: Dublin Telegraph.
11 “I was only months old”: Pelikan.
12 “Big clubs only develop”: Dublin Telegraph.
13 “The worst accident”: Ibid.
14 The Blackpool Tower also had something else: Willet.
15 Nellie and Emma dangled: Dublin Telegraph.
16 By and large, though: Ibid.
17 An agent representing Oscar Hammerstein: Sheen, 85.
18 Opening night at the Olympia: Ibid.
19 Nellie also sent home money: Pelikan.
20 “She was in the same classrooms”: Ibid.
21 “He was so good and generous”: Ibid.
22 “It was quite a scene”: Ibid.
23 “Someday it will be different”: Ibid.
24 “These get-togethers”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 5
1 “She has long, silky … hair”: Pelikan.
2 “Oh, and did I tell you”: Ibid.
3 “There’s no two people”: Ibid.
4 “It’s not her”: Ibid.
5 Nellie and Leamy lived: “Lillian Leitzel: Abolisher of Gravity,” Ekstra-Bladet, Copenhagen, Denmark, February 13, 1931. Translated by Ole Simonsen, Copenhagen.
6 Leamy had already rented: Pelikan.
7 “Stop! Stop!”: Ibid.
8 “Show off!”: Ibid.
9 “She was just having”: Ibid.
10 “I was circus crazy”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 6
1 It was May of 1902: Pelikan.
2 “There were Indians”: Ibid.
3 None in the quartet: Ibid.
4 Nellie was still in high dudgeon: Ibid.
5 Edward Leamy was beaming: Ibid.
CHAPTER 7
1 “Did you see her again”: Pelikan.
2 “She makes me feel so bad”: Ibid.
3 “You’re La Belle Nellie”: Ibid.
4 “The yearning that ever existed”: Cooper.
5 “He had a strict rule”: Pelikan.
6 “Oh, he was there”: Taylor, “Star I,” New Yorker, April 21, 56.
7 “The Wintergarten’s show”: Pelikan.
8 “They found the business in the hands of vagabonds”: Fox quoting Ade in A Ticket to the Circus, Bramhall House, New York, 1959, 107.
9 One sister piloted: Pfening Jr., “Sisters La Rague,” 20.
10 “He appeared to be analytically gauging”: Pelikan.
11 “My mother, sister, aunts, and I”: Ibid.
12 He so wanted: Ibid.
CHAPTER 8
1 Mister John had arrived … with every confidence: Phineas Taylor Barnum, born 1810, partnered in 1888 with James A. Bailey to create Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth.
2 “He watched those girls like a hawk”: Fellows, 229.
CHAPTER 9
1 Then, in an instant: Author’s phone interview with Victoria Codona, October 8, 1976.
2 “Papa couldn’t stop”: Ibid.
3 “Papa was a broken man”: Ibid.
4 Maybe their house: Ibid.
5 “Oh, did we awaken you?”: Ibid.
6 They started rummaging: Ibid
7 “Bonita, bonita”: Ibid.
8 “All
those years”: Ibid.
9 “The circus was the only life”: Ibid.
10 “We all believed”: Ibid.
11 Of all the daredevils: Accosta.
12 Edward, in a black tuxedo: Beekman.
13 One of these circuses: Parkinson, 11.
14 It was the largest circus: “Olympians of the Circus,” compiled by William Slout for Bandwagon online, Circus Historical Society.
15 So great was the tumult: “Big Show Coming: High Wire Queen One of the Features of the Show.” Lowell (MA) Sun, June 5, 1912, 12.
16 Among those on their feet: Ibid.
CHAPTER 10
1 After Leitzel descended: Victoria Codona.
2 “After seeing Leitzel”: Ibid.
3 “Alfredo was in love”: Ibid.
4 The position he had been given: Davis, 33.
5 An agent for the big show: Ibid.
6 “Give her the moon”: Ibid.
7 CAN OFFER YOU: Otto Ringling telegram, Victoria Codona collection.
8 “You would have thought”: Shives.
9 “For one thing”: Ibid.
10 Charley Ringling, who was in charge: Brann.
11 “Nothing is quite so frustrating”: Bradna, 14.
12 “Every town had a post office”: Brann.