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The Autobiography of a Clown
The Autobiography of a Clown by Isaac Frederick Marcosson
When the article on which this little book is based appeared in the Saturday Evening Post we were amazed at the response it evoked. It simply proved that all the world loves a clown. In most of the comment and communication, however, there was a question as to the authenticity of the subject. I beg to say that Jules is a real personage and still the nimble producer of many laughs.
It was while writing a series of articles on an entirely different phase of the circus that I first met Jules. I heard of him the moment I stepped into the circus world. So thoroughly had he impressed his personality; so deeply had he become attached to its life, and so profoundly had he gained the respect of its people, that not to have heard of him argued that I was deaf and blind to everything about me. I found him the friend, philosopher, and guide of the nomadic city of tents that rose with the dawn and slipped away into the night. Despite its transiency, there was much permanency of character in its varied inhabitants. No one contributed more to its moral structure than Jules, the clown.
We who live in this breathless era are wont to look upon the circus as a temporary amusement makeshift. It is here to-day and gone to-morrow. Yet behind its spangled, tinseled array and restless movement are real traditions. Why has the circus endured in an age that craves new diversion? Simply because it is basic; because it fills a fundamental need; because it is a staple like wheat. Laughter is one of the few eternal things; therefore the circus which produces it takes on something of the same quality. More than this, the circus is as much an expression of art as the drama. Like art, it is universal. The clown being a world citizen interprets a world humor in which there is neither border line, race, nor creed. Most of the great humorists have been sad men, and thus the clown, clothed in his right mind, is grave and reflective. Though he wear cap and bells, he has not wanted for recognition among the great. Garrick, Kemble, and Booth have been glad to claim him as fellow-artists. But it is in the heart of the child that he has found his most grateful friend, and in a larger sense all the world is a child when it goes to the circus.
In my work I have had to be, on many occasions, the biographer of the great and the chronicler of much timely achievement. In all this swift march of people and events I have yet to meet a man whose devotion to the ideals of his art is more sincere than that which has animated Jules Turnour through the long years of his clowning. I have been with him in the tumult of tented travel and watched him in the roofed arena before the multitudes. Always I have found him proud to be a clown. To know him has indeed been a liberal education in character and loyalty.
When the article on which this little book is based appeared in the Saturday Evening Post we were amazed at the response it evoked. It simply proved that all the world loves a clown. In most of the comment and communication, however, there was a question as to the authenticity of the subject. I beg to say that Jules is a real personage and still the nimble producer of many laughs.
It was while writing a series of articles on an entirely different phase of the circus that I first met Jules. I heard of him the moment I stepped into the circus world. So thoroughly had he impressed his personality; so deeply had he become attached to its life, and so profoundly had he gained the respect of its people, that not to have heard of him argued that I was deaf and blind to everything about me. I found him the friend, philosopher, and guide of the nomadic city of tents that rose with the dawn and slipped away into the night. Despite its transiency, there was much permanency of character in its varied inhabitants. No one contributed more to its moral structure than Jules, the clown.
We who live in this breathless era are wont to look upon the circus as a temporary amusement makeshift. It is here to-day and gone to-morrow. Yet behind its spangled, tinseled array and restless movement are real traditions. Why has the circus endured in an age that craves new diversion? Simply because it is basic; because it fills a fundamental need; because it is a staple like wheat. Laughter is one of the few eternal things; therefore the circus which produces it takes on something of the same quality. More than this, the circus is as much an expression of art as the drama. Like art, it is universal. The clown being a world citizen interprets a world humor in which there is neither border line, race, nor creed. Most of the great humorists have been sad men, and thus the clown, clothed in his right mind, is grave and reflective. Though he wear cap and bells, he has not wanted for recognition among the great. Garrick, Kemble, and Booth have been glad to claim him as fellow-artists. But it is in the heart of the child that he has found his most grateful friend, and in a larger sense all the world is a child when it goes to the circus.
In my work I have had to be, on many occasions, the biographer of the great and the chronicler of much timely achievement. In all this swift march of people and events I have yet to meet a man whose devotion to the ideals of his art is more sincere than that which has animated Jules Turnour through the long years of his clowning. I have been with him in the tumult of tented travel and watched him in the roofed arena before the multitudes. Always I have found him proud to be a clown. To know him has indeed been a liberal education in character and loyalty.
- GenresBiography
60 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1910
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 21, 2016
Written in 1909, this book shares the life story of Jules Turnour, a professional clown who at the time was still performing with the Ringling Brothers circus.
In seven short chapters we meet the man behind the makeup and I for one was impressed. The author states in his preface that "I have yet to meet a man whose devotion to the ideals of his art is more sincere than that which has animated Jules Turnour through the long years of his clowning. I have been with him in the tumult of tented travel and watched him in the roofed arena before the multitudes. Always I have found him proud to be a clown. To know him has indeed been a liberal education in character and loyalty."
Jules has his parents to 'blame' for his career. His mother was a dancer, his father a dancer/acrobat. They performed in pantomimes until his mother became 'too stout' for such work. That is when they bought a small circus and traveled through Europe. Jules was born in a circus wagon while the show was in Spain.
I had visions of him growing up with his family's circus but the reality was quite different and would be considered shocking in these more 'civilized' days. But in the mid-1800's there were other rules. Mom was the manager of the growing circus and when Jules was little more than a toddler, it was decided she had no time to care for him so he was sent to relatives in Portugal, where he stayed until he was six.
Then his father arrived to take him to London. Why? "It is, or was, part of the old unwritten French circus law, that as soon as a child was strong enough to stand on his hands he must be put out to work." Jules went to London to be apprenticed to a family of acrobats. The apprenticeship lasted 10 years, and was brutal work for him. He learned how to be a contortionist mainly by having two of the other acrobats bend him back and forth!
After his ten years were over, he paired up with another newly released performer from Germany and they became so popular they worked at one time in four different theaters on the same day. But it all came at a severe price. The overwork broke his health: he spent three years in and out of hospital, and when he was feeling better he found he could no longer perform his contorsions. He was old and broken at age twenty....what could he do with his life after that?
The answer came from a small circus he joined as a balancer, doing the most basic acrobatic tricks. They were in North Africa when he began to feel the same physical pains that had put him in hospital before. So the ringmaster suggested he become a clown, and the rest is history.
Jules traveled the world (there is a great story about how a sword swallower in the troupe once saved everyone's lives in the wild mountains of Mexico), eventually settling in the United States. He was part of the American circus world when they were still using wagons to get from town to town, and said that when trains began to be used he did not like them nearly as much.
He shares his philosophy about clowning and a bit of its history, some details about his private life that reveal the man as well as the clown, and overall comes across as a person who had the strength of character needed to accept and make a success of a life that was not always popcorn and cotton candy. I admire anyone who can do that.
I would think anyone interested in circus life or clowning would appreciate this story of Jules Turnour, and I was very happy to have learned about him.
In seven short chapters we meet the man behind the makeup and I for one was impressed. The author states in his preface that "I have yet to meet a man whose devotion to the ideals of his art is more sincere than that which has animated Jules Turnour through the long years of his clowning. I have been with him in the tumult of tented travel and watched him in the roofed arena before the multitudes. Always I have found him proud to be a clown. To know him has indeed been a liberal education in character and loyalty."
Jules has his parents to 'blame' for his career. His mother was a dancer, his father a dancer/acrobat. They performed in pantomimes until his mother became 'too stout' for such work. That is when they bought a small circus and traveled through Europe. Jules was born in a circus wagon while the show was in Spain.
I had visions of him growing up with his family's circus but the reality was quite different and would be considered shocking in these more 'civilized' days. But in the mid-1800's there were other rules. Mom was the manager of the growing circus and when Jules was little more than a toddler, it was decided she had no time to care for him so he was sent to relatives in Portugal, where he stayed until he was six.
Then his father arrived to take him to London. Why? "It is, or was, part of the old unwritten French circus law, that as soon as a child was strong enough to stand on his hands he must be put out to work." Jules went to London to be apprenticed to a family of acrobats. The apprenticeship lasted 10 years, and was brutal work for him. He learned how to be a contortionist mainly by having two of the other acrobats bend him back and forth!
After his ten years were over, he paired up with another newly released performer from Germany and they became so popular they worked at one time in four different theaters on the same day. But it all came at a severe price. The overwork broke his health: he spent three years in and out of hospital, and when he was feeling better he found he could no longer perform his contorsions. He was old and broken at age twenty....what could he do with his life after that?
The answer came from a small circus he joined as a balancer, doing the most basic acrobatic tricks. They were in North Africa when he began to feel the same physical pains that had put him in hospital before. So the ringmaster suggested he become a clown, and the rest is history.
Jules traveled the world (there is a great story about how a sword swallower in the troupe once saved everyone's lives in the wild mountains of Mexico), eventually settling in the United States. He was part of the American circus world when they were still using wagons to get from town to town, and said that when trains began to be used he did not like them nearly as much.
He shares his philosophy about clowning and a bit of its history, some details about his private life that reveal the man as well as the clown, and overall comes across as a person who had the strength of character needed to accept and make a success of a life that was not always popcorn and cotton candy. I admire anyone who can do that.
I would think anyone interested in circus life or clowning would appreciate this story of Jules Turnour, and I was very happy to have learned about him.
March 7, 2025
Without a doubt the best autobiography I have ever read. A touching look at a life lived in the circus, written when he was around the age of 60 by someone who truly loved the clowning profession. Hilarious anecdotes meet sad ones, with a lovely set of photographs included.
"Take the slap-stick, the bladder, and the fumiy fall, and you have the clown's sole stock in trade for decades. Unless I am much mistaken, they will remain so for an- other hundred years."
It's 110 years since this was published, and I'm proud to say, he was correct.
(Some mentions of minstrel shows in a couple of paragraphs which didn't age well, but very brief, if uncomfortable)
Available for free: https://archive.org/details/autobiogr...
"Take the slap-stick, the bladder, and the fumiy fall, and you have the clown's sole stock in trade for decades. Unless I am much mistaken, they will remain so for an- other hundred years."
It's 110 years since this was published, and I'm proud to say, he was correct.
(Some mentions of minstrel shows in a couple of paragraphs which didn't age well, but very brief, if uncomfortable)
Available for free: https://archive.org/details/autobiogr...
July 17, 2023
Very sweet article
July 18, 2023
More like an article, than an autobiography yet fulfilling. Sheds some light in the mysteries of circus and clown life. Good for easy going reading
December 30, 2025
No one should be surprised to hear that my friend, Tori, was the one to find this book. Last weekend, we both agreed to read it and report back within a week or two what we thought. Honestly, I can say that this was a pretty decent read. At the very least, it was informative and better than one might expect from an early 20th-century text about clown history. In fact, most would arguably find the author's words rather profound in many cases.
The only element I found irritating was the author's brief prescription of different racial groups as "rude" throughout his travels. However, this would have definitely been more common at the time, and these remarks were few and far between. There were no slurs or anything to my recollection, and to his credit, the author also seems to applaud some performers throughout history that might have been different than him. I think Marcosson just needed a thwack on the head so he could stop overgeneralizing, especially because I do believe he also qualifies his white audience as rude at least once. In other words, his comments on this front seem more observational (and perhaps culturally misinformed) in nature than purposely offensive.
Aside from this factor, I learned of the seriousness with which clowns treat their performances and the intensive stretching and training that goes into being born in a circus family. My eyes opened wide with the scandal of the woman who eloped and had a family back in Canada, and I was impressed at the end when I read that Marcosson was still performing at around sixty years old. However, above it all, I could not help but compare his comments about clowns making people laugh while suffering internally to modern commentary about folks like Robin Williams. It seems as though this facet of humanity has remained consistent over time.
This is a very short nonfiction book that you might as well read if you are looking for something different. I felt like I benefitted from reading it, particularly because I learned new things about a profession popularized through media.
The only element I found irritating was the author's brief prescription of different racial groups as "rude" throughout his travels. However, this would have definitely been more common at the time, and these remarks were few and far between. There were no slurs or anything to my recollection, and to his credit, the author also seems to applaud some performers throughout history that might have been different than him. I think Marcosson just needed a thwack on the head so he could stop overgeneralizing, especially because I do believe he also qualifies his white audience as rude at least once. In other words, his comments on this front seem more observational (and perhaps culturally misinformed) in nature than purposely offensive.
Aside from this factor, I learned of the seriousness with which clowns treat their performances and the intensive stretching and training that goes into being born in a circus family. My eyes opened wide with the scandal of the woman who eloped and had a family back in Canada, and I was impressed at the end when I read that Marcosson was still performing at around sixty years old. However, above it all, I could not help but compare his comments about clowns making people laugh while suffering internally to modern commentary about folks like Robin Williams. It seems as though this facet of humanity has remained consistent over time.
This is a very short nonfiction book that you might as well read if you are looking for something different. I felt like I benefitted from reading it, particularly because I learned new things about a profession popularized through media.
August 1, 2014
Once in a while you just need to read a far-out book that stretches the boundaries of what you normally read. This is what I chose to step outside my comfort zone. Alas, I found it mildly interesting. It's great if you want to get to know a vocational clown from the early 20th century, and especially their self-perception.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews