Word: circusmen
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Like many circusmen, Gebel-Williams grew up under the big top. Adopted by the owners of Germany's Circus Williams, he became general manager and star of the company in 1951. He married his stepsister, Jeannette Williams, divorced her and remarried in 1967. His skill with tigers extends to his handling of women: both the ex and the current wife work in his act, one in the center ring, the other in a side one. "They're both happy now," he says. "But I have to walk very carefully between them...
What killed the Big Show? Circusmen blame skyrocketing costs. Ringling last year paid a $500,000 railroad bill v. $150,000 in 1940. Downtown circus lots big enough for the 26,000-yard oval of the Big Top are either unavailable or exorbitantly expensive in most U.S. cities. For a business whose methods have changed little since its cheap-labor heyday, the cost of moving from town to town has become prohibitive. On top of that, today's children, surfeited with TV tinsel, no longer quicken to the real-life roar of lions, the aerialist's heart-stopping...
Fired by their pressagent's persistence, the circusmen pushed, shoved, squeezed and bedeviled the little elephant up the station steps and through the narrow doors of a monorail car that was already crowded with passengers. The car took off, soaring across the city and along the banks of the winding Wupper river. Tuffi screamed and began running wildly up & down inside. Then, with the courage of a Dumbo but without air-force ears, she plunged through the car door into open space. A few minutes later circus attendants rounded Tuffi up as she sprawled shocked but uninjured...
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