Word: showman
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DIED. John Ringling North, 81, flamboyant, fast-talking showman who from 1937 to '43 and from 1947 to '67 ran "The Greatest Show on Earth," the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, started by his five uncles in 1884; of a stroke; in Brussels. North took over the debt-spangled show after the death of his last uncle, John Ringling, and modernized it with such attractions as Gargantua the Great, the "vehemently vicious" 550-lb. gorilla that drew more than 40 million circusgoers. In 1956, North folded the big top and reincarnated the show for new arenas...
...Religious history books will be talking about Schuller 100 years from now," contends Religious Historian Dennis Voskuil. The question, Voskuil says, is whether he will be remembered as a theologian or a showman. Like his early model, Positive Thinker Norman Vincent Peale, Schuller combines an affirmative outlook with old-fashioned piety to assure his audiences that self-esteem and success are desirable and achievable. During an hour that sometimes resembles a celebrity talk show, Schuller speaks earnestly of the abiding desire for self-worth, of "every person's deepest need--one's spiritual hunger for glory." Schuller attempts to assuage...
...stage-frightened and spellbinding. The dramatic contours of his gaunt face seek the shadows, where his most pounding, powerful songs (Psycho Killer, Burning Down the House) take form. The other band members, who appear to have been born on this planet, are along to provide white noise for the Showman from Outer Space as he surfaces in a big white suit or leads his troupe in odd calisthenics that turn into a Walpurgisnacht boogie. This ain't no party; this ain't no disco; this ain't no foolin' around...
Chutzpah, one might say, but it comes naturally to McGowan. The son of a railroad union organizer in the coal country of eastern Pennsylvania, he worked his way through college, attended Harvard Business School on the G.I. Bill, then went to work for Mike Todd, the Broadway and Hollywood showman. McGowan subsequently launched several firms in electronics and computers, retired rich at 39 and took a trip around the world. Bored, he moved into the field of venture capital. That was how he discovered a nearly bankrupt little company that was trying to start microwave phone service between Chicago...
Torrijos, who had wrested power from the ruling Arias family in 1968, was a showman, a strongman and a dreamer, an irresistible combination for Greene. The general was also a friend of Tito's, an admirer of Gabriel GarcÍa Márquez's novels and a lover of numerous mistresses. "How could one fail," writes Greene with pointed sincerity, "to like this man?" The general had remained in power be cause of what Greene acknowledges was "a streak of cynical wisdom." Torrijos liked to announce, "I don't want to enter into history. I want...