Wheeler
the
CLOWN
Presents
A
CLOWN
Biography:
Wheeler
the
CLOWN
Presents
A
CLOWN
Biography:
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"Weary Willie" |
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| 1898 | Emmett "Weary Willie" Kelly Sr. was born in Sedan, Kansas. His given name was Emmett Leo Kelly. | |||||
| 1904 | Emmett received the first spanking he could remember, for climbing a telephone pole and sitting on the crossbeam until his terrified mother and neighbors got him to climb halfway back down so that he could be "rescued." According to Emmett Sr. (in his autobiography, Clown), the pole was much higher than the tent in which he later performed his first aerial act. | |||||
| 1917 | Emmett left home to live in Kansas City, where he worked a variety of jobs for the next year or so. | |||||
| 1918 | Emmett Sr. took a job painting carnival kewpie dolls for Western Show Property Exchange. He earned six cents for smaller dolls and eight cents for larger ones. The next year he painted dolls that had balls thrown at them on the midway. | |||||
| 1919 |  Emmett
Sr. began purchasing props for
his planned chalk talk stage act, including designing an easel out then
hiring a plumber to build an it out of brass. Also that year, he entered
an amateur theatre contest and won first prize ($3). He used the prize
money to purchase a used trapeze bar and crane from the new owner of the
Western Show Property exchange, Doc Grubbs. Also that year, Emmett Sr. went
to work for his first show, Zieger's United Shows, painting the merry-go-round.
Later he was put in charge of a sideshow act called Spidora. Emmett
Sr. left the show after discovering a louse on his neck one
day. |
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| 1920 |  A talented
cartoonist, Emmett Sr. went to work for Adv. Film Company, and
first sketched a sad tramp
clown who would
become his beloved Weary Willie character. According to
one source he created the character for a bread commercial. In his autobiography,
Emmett Sr. himself says that at the time he saw himself either as a trapeze
artist or a cartoonist, and had no idea that he would someday be a full-time
circus
clown. the
time he was working for the Adfilm Company (Note: the company
also employed Walt Disney at the time.) |
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| 1922 | Emmett Kelly Sr. joined his first circus, Howe's London Circus, doing various artistic odd jobs, like painting kewpie dolls and circus wagons. | |||||
| 1923 |
  Emmett Kelly Sr. married Eva
Moore, and teamed with the Moore sisters in their aerialist act (in
addition to working part-time as a
clown). |
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| 1924 | Emmett Sr. and Eva Kelly had their first child, future clown Emmett Jr. He was born on the closing day of the John Robinson Circus. | |||||
 Emmett
Sr. attempted to introduce his Weary Willie
character (left) to the
circus public that year. The boss
clown turned
him down, saying that Weary Willie was "too dirty" for the show, so
Emmett Sr. had to continue to perform in whiteface.
(right) |
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| 1932 |
 Emmett Sr. began to
tour nightclubs, using both his talents as a
clown
and an artist to give chalk talks as Weary
Willie. |
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| 1933 | Emmett
Sr. first performed in the circus as the tramp
clown character
Weary Willie, at
the the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus.
By proving how popular his character was and how Weary
Willie enhanced other acts, he was allowed to stay in costume and
character throughout the circus performance, even to mix with serious acts
(i.e. hanging wash on the slack wire and being chased out of the ring,
etc.). |
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1935 |
 Emmett Sr. and Eva were divorced,
in large part over Emmett's preference for
clowning
over their aerialist act. They each took custody of one of their two sons;
Emmett Jr. becoming the responsibility of his father. (Due to the nomadic
life of a circus performer, Emmett Jr. lived most of his school years with
Emmett Sr.'s parents.) Eva later would marry another
clown,
and Emmett Sr.'s best friend, JoJo Lewis. |
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| 1937 | Emmett
"Weary Willie"
Kelly, Sr.
appeared at the New York Hippodrome.
Audiences loved the silent tramp
clown. |
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| 1940 |  Eva Moore Kelly, remarried . Her new
husband was Emmett's best friend,
clown
JoJo
Lewis. (pictures courtesy of Joey
Kelly, Emmett's grandson) |
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| 1941 | Emmett Kelly
Sr. joined Ringling
Brothers and Barnum & Baily Circus.
He had turned down offers to join this circus
on two other
 occasions. After proving that the audience
would love it, he became one of the only
clowns allowed
to remain in a single character and costume throughout the show and allowed
to wander through the audience and to interrupt other circus acts with
his comic routines (with certain agreed upon exceptions according to Emmett
in his autobiography
Clown).
In fact, several performers requested Emmett's "interruptions" because they
felt it enhanced their acts. |
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| 1944 | Emmett Sr.
remarried. His new wife was
eighteen year old Mildred Richey, an understudy in one of the other
circus acts. Mildred left him in less than a year. |
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| The Big Top caught fire
during a matinee performance of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum
& Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut,
resulting in 167 deaths (mostly
women and children) and over 487 injuries; many of the deaths and injuries
were caused by being trampled by the panicked crowd. A picture taken of
Weary Willie (Emmett Kelly Sr.) carrying a water bucket appeared
in newspapers throughout the world, and led to locals calling the tragic
Hartford Fire the Day the
Clowns
Cried.
(click here to read a more detailed
account including information provided in part by the daughter of one
of the nurses of the injured and dying) |
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| 1949 | In Sarasota, Florida, Cecil B. DeMille began production
of the film The
 Greatest Show on Earth, featuring
real circus performers and acts from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum
& Bailey Circus. Emmett Sr. was a featured actor in the
movie, having one silent act and one spoken line. ("What?
Parade?") |
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| 1951 | Emmett, Sr.
co-starred as the villian in the movie The Fat Man, playing
Ed Deets, a murderer hiding behind a
clown face.
He refused to stain the image of his Weary Willie
character with such a role, so the producers allowed
him to play the part as a whiteface
clown
(left). |
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| 1952 | Cecil
B. Demille's circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth, in
which Emmett Sr. was a featured circus performer, was
 released to theatres and won the coveted Academy
award
for best picture
that year. The epic
co-starred
Jimmy Stewart as Buttons the
Clown. |
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| 1956 | Emmett Sr. left the circus
to work as the mascot of baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers, still as his
Weary Willie character. His departure was at least in part
due to support of a union strike of the circus's non performing personnel.
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| 1957 | Emmett Sr. went to work for
the Shrine Circus, as his now famous Weary Willie
character. |
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| 1960 |  Emmett Kelly Jr. first performed
as a
clown, in the
Circus Festival in Peru, Indiana, also as Weary Willie.
Some sources say it was with Dad's blessing, but according to most reports,
Emmett Sr. did not approve; he felt
too close of a bond with the character he had created. |
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| 1978 |
Emmett
"Weary Willie" Kelly
Sr.
retired from circus life. |
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| 1979 | Emmett "Weary Willie"
Kelly
Sr.
died in Sarasota, Florida. He died in classic
"Weary Willie" style, suffering a heart attack while taking out the
trash. |
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| 1989 | Emmett "Weary Willie" Kelly,
Sr.was among the first group of
Clown
Hall of Fame inductees. He and fellow tramp Otto Griebling
had died before being given that honor and
sadly commenting on his deceased friends
and fellow inductees, Lou Jacobs said, "It looks like I'm the Last Of The
Mohicans." |
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| 1994 |  Clown
and aerialist Emmett "Weary Willie" Kelly,
Sr. was posthumously inducted into the Circus Hall of
Fame. |
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