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Published: 8/7/2011 - Updated: 9 months ago

KELLY MILLER CIRCUS

Circus leader carries on Ringling tradition

BY ZOE GORMAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER

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MIDDLEFIELD, Ohio — John Ringling North II is the last circus man of his kind.

Clad in a blue plaid shirt, a cowboy hat, and boots, the 71-year-old strides out into the front of the circus ring and cracks his old bullwhip while the Spanish web and lyra aerial act sets up behind him.

He first learned to crack the whip as a boy growing up with his family’s circus, the legendary Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey. Mr. Ringling North spends about half of each year traveling in recreational vehicles with his own smaller circus — the Kelly Miller Circus — and attends every show twice a day. “They put the show on; the least I can do is watch it,” he said, as if he could not imagine a better way to spend four hours every day than watching the same performances time and again.

The Ringlings are true circus lovers, and the Ringling name has become synonymous with great American circuses. Ringling Bros, founded in 1884, created somewhat of a monopoly on American circuses when it merged with Barnum & Bailey, a circus promoted as “The Greatest Show on Earth,” in 1919 and purchased five circuses under American Circus in 1929. But the Ringling family had not owned a circus since it sold the operation to Irvin Feld in 1967.

Mr. Ringling North, who spent his childhood summers traveling with the circus, brought his family back to the business in 2006, when he purchased the Kelly Miller Circus, which is to make several stops in northwest Ohio this week. Mr. Ringling North’s father, Henry Ringling North, and uncle John Ringling North I were nephews of the founding Ringling Bros through their sister Ida, who married Mr. Ringling North II’s grandfather Harry North.

The third-generation Ringling knew he couldn’t stay away, and going back has been nostalgic. “[The Kelly Miller Circus] put me in a time warp,” Mr. Ringling North said, “and I went back to 1956 and the show under canvas.”

A circus childhood

Faced with labor troubles in 1956 that delayed and sometimes prevented the tent — the Big Top — from going up, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey decided to switch to performing in arenas. During the last tented show, Mr. Ringling North led the main parade inside the Big Top on a road king stallion. His uncle and namesake, John Ringling North I, was too upset to watch the show. Mr. Ringling North II, who compared playing a circus inside to spending a day in a supermarket, never liked arenas either.

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He grew up in Butler County, Pennsylvania, with his mother and stepfather. During his summers with Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey, alongside his father, Henry Ringling North, and uncle John Ringling North I, the younger Mr. Ringling North held a variety of roles. He played a kid clown, planned production numbers, worked in the office, drove the staff car, and served as general manager. He traveled with the circus by train around the Northeast and Midwest. Each fall, the circus would head to California, and the young Ringling North would return to school. “It’s every kid’s dream,” he said. “It made me feel great to be part of something all-American.”

He never left the circus far behind and used his background to carry out some well-calculated acts of mischief in school. His parents sent him to prep school rather than public high school. There were no girls, and Mr. Ringling North did not enjoy the experience. He hatched a plan that would utilize his circus training and get him what he wanted — a co-educational school free from the stringent rules of Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh and Kiskiminetas Springs School, now known as the Kiski School, in Saltsburg, Pa. “Well, I really wanted to go to high school, and I knew that if my parents could get annoyed enough, and I could get thrown out of enough [prep schools] they’d say ‘You’re going,’” he said. “I managed to get kicked out of three.”

Mr. Ringling North’s most prized prep school stunt was at Kiski, where he put his skills with a slingshot to the test. One of Ringling’s bareback performers, Justino Loyal, taught John to shoot pellets as a child. Today, Mr. Loyal’s great-nephew Armando manages the elephants at the Kelly Miller Circus.

“Justino taught me how to be deadly accurate,” Mr. Ringling North said. “So I took out about six windows in the top of the administration building.”

The school found the pellets and searched his dorm room. Upon discovering his slingshot, the administration told him he need not return to school.

Mr. Ringling North could not recall exactly how he managed to get kicked out of his first prep school, Shady Side Academy, but he said he thinks it had something to do with his bullwhip. “I think they had study hours or something, and I decided to go out in the hall to crack my bullwhip.”

In the end, he got his wish and was transferred to Evans City High School, a public high school in his home county.

He continued his circus antics during his one year at Centre College in Danville, Ky., where he was known as the “circus boy.” He would juggle empty wine bottles with his friends and crack straws out of their mouths with his bullwhip.

He taught the rolla bola, a rolling balancing board, to orphans on the weekends. He also would amuse the orphans and his college friends by juggling. Although he could only juggle four objects — hardly professional — his friends didn’t have the same standards as his family circus.

An empire’s decline

The Ringling family circus reached a peak in 1907 when it bought another popular circus, Barnum & Bailey, which the family ran separately until a merger in 1919. But during World War II, the circus began to take a downturn. Mr. Ringling North’s father and uncle owned a 51 percent controlling interest in the circus, but he said their cousins often threatened to sue when the brothers made decisions they did not like.

“They thought they knew how to run it better,” Mr. Ringling North said. “They didn’t.”

In 1944, the circus could not get fireproof tents because the material was a war priority unless the Ringling circus agreed to play in military bases. John Ringling North I agreed, but the cousins protested. He gave in and stopped using fireproof material.

On July 6, 1944, the Big Top erupted in flames during the performance in Hartford, Conn. Aided by the gasoline and paraffin solution used to waterproof the canvas, the flames quickly spread and blocked the exits, killing 168 — 68 of whom were 15 or younger. Nearly 500 others were injured.

Mr. Ringling North said he does not know to this day what caused the fire.

By 1967, he said, growing opposition from circus shareholders convinced his father and uncle to sell Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey. Living in Ireland at the time, Mr. Ringling North knew nothing of the decision. The press was the first to break the news to him when reporters called to ask him to confirm the circus had been sold.

“It was a done deal,” he said. “[My father and uncle] were delighted, but my uncle afterward was kind of lost. He used to write the music for the circus and dream up the production number, and he had no more circus. He was always planning how he could get it back, but he never did.”

Reviving a legacy

The Kelly Miller Circus has used some of John Ringling North I’s musical compositions, but the Ringling name went to the Feld family, which bought the circus and holds it to this day.

The Feld family threatened to sue Mr. Ringling North for advertising his circus with the words “John Ringling North presents the Kelly Miller Circus,” but the issue was resolved out of court. Mr. Ringling North was allowed to use his own name as long as it came below the circus’ name. The sign now reads “Kelly Miller Circus, John Ringling North Proprietor.”

Kelly Miller is not the only circus founded by the Miller family. In 1999 Mr. Ringling North’s friend Jim Royal invited him to the Miller-owned Carson and Barnes circus. The two had met in Ireland in 1985 while Mr. Royal was working for the Chipperfield’s Circus in England, and they visited each other frequently over the next 14 years. The pair often dreamed of putting on a Christmas circus show together.

Mr. Ringling North has lived in County Galloway, Ireland, since 1962, first in his father’s home and then in one he built himself. His family left Ireland during the potato famine of the 1840s and then returned.

Carson and Barnes was then a five-ring circus, but Mr. Royal told Mr. Ringling North that the Miller family’s one-ring circus, Kelly Miller, was more efficient and would be a better one to own. Too bad it would never be for sale.

Seven years later, Mr. Royal told Mr. Ringling North over dinner that he was shocked but the family was selling Kelly Miller. Mr. Ringling North said it took him only 15 minutes to decide to ask Mr. Royal to negotiate a sale. “I always dreamed that you would own the greatest show on Earth and I would be the ringmaster,” Mr. Ringling North recalled Jim Royal saying.

He asked Mr. Royal to join him as general manager.

Mr. Royal already held one of the most coveted jobs in the circus business — general manager for the Big Apple Circus — but he agreed.

“We need challenges in life,” Mr. Royal said. “This was a new challenge. I was very excited about the Ringling family going back into the circus business, and I knew I’d be working with John.”

Mr. Ringling North said he’s continued to invest his money in the Kelly Miller Circus, which is now breaking even.

Joining Mr. Ringling North at Kelly Miller is another old friend, Lucky Eddie Straefer, from college. Mr. Straefer was one of Mr. Ringling North’s more trusting collegiate friends, who allowed him to bullwhip small items out of his mouth; once the whip knocked his glasses off. Mr. Straefer left college to work as an elephant groom with Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey.

When Mr. Ringling North called Mr. Straefer to tell him he had just bought Kelly Miller and to jokingly asked him if he wanted his old job back, Mr. Straefer surprised his friend and joined the troupe as a drummer, but he said he would no longer shovel elephant poop.

“I’m getting to the age where if I’m going to do something I’d better do it now,” he said. “[My wife and I] sold our house and bought a trailer.”

Mr. Ringling North’s wife, Shirley, travels with her husband and the circus two months out of the year.

His two daughters, Katherine and Sorcha, worked as elephant riders and in managerial positions in the past. His son, John Ringling North III, lives in France and visits when possible.

‘A great thrill’

Kelly Miller Ringmaster John Moss III said he didn’t think twice about leaving his job as the box office treasurer for the Big Apple circus to work for Mr. Ringling North.

“It was a great thrill and honor to be the first ringmaster in decades to be able to say the word Ringling and have an actual Ringling in the audience as an owner of the circus,” Mr. Moss said.

Mr. Moss knows by heart the opening lines of The Circus Kings: Our Ringling Family Story by Mr. Ringling North II’s father, Henry Ringling North.

Mr. Royal, who does not come from a circus family, said he was first hooked on circuses when the book caught his eye while studying in the library as a child. He called working for the Ringling family “destiny.”

The book, which traces the history of America’s oldest circus family, has become somewhat of a circus Bible. It tells a story and sends a message the next generation relives through the Kelly Miller Circus.

“The circus is a jealous wench,” the book begins. “Indeed, that is an understatement. She is a ravening hag who sucks your vitality as a vampire drinks blood — who kills the brightest stars in her crown and who will allow no private life to those who serve her; wrecking their homes, ruining their bodies, and destroying the happiness of their loved ones by her insatiable demands. She is all these things, and yet, I love her as I love nothing else on earth.”

Contact Zoe Gorman at: zgorman@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.

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