"Water for Elephants" and my world of circuses

Sara Gruen's superb novel "Water for Elephants" has rekindled my interest in the circus.

Her gritty Depression-era tale follows a nearly bankrupt circus along the rails as it plays one small Midwestern town after another. It's a different world . . . of high flying performers, roustabouts and shady management, each with different roles, customs and language. The story's lead is a young veterinarian who joins the troupe (a First of May in circus vernacular) and finds love, trouble and tent loads of adventure along the way.   

My first encounter with the circus in the mid-1950s was just as exciting to an eight-year-old. The billowing canvas big top. The smell of sawdust. The distinctive sound of circus music. Clowns. The glitter and parade of animals. Sensory overload. I'd never seen anything like it.

It was the Clyde Beatty Circus and the tents and menagerie took up almost an entire vacant city block in downtown Los Angeles. We had arrived there -- nine of us -- packed tight as could be in Dad's '53 Chevy station wagon.

I remember the string of agile gray elephants. What really sticks in my mind 54 years later, though, is that pith-helmeted lion tamer with cane chair in one hand and bullwhip in the other, keeping those big cats at bay -- and jumping through a ring of fire on command. I was mesmerized watching him through the tall bars in the center ring, my attention broken only by the crack of his pistol shot into the air . . . a warning to some misbehaving lion.

I've attended about a dozen circuses since . . . from Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey "extravaganzas" in auditoriums to the smaller, intimate tent shows of Circus Vargas and Carson-Barnes.  My favorite memories: seeing the legendary Gunther Gebel-Williams and his trained tigers, laughing at those little cars filled with clowns, and being in the front row under the Circus Vargas big top -- so close to the action that the performers -- human and animal alike -- seemed just beyond arms reach. What a thrill.

Although less compelling than the book, there's the movie "Water for Elephants," with fine cinematography that captures the sawdust and greasepaint of a 1930s traveling circus.

Note: The photo montage above is taken from an 8mm movie I filmed in 1975 on the Circus Vargas grounds in Torrance, Calif.