THE BALLOON MAN

Five Questions for Oct. 8, 2012: Bill Vaughn

 

from---pat cashin's clownalley.com
By Francine Grinnell
from:  troyrecord.com
October 08, 2012
Bill Vaughn, is a Clifton Park resident, clown and balloon artist. Although retired, he lived his childhood dream of working as a circus clown for my entire career.
Q Where did you work?
A I’ve worked a lot of circuses. Now I do entertaining, like creating balloon sculptures at local events.
Q How did you train to become a clown?
A Originally, I was a music major in college. I played alto saxophone and later switched to a soprano sax because it sounded more like a voice. It used to be that a part of a clown’s act was always musical in some way. I left a college for music to attend Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1968. It lasted for 10 weeks. Feld Entertainment started it that year to preserve the tradition and art form of clowning and to prepare their clowns to perform in their shows. Out of 6,500 applicants, 65 were accepted and 25 got contracts with Ringling Brothers. I was one of them. I toured with The Greatest Show On Earth and was constantly moving from town to town. Later, with the Shrine Circus in Indiana, we set up the circus in a town for three to four days and then took the next three to four days to travel in our own vehicles to the next stop. I spent my final five years as a clown in the last tent show circus, called Circus Vidbel, the Original Old Tyme Circus Under the Big Top. We moved every day and performed two shows a day. Sometimes the next town was 150 miles away. We had two semi-trailers, one truck and a concession wagon. In 1976, I went independent. Then I went back to Circus World, an amusement park south of Orlando, Fla.
read more:
http://troyrecord.com/articles/2012/10/08/news/doc506f12ee65424096747870.txt