The Last of the Wallendas

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CHAPTER ONE

The Circus Is Dying

Silhouetted through the window, the darkening sky is streaked with pink. It is twilight. Delilah Wallenda and her husband Terry Troffer sit with some other circus performers inside her modest L-shaped ranch home in Sarasota. Occasionally Delilah glances outside to the wire strung from one palm tree to another in the back yard. Next door to Delilah is her brother Tino, and not too far away are her mother and the winter headquarters of all the Wallendas. Her focus shifts back to the anxious faces in the room. They are waiting for the telephone to ring. It is silent.

"Bookings are trickling in much too slowly," Delilah sighs.

"I hate this time of year," Terry says wearily. The others nod in agreement.

For them April is indeed the cruelest month. While the world seems to be gearing up for the coming spring, the circus performers are gearing down for the worst year ever.

"Few, if any, job commitments for the summer have come in," Terry injects. "This bides bad news; no offers now means no work later in what is usually our busy season."

"I don't know if we can hold out till then. We have awfully slim reserves," Delilah wistfully adds.

"How's none," another voice pipes up. "The issue is no longer one of how profitable the summer will be but if we'll survive the season."

"This year is no better than last and in some ways it's even worse." Delilah glances at her husband worriedly.

"I know," Terry grows angry, moody. "What once was a profitable and enjoyable lifestyle has now become a nightmare. Circuses unfortunately are dying out in today's hightech, fast-paced world where many people prefer to sit at home in a La-Z-Boy and watch television rather than make the effort to get dressed and drive to a live performance; this is another reason for the demise of the business."

Ron Morris, author and circus concessionaire, shakes his head. "I've been in circuses all my life, and I've never seen it as bad as it is today. Live entertainment will never again be the same. Electronics are the culprit; they cause laziness in consumers who'd rather stay home and watch television or play electronic games. Because of costs, bit troupes, like Karl's, will no longer be in existence."

Evie Fossett, who does the sway pole and revolving moon acts and is known in the business as Miss Evelyn, agrees, "Circuses are dying. The promoters aren't interested in purchasing and boosting the good acts--all they want is to sell the concessions. They don't care what your act is, how you do it, or how much talent and practice it takes. They just want you to be cheap. Veterans like us only get called if promoters can't find the inexpensive and inferior acts. And to get any work, you have to be willing to travel all over America and to other countries. It's not a promising future."

Debbie Goetsch, a seventeen-year veteran who does a juggling gaucho act while her husband walks the tightwire, leans back in her chair and adds, "Producers keep trying to underbid each other, so no one ends up with a quality act. As a result, many foreigners get hired because they're willing to work for nothing just to get into the States. Quality professionals are offered the same money beginners get, so why should pros spend all that time trying to improve their act or even risk their lives if they're not appreciated? Producers sell audiences short, thinking spectators won't care what the quality of the act is or who the performers are, but I think spectators do care but just don't complain about it. A secret to staying alive in the business is to find outlets other than circuses. My husband and I are going the route of working cruise ships, which we enjoy because the pay and hours are good, and our overhead is almost nil. But in spite of the problems, I wouldn't change my lifestyle for a second. I'm a performer, an artist, and like all artists, I do what I do because I have to."

Manfred Duvall, a veteran of both American and European circuses, brings up still another concern. "American circuses, unlike their overseas counterparts, are hurting. In other countries the artists don't have the pressures that American performers do. For instance, the Russian state used to pay a salary to all their show people, plus expenses: traveling costs, costumes, living accommodations on the road and at home, cars, equipment, everything. Even the cost of hiring engineers to transport and set up the rigging was paid for by the state. But here in the United States, performers have to pay for everything themselves. That's the reason foreign performers are making it and American showmen aren't. It's the same reason circuses are dying in the States. Something has to be done."

Duvall spills over with stories about his experiences performing in Russia and other countries, such as the time he was on a cultural exchange program with the USSR where he was given a third-class hotel with no toilets, while Russians in America received the royal treatment. He adds, "In Russia, many people are starving, and yet its one hundred circuses, as well as its gymnastics schools and other institutions for training future circus performers, receive support. They even sponsor caretakers and vets on bear farms. But here in the United States, it's all a trainer can do to maintain his animals, and costs to keep them--feed, transport, maintain their health--borders on a fortune. Worse, the animal protection people in the States protest the use of wild animals as circus performers, so many trainers lose their animals and thus their income." Duvall sums up in his thick accent: "America, our big, rich country, allows its artists to starve, die out."

Everyone in the room nods. Delilah, too, sadly shakes her head, while again looking at the cable suspended outside. Manfred's words shake her, for she understands the circus's future is in jeopardy.

"What will I do?" asks Delilah. "My life has always been intertwined with what it means to be a famous Wallenda. I walk the wire because it's in my blood. It's what I do and what my mother Jenny and grandfather Karl did before me. Those who care as much as I do, must fight. The circus tradition is in its last frontier, but I won't give up. I have to preserve our heritage and our future."

CHAPTER TWO

The Family Tree

Delilah Wallenda's roots are deeply embedded in circus tradition. Her forefathers were jugglers, tumblers, and street itinerants.

Although the Wallendas proclaim German ancestry, their lineage really began in a Bavarian Bohemian town that through shifting European borders, came under the rule of Germany. As circuses became prominent in Europe, the Wallendas learned a variety of art forms in order to make a living in the business. They performed as robots, trapeze artists, dancers, and slackwire artists and trained a variety of animals, from Great Danes to seals, lions, and wolves.

Delilah's history is filled with great-great-grandfathers, great-great-grandmothers, great-great-uncles, and great aunts who served in the circus. The Wallendas raised their children to become performers. The precedent was set by Johannes Wallenda, who was a master acrobat. His son Karl the first, ran an arena while Karl's wife entertained with a seal act. Delilah's mother was the noted highwire artist Jenny Wallenda, but most famous of all, of course, was her grandfather, the man who trained Delilah--Karl Wallenda. Delilah says, "Everybody loved Vati, but he was strict when it came to training us to become circus performers. Then he was like a slave driver, always demanding from us perfection and absolute discipline to the art."

Karl Wallenda's name is still synonymous with the word "circus." As the most famous highwire walker who ever lived, he lived a life of which others only dream--a life filled with daring achievements, danger, and excitement. Moreover, he left the world a legacy of faith and courage.

But Karl's history, entangled in affairs, divorces, remarriages, and a tumultus circus life, reads like a hot, steamy novel.

Karl (referred to as "Karl the second" here) was born the second child of Englebert Wallenda and Kunigunde Jameson. Herman, the first child, was four years old, while Willie, the last child, was a year younger. Their mother, Kunigunde, had a tumultuous history herself, having had an Irish-whiskey drinking father who ended up disgracing his entire family, especially Kunigunde's mother. Karl's father, Englebert, was the only son born to Karl the first. Like the Wallendas before him, Karl the second took his place as a show-child in the newly turned twentieth-century, fifth-generation circus family. Karl's grandfather, Karl the first, ran an arena while his grandmother, Elsie, entertained with a seal act. Johannes had been the master acrobat who set the precedent for the rest of the family. His father was a flying trapezist and a sometimes-clown. From all this came Karl's romance with the circus and his love affair with the highwire.

Some claim that Karl's grandchildren--the Wallendas who perform today--are the eleventh generation of circus Wallendas; others assert they are only the sixth generation. Delilah was born into this generation, which still performs in circuses, and a few of this group who have children--Karl's great-grandchildren--are beginning to train on the wire. Most claim, though, that it will be unlikely, with most circuses in dire economic straits, for an eighth generation of Wallenda circus folks to exist.

The early twentieth century was a difficult time. While primitive health conditions gave rise to the deadly diphtheria bacteria, primitive emotions brought to the surface by hardship and poverty made for a difficult family life. This seemed especially true for the Wallendas. Karl like to give his father the benefit of the doubt by saying that Englebert's bad temper and infidelity were attributable to those years of illness and struggles, but in reality he knew his father was a mean man. Delilah Wallenda, Karl's granddaughter, offers, "Like my grandfather, I would like to think Great-grandfather Englebert was just a victim of the times, but down deep I realize he was just plain nasty. He beat my grandfather and walked out on his family."

Englebert's temper seems to have been widely known, as he seldom made an attempt to hide it. Karl described one incident as particularly traumatic for him. His father owned a small arena--a place that Karl loved to play in. Biding his time in the office wagon was another favorite activity; so he'd go into the wagon and entertain himself. He had been only four when Englebert came upon him in the office, playing with a stack of business papers that he, like any small child, managed to scatter all over the floor. Incensed with his son's carelessness, Englebert picked Karl up and hurled him through the rear door of the wagon, yelling and cursing all the while. Karl landed hard on his right side, damaging the nerves and tissues in his ear. He never regained hearing in that ear, and what little relationship Karl had with his father vanished that day.

Like Karl, Mama Kunigunde Wallenda had felt the brunt of Englebert's temper. She did her best to keep peace in the house so that her husband would not abuse her and the children, but when she caught him having an affair with the family maid, she ended their marriage. They divorced shortly after, in 1911, and Englebert's menage a trois became public. Stories abound about what actually happened to Karl's father through the years. Supposedly he remained a catcher in his trapeze act until he turned sixty. After that, no one is sure, but one story has him joining an African safari.

Husbandless, Mama did the best she could with her brood, but she ended up having to put six-year-old Karl and his younger brother Willy in a Catholic orphanage for a year while Karl's older brother, Herman, then ten, stayed with Mama Wallenda to work. To bring in money, Mama and Herman traveled with her mother's vaudeville business. At the end of their first year in the orphanage, Karl was sent back to live with Mama while Willy was made to live with his father Englebert, who incorporated Willy into his flying trapeze act.

Circuses in those years seldom stayed in one place; instead, they moved from town to town, setting up wherever they could get a permit to put on a show. Karl said that he attended over 160 different schools where he often was picked on by other kids. And if he wasn't in some fight, he sat in the classroom drawing pictures of circus life. Being in the circus always meant suffering the "new kid on the block" syndrome. Because traveling circuses moved by wagon in those days, he and his family were often confused with gypsies, which did not help his image at any new school. At age seven, Karl struggled to bring in money to help feed his mother and siblings. He ended up doing handstands on wobbling chairs and church steeples as a way to make money. He also entertained in beer gardens, when he was barely old enough to attend first grade. After such performances, he would "pass the hat" and watch as drinkers tossed coins into it; this was a major source of income for his family. Karl became adept at knowing what nights would be good ones and what nights would give him barely enough to feed himself and his family. In order to keep his acts fresh as he traveled from beer garden to beer garden, he constantly devised new acts or variations. He soon came to understand that variety in acts--especially daredevil ones--pleased crowds who were then more willing to part with a ruble or two and he needed this extra money badly. It allowed him to buy heating coal to warm his family on those frigid nights, although he often said a night of a hundred handstands at twenty or more beer gardens sometimes paid less than what a chunk of coal cost. Reflecting on his past to many including his granddaughter, Delilah, Karl said years later, "I don't know exactly when it was I changed from being a boy to a man."

Two years with her mother's circus were enough for Mama Wallenda. She quit and remarried, again to a circus performer. Her new husband, George Grotefant, was sixteen years younger than she and only ten years older than her son Herman. George had never been married before and wanted children. With him a whole new family was born.

From 1911 to 1916, the Wallendas endured hardships, especially during the war years, and Karl, it seemed, took the brunt of them. By 1915 George had served a year in the army, where he played coronet in the band, leaving Karl to again become the breadwinner at age ten; Herman, in the meanwhile, was living in a hotel elsewhere where he worked on an assembly line making munitions. Karl was not only responsible for himself and Willy, but now he had half-siblings--Arthur, four, and Gertrude, five--to take care of.

The year 1916 brought even greater tragedy. Hulde, a sweet cherubim of a baby, was born healthy only to soon contact diphtheria. Mama Kunigunde was near hysteria seeing her infant fading away, and on the night that Hulde's condition worsened, Karl rushed her to the hospital, running as fast as he could through freezing temperatures. The snow was a foot deep. He held the baby in his arms, close to his chest, hoping his body heat would keep her warm. He later told of the doom that enshrouded him as he nestled his baby sister against him, feeling the intense warmth from her burning his skin. She died in his arms.

However, life seemed to become a little better when George returned from the service and Herman returned from the munitions assembly line. The family decided, in spite of rough times, to set up their own circus, one they christened "Circus Wallenda."

"Circus Wallenda" consisted of Karl, 15, Herman, 19, George, 29, and Mama Kunigunde, who was around 45 years old at the time. Needing another hand, the Wallendas-Grotefants took on a fifth person--Lucie Marks, 19. The entire trope was multi-talented, performing theatrical sketches, circus tricks, and outlandish physical contortions, as well as setting up a band, with George playing the trumpet, Herman the tenor horn, and Karl on the drums. Perhaps because of his deafness in one ear or simply because he had the musical talent of a moose, the troupe, who loved Karl dearly, did all they could to out-maneuver his playing anything resembling music. Even though George Grotefant, Mama's new spouse, was not Karl's real father, he treated Mama's children as though they were his own. Karl described George as jolly, congenial, and an all-around circus artist and fixer-upper, a nice guy who couldn't for the life of him run a business with the help of ten elves, let alone by himself.

The Wallenda-Grotefant circus moved from town to town, staying wherever they were when the money ran out. From there, the men went elsewhere in search of other jobs. Often they bided their time by performing as clowns, or fill-ins--anything that would earn them some income. Sometimes, however, no circus work was available. Then drastic steps had to be taken to keep the family from starving. Karl ended up working in a coal mine until another circus booking came along; he despised every second he worked there.

During 1921, another difficult economic period, Karl and his family were again looking for jobs. He happened across a newspaper ad calling for someone who could do handstands. To him, this was a snap; he, after all, had gained experience doing handstands in beer gardens. Better still, this was circus work, meaning no more coal mines. Almost immediately he was en route to the city of Breslau to meet the man who put the advertisement in the paper.

The man who ran the ad, Louis Weitzman, was a huge, stubbly-faced, fortyish curmudgeon. The introductions were made and Weitzman, a cigar hanging from his mouth, looked at Karl and announced, "I want someone who can do a handstand."

Karl felt elated, but what Weitzman went on to say made Karl's heart palpitate.

"Not just any handstand," Weitzman added. "But one done on a highwire, on top of my feet while I do a handstand on the wire, sixty feet high in the air."

Karl's mouth flew open. The man had to be nuts! Surely no one had ever survived such a suicidal mission! Weitzman was insistent that it could be done, and Karl was just as insistent that it couldn't, but he finally decided to try, knowing that the family needed money so badly.

Describing the first time he went up on the highwire, Karl said, "I put my hand on Weitzman's shoulder and followed him out on the wire to somewhere in the middle. Then he did a headstand on the wire and I climbed on him to do a handstand on his feet."

After that Karl spent endless hours and weeks crossing a cable with a pole in his hand and Weitzman's voice in his good ear barking orders: "How many times must I tell you to get that pole higher!" or "Set your feet down harder on the wire!" and "Practice, Wallenda, practice!" In the end, Karl was the only person who successfully could do the trick, not only in Breslau but elsewhere with a wire strung across rivers, between buildings and over wide spans--anywhere Weitzman could think of that was a challenge with a kamikaze flavor.

This was the beginning of Karl's career as a skywalker.

Even with steady employment, Karl suffered from poverty, unable to afford his own room or buy himself something to eat other than wurst tzibble, a cheap type of German baloney. He had been reduced to eating so much of it that he swore that when he got a regular, sound-paying job, he would never touch the stuff again. To that end, Karl understood that he had to remain with Weitzman. He did his best to get along with Weitzman while learning the trade.

However, all was not smooth-running. The German impresario, who had just been released from a labor camp, was a gruff slave driver. In his act was a nineteen-year-old female performer named Margarita to whom Weitzman was especially insensitive and uncaring. Although he was sorry for her, Karl knew enough to keep his distance so that he wouldn't incur Weitzman's rage. However, Margarita was attracted to him and found ways to get him to notice her, setting up little traps for him to fall into. The naive Karl went stumbling into every one of them.

One morning when Weitzman wasn't around and Margarita knew Karl would appear as usual for breakfast, she donned a see-through cotton dress and opened the top buttons. She flirted and teased Karl with her stunning figure and flowing hair until Karl asked, "How about a little kiss, Margarita?" Margarita lifted her dress inches above her hips and went over and stood before Karl. Karl's chest thumped rapidly. But then Margarita broke into sobs and, pointing to her hips, cried, "Weitzman bit me! What are you going to do about it?"

Karl protested, saying he didn't want to get involved, didn't want to irk Weitzman and lose his job. He tried to leave, but Margarita leaped at him, hissing and kicking, pounding her fists on his chest. They were interrupted by Weitzman.

Not long after, when Weitzman was balancing Karl upside down on his feet, he snarled, "Listen, stay away from Margarita. If I see you talk to her just once, I'll shake you off the wire!" Eventually Weitzman let him alone, but the rift between the two men grew wide and deep.

It was around this time that Karl came across Princess Magneta--a theatrical act in the circus in which a presumably talented magician appeared to cause a young woman to levitate. Karl was attracted to the blond girl who seemed vulnerable, so he walked over to her. Feeling Karl's sympathy, she unburdened herself, telling Karl that her magician-boss was a slave driver and that she was unhappy. She explained who she was--Magdalena Schmidt--and that she was twenty-six, ten years older than Karl, and very lonely and depressed. Karl, who called her Lena, took her on walks in secluded spots, listened to her, and found both a friend and a mother in her. It was on one of these walks, hidden away from the barkers barking, people walking and talking, and cruel bosses ordering them around, that Lena indoctrinated Karl into manhood. It was his first experience. From then on, they secretly met whenever they could.

During this time, Karl noticed Margarita's expanding waistline, as had Weitzman. Unhappy with her pregnant condition, Weitzman made her take a leave from the act. He turned to Karl and asked: "What about that Magdalena friend of yours as a replacement?" Karl thought about it. Lena continued to hate her boss, so why not ask her? Lena willingly gave up her role as Princess Magneta and joined Weitzman and Karl in their act.

Lena proved herself competent on the wire and all seemed to be going well, but brooding behind the scenes Margarita had become angry and jealous of her replacement. She began badgering both Karl and Lena, day in and day out, until it became outright harassment. Finally, Karl and Lena quit the Weitzman troupe.

Copyright © 1993 Delilah Wallenda and Nan DeVincentis-Hayes. All rights reserved.