One evening back in 1972 a young Ringling clown snuck up on ringmaster Harold Ronk, who was chatting affably with Rhubarb Bob, the assistant performance director, and clipped a large yellow balloon to the split of his red sequined tailcoat. The balloon waved languidly in the popcorn-scented air, promising a big laugh when Mr. Ronk strode out to begin the show with that celebrated phrase “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages . . . “ But before Ronk stepped out of the shadows the ever vigilant Charlie Baumann, performance director and tiger trainer, caught sight of the offending globe and hastily popped it with the tip of his glowing cigarette. This startled Ronk momentarily, but saved him from becoming a victim of clown alley’s penchant for japery.
Baumann then cast his eyes round about until they landed on me, innocently chewing a Van Holten’s Big Papa Dill Pickle. The glare he directed at me would have felled a lesser jester, but I merely waved at him with my briney cuke and sauntered back into clown alley to get ready for the opening number.
Ronk never inquired about this little incident; it was not in his nature to notice petty annoyances or be overborne by the vagaries of circus life. Like the Post Office, neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night could stay him from his appointed rounds of bombastic announcement and mellifluous song. He favored corny tunes, warbled in a treacly tenor, and with great conviction and enunciation. Forty-five years later I still catch myself humming his signature song: “This is the happiest place on earth to be; come be the happiest child on earth with me!”
Harold Ronk came from Peoria, Illinois. He took voice lessons as a child and began his singing career with Sig Romberg doing Viennese schmalz. According to his obituary in the New York Times, he thought he was auditioning for a Broadway play when he sang for John Murray Anderson, the Ringling Brothers producer. When he was offered the job of circus ringmaster he shrugged his shoulders and took it, saying “A stage is a stage.” He held that stage for 30 years.
Like Lou Jacobs and Merle Evans, Harold Ronk had become a copper-bottomed Circus Institution by the time I worked with him. He had, in a sense, tenure. He was part of the warp and woof of Ringling Brothers, and conducting the show without his Dudley Doright intonations was as unthinkable as giving arms to the Venus de Milo. It would be an artistic sacrilege.
But Ronk did not think of himself as irreplaceable. When my clown pal Tim Holst approached him early in the season to audition as his understudy, Ronk was not in the least bit offended that a lowly comic wanted the position. Holst had a rich tenor voice, and, more important, he had picked up a dinner jacket and tuxedo pants at a Goodwill Store. They smelled of mothballs and Lilac Vegetal, but they gave Holst a ready-made ringmaster look. Ronk heard him out, singing a few stanzas from Victor Herbert’s “Toyland.” Ronk gave him the position, making sure that Holst understood there was no extra pay involved; he also gifted him with a bright pink cumerbund from his own immense collection of waist wrappers.
After that, Ronk would occasionally inform Charlie Baumann that he felt a cold coming on and would not be in for the Saturday morning show -- let the understudy have a crack at it. And since Baumann, for all his high and mighty airs, was NOT a Circus Institution, he had to put up with Ronk’s desire to catch a few extra Z’s. But Baumann was not about to let a member of the clown alley lumpenproletariat flout circus dignity and tradition. On those special Saturday mornings, when the rest of the clowns would straggle into the alley around nine, blurry-eyed and blasphemous, Baumann would show up and crisply command Holst to come with him. He insisted that Holst dress as ringmaster in his own solitary dressing room, as befitted a member of circus royalty. But the red carpet was only rolled out on a temporary basis. As soon as Ronk showed up for the matinee performance, Holst was bounced from his private dressing room right back into clown alley. He didn’t mind. Anything to postpone putting on that cold, greasy makeup at nine in the morning was well worth it!
Ronk paid no attention to the clowns, either onstage or off. And he rarely socialized with anyone else on the show. His contract stipulated that he be provided with a hotel suite in every town we played; not for him the gritty train or a frowzy fifth-wheeler. Rhubarb Bob acted as his factotum, sharing in the luxurious lodgings and luncheons in return for taking care of his dry cleaning and acting as his social secretary. Whenever there was a Gilbert and Sullivan Society in town, Ronk could be found warbling renditions of “A Wandering Minstrel I” for their delectation.
Ronk was rather vain about his wavy chestnut hair. He rinsed it in apple cider vinegar each morning, then gave it one hundred strokes with a boar bristle brush. That’s what Holst told me after he had been invited up to Ronk’s suite one morning to go over some understudy notes. As Ronk aged he refused to let any silver strands loiter among the gold; he spent all his time between shows in his dressing room, having Rhubarb Bob pluck out any unwelcome reminders of advancing age one at a time.
My fondest memory of Harold Ronk is the night he introduced Merv Griffin as an honorary ringmaster to the crowd at the Anaheim Convention Center. Although Griffin came across as a folksy and genial talk show host on TV, when he was waiting backstage with the circus cast for his intro he managed to snarl at clowns, roustabouts, and showgirls in a very Equal Opportunity way -- treating everyone with the exact same disdain.
Ronk took Griffin by the arm and escorted him out into the spotlight. The band blared a few chords, and Ronk said “Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all ages -- we are proud this evening to introduce our honorary ringmaster . . . Mike Douglas!”
There were rousing cheers from the audience as Merv Griffin was handed the microphone. He managed to splutter a strangled greeting and then stalked off. Ronk, not knowing or not caring about the faux pas he had just committed, blithely carried on with his duties.
The questions of Jesus:
But what went ye out for to see?
I went unto a seminar, to seek the victory
Over all the awful things that come so oft to me.
But all I heard convinced me that the man upon the stage
Was helping no one but himself unto a handsome wage.
Past burning plains and torrents swift I passed in search of peace;
To gurus and mahatmas I plied questions without cease.
But all I got for my long trips to all these sages wise
Was that they scratched themselves and yawned like all the other guys.
At last I bowed my head to pray for guidance unalloyed
with greed or pride or anything with which these people toyed.
I did not travel from my room that day, but wisdom came
To me, as it will come to all -- by calling on God’s name.
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