There are many adjectives you can throw at Dougie Ashton that will stick like glue: Loud. Impressive. Funny. Irreverent. Accomplished. And resilient. He and I did not always see eye to eye when we worked together in clown alley at Ringling Brothers, but he always had my respect -- and now that the years have softened me up and cut me down to size, he also has my affection.
Dougie’s first words to me when I arrived at the Ringling Winter Quarters for rehearsals some fifty odd years ago are engraved in my adamantine memory as:
“Another newbie, eh? Don’t let ‘em get you down, kid! Buck ‘em all, mate -- that’s what I sez!”
(It should be noted that never once in his life has Dougie actually used the word ‘buck;’ the actual Anglo-Saxon verb he said so frequently and with so much relish is not part of my writer’s vocabulary -- but you know what it is!)
Dougie did a Tramp, or Character, makeup which was heavily influenced by Chaplin. He even used a bamboo cane in his act. His bushy mustache -- a Colonel Blimp embellishment that Dougie cultivated each morning with Morgan’s Mustache and Beard Cream -- was a sandy brown; he simply blackened the middle part, rouged his cheeks, and blacked his eyebrows. When taxed about his meager makeup compared to the rest of clown alley’s thick blanket of greasepaint he merely snorted that he was NOT a clown, mate, but a comedian -- he didn’t need to hide his comic features, but display them in all their risible glory. He wore baggy pants and a threadbare purple coat that appeared to be a Goodwill reject. A bowler hat, of course. He cut holes into his knee-length black socks and wore oversize hiking shoes he claimed were issued by the Australian military.
Dougie was excellent at standard acrobatics and an accomplished Risley artist. His trumpet playing could wake the dead -- and he often kindly played it full blast first thing Saturday morning in clown alley to awaken those who had overindulged the night before. His backflips, which he called ‘108’s,’ were inimitable -- graceful and forceful at the same time.
Always friendly to the First of Mays, in a general sort of way, Dougie did not have the patience to teach us anything from his large bag of comedy tricks. Having grown up with his family’s circus in Australia, he had plenty of performing skills and insights -- but his standard line when asked for some help by a newbie was “Ya gotta learn it yerself, mate. Watch and learn, watch and learn -- that’s how me dad had me learn it.”
And that’s what led to a contretemps with Performance Director Charlie Baumann one afternoon in clown alley, much to the gawking amazement of the other clowns. In Clown College we newbies had been assured by Bill Ballantine, the Dean of the school, that owner Irvin Feld himself had mandated that every veteran clown still on the show would tutor us in the arcane science of laugh-snatching whenever we asked for their help. And they all did. Swede Johnson, Prince Paul, Mark Anthony -- I had but to ask them for a suggestion on how to fix a prop or get a bigger laugh and they would work with me one-on-one. But not Dougie. He was above that kind of thing. And when Baumann reminded him, in his heavy Teutonic way, in front of clown alley, that he was under orders from Mr. Feld to help the new clowns -- well, Dougie went slightly ballistic.
“Am I a bloody school teacher to these fruit loops?” he angrily shot back at Charlie. “They got college educations, the stinking lot of them -- let ‘em teach themselves! I got no time to babysit amateurs.”
Baumann did not equivocate with anyone on the show, least of all a lowly denizen of clown alley. He began to remonstrate strongly with Dougie, reminding him his contract specifically stated that he had to teach the new clowns. But Dougie did not know how to back down, and so he interrupted Baumann with a rather unique suggestion as to what he could do with the bucking contract. As Baumann turned beet red at such unexampled Meuterei, Dougie picked up his horn, his hat, and his cane, and stormed out, yelling that he was headed back to Melbourne rather than put up with any more bull dust.
So that was it, I thought -- the great Dougie Ashton quits! And, indeed, he was gone for two whole days. The Bulgarian baggage smashers came and took his trunk away. There was talk that two of the newbies, Rubber Neck and Anchor Face, would get his suite on the train.
But then on the third day Dougie’s trunk was once again back in the alley. And Dougie himself strolled in just before come in to put on his lightweight makeup.
“I thought you quit, didn’t you?” I had to ask him.
“You’re barmy, mate. Never did no such thing. I’m a perfessional, see? I don’t pull stunts like that. Never have. Not sporting to take a header in the middle of the season.”
“But you told Charlie . . .” I started to say. Dougie cut me off.
“Charlie’s a square dinkum sort. No problems with him. We know each other years back. He unnerstands me and I unnerstands him. Got it? Now shut yer gob, newbie.”
Finished with his makeup, Dougie strolled out of the alley playing “As the Saints Come Marching In” on his trumpet.
I scratched my head. It didn’t make sense. But by then I was learning that in clown alley you should never take what a clown, or a comedian, says at face value. Or, as my Grandma Daisy used to say about the world in general -- “They’re very tempermental; about ten percent temper and ninety percent mental!”
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