The inimitable Peter Pitofsky
On our 1981 honeymoon I took Amy to Ringling Brothers at the Salt Palace.
I was still blacklisted from performing with the show at the time, but my good
old pal Tim Holst, now the Assistant Performance Director, wangled two
front row seats for us. And that is where I first met Peter Pitofsky.
How he ever got to join the show as a clown is a matter of conjecture
and myth. Some say that one of the show elephants laid an egg and
Peter popped out of it, like Mork. Others insist that he was stranded,
left behind, during an unsuccessful invasion from Mars -- which would,
indeed, explain his unearthly abilities to moo like a bull in heat and spit
cherry pits into a tin cup at twenty feet. It was also claimed that he
could pull cotton candy out of his navel -- but I never saw that myself.
He never did learn to tell Earth time; always appearing either hours
early or the next day for any appointment he ever had.
What Peter told me, years later, when we were roommates while
working at Disneyland, is that he didn’t bother to send in an
application for the Ringling Clown College, since he is severely dyslexic,
but that when he heard about the place he bought a plane ticket to
Sarasota, and then hitchhiked down to Venice, to show up on the
doorstep, so to speak, like an orphan in a wicker basket. He was
told to go away, but instead camped out by the security gate, with
a hand printed sign hung around his neck with just one word on it:
“Pleez.”
Eventually they let him in and he became a sort of bete noire at the
Clown College. He was very active and antic at all times, but
absolutely unpredictable and untrainable. He had dozens of
strange, eccentric walks that in any other human being would have
pulverized the metatarsal bones into jelly. He fell down like a sack of
cement for no apparent reason, then bounded back up only to run
into a nearby pole or pillar or wall. Nobody wanted to work with him --
or rather, everyone wanted to work with him because he was so
brilliantly erratic; but they were afraid he’d steal their clown gag
from right under their noses.
So during the big audition show he was simply allowed to
wander around the arena at will, up into the audience, down
in the ring, doing anything he wanted. And that’s pretty much
what he did on the show, at least the night that Amy and I
saw him. Tim Holst had mischievously stuffed him full of
fabulous stories about my pre-blacklist antics in clown alley,
so that when I was pointed out to him in the front row he
simply stopped what he was doing to run over to me and
give me a lingering slobbery kiss along the side of my face.
Then he fell down into a salaaming position.
“Master!” he shrieked at me, much to the embarrassment of Amy.
“Get up, you loon, and go back to work!” I yelled cheerfully at him.
He leaped up and sped back into the ring, where he had been using
a large push broom to buff his nails. He kept coming back to our seats
that evening, offering me an empty popcorn box; trying to sit in Amy’s
lap and being vigorously pushed off; and parting my hair, looking for
fleas. I told Amy I wanted to treat him to dinner after the show.
She gave me a quizzical look and then burst out laughing,
saying “Okay, it’s your funeral!”
So that evening after the show Amy and I escorted Peter
over to the Big Boy restaurant, where he immediately ordered
french fries, nothing but french fries. When they came he stuck
several up his nose and then proceeded to use the rest like
Lincoln Logs, building a creditable miniature cabin on the
tablecloth. While Amy and I ate our salads, Peter
demanded bread, lots of bread, and plenty of butter.
When the wary waitress brought it he put a piece of
bread in the palm of his hand and began buttering it.
He didn’t stop with the bread, however -- he kept buttering
right up his arm to his shoulder, while the waitress stood
there goggle-eyed. When he had finished with all the butter
he turned to the waitress and asked sweetly:
“May I have some gravy, please?”
“Gravy?” the waitress quavered.
“Yes, gravy. I want to wash my hair.” he replied impatiently,
and then mooed like a bull.
I decided to intercede before Peter got us all thrown out on our ear.
“Just bring the gentleman a hamburger and a Coke” I told the
waitress firmly. “And ignore anything he says or does.”
Peter settled down somewhat after that outburst. He ate his
burger with complete docility -- but afterwards he couldn’t
resist going from booth to booth to see what other people
were eating, sometimes shaking his head and saying sotto voce
“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you” and then wandering quickly away,
leaving his victims choking on their chicken fried steak.
Amy and I were completely charmed by Peter’s comedic idiot savant
personality. Amy had to excuse herself several times to use the lady’s
room so she wouldn’t have an accident from stifling so many giggles.
I immediately fell into the Oliver Hardy/Bud Abbott role of fuming
straight man to Peter’s bizarre buffoonery.
“Stop that!” I growled at him, more than once. “Behave yourself
and talk sense!” We were kindred spirits, really; I could sense
when an outburst was coming, and what it was likely to be --
what I would do if I was Peter right then -- so I could check
his more egregious high jinx. We finished our meal with milk
shakes, and as soon as Peter had his in front of him I saw the mad
gleam in his eye and immediately said “Don’t even think of pouring
that into the front of your pants!”
“Not even a little bit?” he asked meekly.
“Not a drop.”
“Okay, you’re the boss of me here and I don’t wanna
be off on a bad thing which you would yell and scream at
me for an hour maybe . . . “ he replied, going into his Jerry Lewis
routine.
We parted that evening firm friends, although it would be
several years before I saw him again. In the meantime Amy
and I baked him chocolate chip cookies about once a month,
sending the package in care of Ringling Brothers to their office
in Washington D.C. When I finally did see Peter again he told me
our cookies always arrived smashed into crumbs, so he’d
put them in a bowl and then pour milk over them for his
breakfast. I think that was the sanest thing I ever knew him to do.
