‘The world’s greatest clown’ comes to town
A regular weekly look back at some offbeat or interesting stories that have appeared in the Citizen over its 175-year history.
News coverage of the arts and entertainment in Ottawa’s early days has often suffered from superlatives and hyperbole that might reasonably lead one to wonder whether show reviews were written by reporters or promoters. But the unnamed journalist who described a performance a century ago by Toto the Clown might well be forgiven his purple prose, for Toto was, at the time, considered by many to be “the world’s greatest clown.”
Born Armando Novello, Toto was the son of an Italian circus man and horse trainer, and a Swiss lion trainer, and, prior to emigrating to the United States from Europe, had performed for Czar Nicholas of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and England’s King George V. He had also starred in 16 silent comedy film shorts made by Hollywood producer Hal Roach, before breaking his contract in 1919 to return to the stage (Roach, incidentally, replaced him with Charlie Chaplin understudy Stan Laurel).
So Toto’s performances in May 1920 at the Dominion Theatre on Sparks Street, just west of Bank Street, were not nothing, as “his funny antics kept the audiences simply convulsed with laughter at the opening performances.
“He is all that had been said of him, and is, in fact, a whole show in himself,” noted a Citizen reviewer. “His work is all pantomime with the exception of a very funny laugh which is mirth provoking as his actions. As a contortionist and tumbler he does the most amazing things and the wonder is that he does not break his neck or twist himself into kinks. He has a number of splendid illusions such as falling on a dog and pulling out one of pancake size, losing his leg, twisting off a leg which he hands to his assistant, and other stunts that are all of the best.”
Burlesque was still popular in 1920, and some of the offerings then, including Toto’s Chocolate Soldier act, or Pistel and Johnson’s minstrels in blackface, have thankfully not stood the test of time or decency. But “champion walker” George N. Brown’s performance on two treadmills; Frank Marckley’s rendition of Carmen on banjo; and The Nagyeys fire-eating and -blowing show, the latter which “quite baffles those who see them,” helped create “an attractive bill.”
The Dominion Theatre burned down in October 1921. Toto died, almost blind and impoverished, in New York in December 1938, at the age of 50. He was buried along with a doll dressed in a red wig and clown clothes. bdeachman@postmedia.com