Elizabeth Bauer-nock
Circus artiste who performed in a sensational sway pole act
ELIZABETH BAUERNOCK, who has died aged 80, was a sixth generation circus performer and a member of the dangerous and sensational high sway pole act, the Nerveless Nocks, which was featured in London by Tom Arnold’s Harringay Arena Circus in the winter of 1953-54.
The circus’s director Clem Butson had discovered the Nocks performing the act out of doors in a forest glade on a rainy day in Chiasso, Switzerland. He described “three swaying poles set at distances of about 20ft apart on a triangular base, the poles being 30 to 40ft high and of great flexibility.
“The three artistes, two brothers and sister Elizabeth, mounted the poles and in a light breeze stood erect and started to sway towards one another and away, making various patterns … then eventually changing poles in mid air. It was the zenith of forest youth and endurance.”
Butson booked them immediately for Harringay Arena and they arrived for the season with an assortment of poles from the forest. Working atop 70ft poles, they were billed as a “Swiss Stratospheric Sensation” and stole the show. Elizabeth also worked with her brother Charles in an unsupported ladder balance act, 60ft above ground.
Elizabeth Nock was born in Switzerland on August 11 1936 into the country’s oldest circus dynasty. The family circus had been founded in the early 1800s by itinerant high-wire walkers. Elizabeth and her siblings – four sisters and three brothers – all became talented circus artistes, her brother “Pio” Nock becoming internationally famous as a clown and high-wire walker.
On the strength of the Nerveless Nocks’ performances in London, the impresario John Ringling North gave them, unseen, a contract for the Greatest Show on Earth, and the family moved to the US, billed as “the Most Startling Importation in Circus History”, to join the Ringling Bros, Barnum and Bailey Circus.
They enjoyed great success in the US and were inducted into the Circus Hall of Fame and Sarasota’s Ring of Fame.
Elizabeth was married to Joseph Bauer, who came from another leading Swiss circus family, and he and Elizabeth created their own swaypole act, the Fearless Bauers, with their son Joe and daughter Lisa.
An account on the Bauers’ website describes a typical performance: “The Fearless Bauers – Joe, his lovely wife, Elizabeth, their beautiful daughter Lisa and 17-yearold son, Joe Jr – perform a series of stratospheric stunts which strain their flexible perches perilously close to the snapping point. They hang, swing and perform incredible handstands on steel poles which dip to angles of nearly 40 degrees in every direction.
“Highlighting their high pole dramatics is the treacherous ‘mid-air exchange’, where members of this lofty family cleverly and quickly swap positions without the benefit of any safety device or net. The climax of their maniacal minuet is a headfirst, 50 miles per hour ‘death plunge’ slide down the slender spears.”
Elizabeth also excelled in a solo trapeze act and a high-dive “Sponge-plunge” thrill act. Joe Bauer became a circus producer and booking agent; Joe Jr became a ringmaster and exponent of the “Wheel of Death”. Lisa also worked in a solo trapeze act and with animals.
The Bauers’ swaypole act came to England for the final Billy Smart’s Circus show on the BBC at Christmas 1977, and the following Christmas Elizabeth Bauer’s trapeze act was featured in the Billy Smart’s Circus show for Thames Television.
Elizabeth Bauer-nock is survived by her husband and by her son and two daughters.