Violette Medrano
Acrobat and dancer who starred in French cabaret from childhood and married into a circus family
VIOLETTE MEDRANO, who has died aged 91, was a leading dancer in European theatres, cabarets and circuses, and later the wife of one of France’s greatest circus directors.
Born Amelie Violette Schmidt on October 6 1926, she became a talented solo acrobatic dancer and made her Parisian debut at the Theatre du Petit-monde at the age of 10. She went on to star at the celebrated Parisian Chatelet Theatre and at 16 was working at the famous Tabarin nightclub when she was engaged to appear in the Chesterfollies 43 comedy show devised by Gilles Margaritis at the Cirque Medrano.
The Cirque Medrano in Pigalle was one of the most hallowed circus buildings in Paris, created as the Cirque Fernando in 1875 and renamed Cirque Medrano in 1897 when Geronimo Medrano – the clown “Boum Boum” – took over. It was the circus where the great Impressionist painters such as Degas, Seurat, Renoir and Toulouse-lautrec, and later Picasso, conceived some of their most memorable works. In his 1934 novel Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller mentioned the Cirque Medrano as one of the places he liked to visit.
Geronimo’s son Jerome took it over on attaining his majority in 1928, and apart from the Second World War, when it was taken over by the occupying Germans, he ran it successfully until 1963, when he was evicted by the leaseholders, the rival Bouglione family, who ran the equally successful Cirque d’hiver in the city. For a short time they ran it as Le Cirque de Montmartre, then as a Bavarian bier tavern before demolishing it in 1972 to build an ugly apartment block.
Under Jerome Medrano’s direction many of the world’s greatest circus artistes appeared at the Medrano, including the renowned flying trapeze act, the Codonas; the act led by the great Swiss clown, Grock; and the Cairolis, before Charlie Cairoli went to Blackpool in 1939.
Jerome Medrano mixed circus and music hall, adding the best elements of variety. From America he brought the Peters Sisters (singers) and the harmonica player Larry Adler, as well as the Scottish Royal Kiltie Juniors Band and Elroy the Armless Wonder. It was into this mix that Violette Schmidt found herself.
Medrano brought Violette back to his circus, as an adult now, announcing “La rentrée à Medrano de la plus gracieuse des grandes danseuses acrobatiques, Violette Schmidt”.
In the 1950s, Medrano engaged many leading comedians, including Buster Keaton, and in 1952, for Grock’s farewell appearance in France, Medrano chose Violette’s dance act as a prelude.
Jerome Medrano had been married to Rachel Baquet, scion of a wellknown French circus family, but was divorced in 1937. He married again in 1945, to Denise Baillard, but he and Violette fell in love when she came to see a show, and in 1954 she gave birth to their daughter, Francoise, Jerome Jnr following in 1956; Jerome Snr’s divorce eventually came through, and he and Violette married in 1958.
She became general director of the Medrano Circus, freshening up its overall style and introducing such innovations as having air freshener in the corridors and bar to mask the animal smells (a move which upset some purists). In 1960 she introduced the Cavalcade sur Glace, a circus on ice, including a group of polar bears presented by a young woman on skates in an arena-style aluminium cage lowered from the roof.
The circus was forced to close in 1963, however, after the Bouglione family took possession of the property, though its name lives on as a travelling circus under Raoul Gibault. The Medranos retired to Monte Carlo, where they were frequent visitors to Prince Rainier’s annual International Circus Festival.
Jerome Medrano died in 1998; Violette Medrano is survived by their son and daughter.
Violette Medrano, born October 6 1926, died July 23 2018