Bruno Stutz
Superbly dignified Swiss white-face clown who toured Europe for half a century in the Chickys
BRUNO STUTZ, who has died aged 77, was one of the bestknown clowns in Europe and a member of the Chickys troupe. Elegant, white-faced and resplendent in a sequin-studded costume, over a career spanning half a century he played, for many years, the dignified foil to his cousin’s loveable and bumbling “Auguste” clown (typically with battered bowler hat, baggy trousers and red nose), whose horseplay mainly involved puncturing Stutz’s composure.
Bruno Stutz was born in Geneva on August 21 1938 and was barely out of his teens when he joined the Chickys, the clown act established by his cousin Eugen Altenburger.
It was to be a lifetime partnership in which they enjoyed a relationship so close that both understood and reacted to each other’s personalities, performing a wide variety of traditional clown routines and becoming renowned for their interpretation of the Broken Mirror sketch, as well as a number of other acts.
Stutz and Altenburger initially worked as a trio with Roland Brunisholz, but when, in 1962, Stutz met the Belgian tightrope walker Patricia de Jonghe (he later married her), she replaced the second Auguste of the team, and for the next 47 years the three of them toured the world as the Chickys.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the troupe toured circuses across Scandinavia and Germany, achieving their ambition, in 1963, to appear in Switzerland’s National Circus of Knie, to which they returned triumphantly in 1974 and 1975.
Between 1965 and 1970 they toured with Circus Krone, Europe’s largest travelling circus, and in 1981 they toured South Africa with the BoswellWilkie Circus, returning to Europe in 1982 to Switzerland’s Circus Nock.
They were in constant demand across the continent and during the winter seasons had star billing at the Krone circus building in Munich and at winter circuses in Manchester, Glasgow, Vienna, Madrid and numerous other cities. They also appeared at the International Circus Festival of Monte Carlo for Prince Rainier and at private shows in the Prince’s Palace of Monaco.
The Chickys first worked in Britain in the winter season of 1961/2. In 1984 they travelled to London to record a television appearance on The Paul
Daniels Magic Show.
The troupe’s final appearance was a protracted run of several years with Germany’s Circus Krone, but during their final years Altenburger suffered from heart problems and the Italian clown Jimmy Folce deputised for him to appear alongside Stutz.
Their act ended in January 2004, when Altenburger gave a farewell performance in the sawdust ring in Munich, before retiring to Geneva. Stutz, however, did not retire and at the age of 66 began a solo career as the featured white-face clown for the Netherlands’ National Circus, working with the Dutch clowns Milko and Frenky before finally retiring after being diagnosed with cancer.
Throughout his career, Stutz, like many other great white-face clowns of the genre, had his sumptuous sequinned and beaded costumes created by the Parisian family atelier Vicaire, which also supplied the great cabarets and spectacles of Europe such as the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergère in Paris.
The Vicaire family had been designing costumes for white-faced clowns since 1931 and when Gerard Vicaire, the son of the original designer, retired in 2001, some 20 white-faced clowns, including Stutz, paraded through the Parisian streets in their costumes in honour of the man who had gilded their careers.
Stutz enjoyed painting – his favourite subjects were clowns – and although he played a serious clown in the ring, in private he was an ebullient man and a great prankster.
He is survived by his wife Patricia and their son, Serge Percelly, a juggler who has performed with some of the finest circuses in Europe.
Bruno Stutz, born August 21 1938, died September 11 2015