Big Top Boss: John Ringling North and the Circus

Excoriated by the press in 1956 for closing the Big Top--that is, circus acts in tents--North (1903-1985) has never received proper credit for his many contributions to the greatest show on earth. So argues Hammarstrom, author of Behind the Big Top and Those Ringlings , who here makes a strong case in favor of the man who moved the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus into the 20th century by commissioning work from the likes of Stravinsky and Balanchine, then hiring Norman Bel Geddes and John Murray Anderson, the reigning stage-design talents of their time. Besides adding ballet and Ziegfeld-style extravaganzas, North signed the best conventional acts, such as ``Bring 'em Back Alive'' Frank Buck and the Wallenda family of high-wire performers; he also hyped the disfigured gorilla Gargantua into a super-attraction. Beginning as a candy butcher in 1915, he worked for the family business until 1967, when he sold it after conquering litigious relatives and the challenge of TV, but not the unions and the collapse of the railroads. A very thorough biography. Photos. (Aug.)