In the Shadow of the Big Top: The Life of Ringling’s Unlikely Circus Savior

In this high-flying account, Brunsdale (The Bloomington-Normal Circus Legacy) tells the story of Art Concello (1911–2001), a trapeze artist who became a key behind-the-scenes player for the Ringling Bros. circus. Brunsdale starts with Concello’s early days as a “rascally” truant in Bloomington, Ill., where at age 11 he came under the tutelage of a trainer who helped him get his start in a traveling trapeze troupe. In 1927, he met Antoinette Comeau, an orphan who had been on track to become a nun until she ran away to join her sister performing in the same troupe. As Concello taught Comeau how to become an acrobat, the two fell in love and formed a trapeze act, the Flying Concellos, eventually joining Ringling Bros. Brunsdale chronicles how Concello, eager to make more money, moved into circus management and became a first-rate wheeler-dealer who oversaw Ringling’s transition from big tents to indoor arenas and advised director Cecil B. DeMille on the 1952 Oscar winner The Greatest Show on Earth. The story crackles with spectacle and danger (Brunsdale recounts Antoinette’s sister’s horrifying fall after she slipped during a trick), though the workmanlike prose somewhat tempers the excitement. Still, this intimate look at circus life during its heyday should speak to big top fanatics. Photos. (May)