Con Colleano - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Con Colleano was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n tightrope walker

Tightrope walking

Tightrope walking is the art of walking along a thin wire or rope, usually at a great height. One or more artists performs in front of an audience or as a publicity stunt...

who was the first person to successfully attempt a forward somersault on a tightrope and became one of the most celebrated and highly-paid circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

performers of his time. He was known as "The Wizard of the Wire" or "The Toreador of the Wire".

He was born Cornelius Sullivan in Lismore, New South Wales

Lismore, New South Wales

Lismore is a subtropical town in northeastern New South Wales, Australia. Lismore is the main population centre in the City of Lismore local government area. Lismore is a regional centre in the Northern Rivers region of the State.-History:...

, the son of an Irish man and a woman of indigenous

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

descent whose father was of African heritage from St Thomas

Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

Saint Thomas is an island in the Caribbean Sea and with the islands of Saint John, Saint Croix, and Water Island a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. Located on the island is the territorial capital and port of...

in the West Indies.

The Early Years in Australia

Colleano was the third of 10 children of his parents: his father (reportedly a freed convict) made a precarious living from sideshow

Sideshow

In America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair or other such attraction.- Types of attractions :There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions:...

"take-on-all-comers" boxing and gambling. Around 1907, when Colleano was 7 years of age, the family settled in Lightning Ridge, New South Wales

Lightning Ridge, New South Wales

Lightning Ridge is a town in north-western New South Wales, Australia, in Walgett Shire, near the southern border of Queensland. The Lightning Ridge area is a world epicentre of the mining of black opals and other opal gemstones. Lightning Ridge has the largest known deposits of black opals in the...

then a newly-established opal

Opal

Opal is an amorphous form of silica related to quartz, a mineraloid form, not a mineral. 3% to 21% of the total weight is water, but the content is usually between 6% to 10%. It is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock, being most...

mining field and a fertile ground for the father's talents. Here Colleano received a rudimentary education and learnt circus skills from the sideshows present in the town.

By 1910 those of the family of sufficient age had formed a small circus troupe the "Collinos" (apparently as an Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

-sounding name befitting the "sable

Sable (heraldry)

In heraldry, sable is the tincture black, and belongs to the class of dark tinctures, called "colours". In engravings and line drawings, it is sometimes depicted as a region of crossed horizontal and vertical lines or else marked with sa. as an abbreviation.The name derives from the black fur of...

" complexion of the children). They travelled through New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

and supplemented their income by working for the major travelling circuses of the time. By 1918 the now "Colleano's All-Star Circus" (with more of Con's siblings) was sufficiently established to travel through Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

on their own hired train.
The children became known as "The Royal Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

an Troupe".

In 1919 Con managed to achieve the foot-to-foot forward somersault he had been attempting for some time and which was destined to secure his subsequent career. In 1922 he was engaged by the popular Tivoli circuit

Tivoli circuit

The Tivoli Circuit was a successful and popular Australian entertainment circuit which flourished from 1893 and the 1950s. The circuit suffered a catastrophic decline in popularity after the introduction of television in Australia in 1956, and the last Tivoli show was staged in 1966.-History:The...

, the major outlet for vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

in Australia, on a salary of £60 a week. His siblings also appeared at The Tiv" as "Eight Akbar Arabs".

The Years of Fame

Having learnt dance moves from his fiancée soubrette

Soubrette

A soubrette is a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".-Theater:...

Winnie Trevail which he translated to the wire, Con was ready to move overseas to further his career.

At his first performances in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

he was billed as Australian, but in April 1924 he adopted the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

toreador persona he was to employ for the greatest part of his subsequent career. In September 1924 he appeared at the New York Hippodrome

New York Hippodrome

The Hippodrome Theatre, also called the New York Hippodrome, was a theatre in New York City from 1905 to 1939, located on Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan. It was called the world's largest theatre by its builders and had a seating capacity of...

Theatre and was soon noticed and engaged by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American circus company. The company was started when the circus created by James Anthony Bailey and P. T. Barnum was merged with the Ringling Brothers Circus. The Ringling brothers purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907, but ran the circuses...

, the largest in the country. His act now involved well-executed bullfighting

Bullfighting

Bullfighting is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, southern France and some Latin American countries , in which one or more bulls are baited in a bullring for sport and entertainment...

movements in the ring, Spanish dance moves on the wire, and a conclusion of the dangerous forward somersault.

Thenceforth, through the 1930s until the outbreak of war in 1939, Con was the principal star of Ringling Bros. with a salary of $US 1000 per week. At this time the Big Tent could seat up to 16,000 people. In the winter he performed on the vaudeville circuit in Europe to great acclaim, among his greatest admirers being Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

.

In 1937 he returned to Sydney, Australia for a series of performances at "The Tiv".

Into the 1940s Colleano continued performing in the United States and appeared on television on the Texaco Star Theater

Texaco Star Theater

Texaco Star Theater is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr...

in 1952. His farm in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

became a retreat for his siblings and their offspring between performances
and, so established , he adopted United States citizenship together with now wife Winnie in 1950.

The Later Years

In 1956 Con and Winnie decided to return to Australia where they purchased the Albion Hotel at Forbes, New South Wales

Forbes, New South Wales

-Notable residents:*Carolyn Simpson - Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales; Member of the first all-female bench to sit in an Australian court*NSW Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt was born and raised in Forbes....

. This venture proving unsuccessful, they returned to the United States and he resumed his career on the wire to no great approbation ending at Honolulu

Honolulu, Hawaii

Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...

in 1960. He died at his home in Miami

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

in 1973 survived by Winnie who later returned to Australia.

Con and Winnie had no children; Con was the uncle of American actor Bonar Colleano

Bonar Colleano

Bonar Colleano was an American-born British stage and motion-picture performer.-Early life:Colleano was born Bonar Sullivan in New York City. Following childhood experiences with the Ringling Brothers Circus and in his family's famous circus, he entered films in 1944...

and the great-uncle of American actor Jack Stehlin

Jack Stehlin

Jack Stehlin is an American television and theater actor perhaps best known for his television role as Drug Enforcement Agency Captain Roy Till on Weeds.-Film and television:...

.

In 1997 he, (together with May Wirth), was honoured by Australia Post

Australia Post

Australia Post is the trading name of the Australian Government-owned Australian Postal Corporation .-History:...

on a postage stamp depicting a contemporary poster entitled The Wizard Of The Wire.

Ethnicity

Colleano's father was white; his mother the daughter of a West Indian father and part-aboriginal mother. From Federation

Federation of Australia

The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation...

Australia aspired to a white society, legislated by the White Australian Policy (1901) concerning immigration, and the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902

Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902

The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which defined who was allowed to vote in Australian federal elections. The Act granted Australian women the right to vote at a national level, and to stand for election to the Parliament...

(under which Indigenous people from Australia, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, with the exception of Māori were denied voting rights). School attendance was compulsory and enforced, but "voluntary" for aboriginals.

Unskilled labour was almost the sole employment option for those of mixed race; the circus
providing an opportunity.

In South Africa Colleano first used his Spanish toreador act (to identify as an Australian or
being of African descent would likely have proven unhelpful at the Box office

Box office

A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....

). Thenceforth he retained his assumed identity being generally perceived as Spanish. Despite the tenor of Skipping on Stars and other recent reportage no evidence suggests that, within the non-discriminatory milieu of the circus, he denied, or was greatly concerned by his heritage.

Legacy

Con Colleano was inducted into the International Circus Hall of Fame in 1966 and Winefred Colleano in 1975.

He was also celebrated in The Flying Fruit Fly Circus show 'Skipping on Stars', which was a tribute to his life and was seen by sold out crowds.

Jack Wilson and Joe Keppel met in Colleano's Circus after the First World War; they later formed the act Wilson, Keppel and Betty

Wilson, Keppel and Betty

Wilson, Keppel and Betty were a popular British music hall act in the middle decades of the 20th century who capitalised on the trend for Egyptian imagery following the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Their stage act, called the "sand dance", was a parody of Egyptian postures, combined with...

External links