Page 25 - The Outdoor Showman October - December 2022

RODEO NEWS
Chev trucks, some animals and a lot of red and yellow paint.
Spick and span, with bargain ticket prices, they became the first truly suburban circus in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, and once to WA.
In 1961, they acquired two small elephants, Arna and Bambi.
That set them up to grow over the next 30 years’ profitable showing, until a family feud in 1993 led to them selling out to Lindsay and Jan Lennon (Lennon’s Circus dates back to 1893.)
It’s now Stardust Circus, probably the largest family show in Australia (27 family members on site. Ashton’s got up to 38 in the late 1980s.)
More Perrys
George Perry toured with Sole Bros’ Circus to South Africa in 1934, came back to Australia in the aftermath of the Depression, and trained the town’s brass band in Cue, WA.
His children, Joe, Cliffy and Dawn,
joined Sole’s. Joe worked theatres as Joseph Eroni during World War II, and later married his cousin, Jean Lindsay, daughter of Mary (Sole) and Bert Lindsay.
They turned Sole’s into a top-quality four-elephant circus, and each year took top money on the northern run to Cairns.
The fourth Brother, Henry (Dummy, originally his clown name, but the only name anyone remembers) was probably the most versatile performer in Australia.
If he saw any physical act, from anywhere in the world, he could perform it within less than a week.
He showed briefly in Tasmania, and later became a civilian.
Original Perrys
At Jimmy and Nellie’s original Perry Bros’ circus, their daughter, Lorraine, married rope-spinner, all-round performer Fred Maynard.
They had three children: elephant man, wire-walker and unicyclist Perry, daughter Yasmin, who runs Brophy Bros’ Circus with husband Warren Brophy and their offspring, and Tony.
Lorraine died earlier this year, and Freddy, 96, retired after a lifetime in circus to their property at Greta South, Victoria.
Lockdowns threaten
Tony and wife Cathy, daughter of circus proprietor Steve Robinson ( who now runs Darling Downs Zoo, near Toowoomba) took out their own show,
Above: Pre-War Lineup board, Perry Bros’ Circus, at Royal Sydney Show., including elephant ‘Tommy’. Alby Perry, Sr, doing the ‘Muldoon’ acro-gag. Bullen’s Circus, then the biggest. Stardust Circus’s latest flying trapeze troupe. Eroni’s proprietor, Tony Maynard, working interval on the clowns. Brisbane super-fan (has 30 years’ circus photos) Wayne Wrona, went to Lowood to photograph new Circus Shuvona, October, 2022.
THE OUTDOOR SHOWMAN 23