Evening star., 1941-07-27
Little Girls Join the Circus, Too
By GLADDEN. Hill.

DETROIT, July pa great American
tradition is the little boy who runs ave-
with the circus, but the fact is that t.
runaway often as not is little gill
Here i'll Ringing Brothers-Barnum
Baileys anvas-and-sawdust big she
are some so winsome lasses who tosse
up conventional life at home for one
the most unusual, colorful careers opc
to the so-called weaker sex-the glamol
Gus profession of circus girl.
Weaker is hardly the word in this con-
nection, though. The circus girls are
selected for strength and health, with
beauty only secondary consideration
although you'd scarcely realize that.
There's hardly girl in the crowd you'd
quibble about dating.
Strength is important for the circu~
girls because one of their jobs is the
aerial ballet: Graceful acrobatics on high
ladders and trapezes swinging in breath
taking arcs. They're 80 feet up in tn
air, so it's hang on or else.
Their other principal duties are parad-
ing in spec" the grand opening pageant,
in which they may be anything from
maharanee on an elephant to Mother
Goose on camel; and the grand finale,
which this year consists of so silver
clad girls climbing 50-foot rope curtains
with long silver trains that unfold in a
flash to form huge American flag.
They do this twice day. rain or
shine, six or seven days week, eight
months year.
Their daytime home is the big COM
munal ladies' dressing tent, with the
circus lot grass or gravel for floor, and
their trunks, lined in aisles, for boudoirs
When it rains there's bad scramble to
jack the trunks off the ground.
The girls bedrooms are berths on
circus train sleeping car rolling through
the night to the next town.
Most of the girls love the life and come
back year after year.
How do you get to be circus girl?
For a typical case, we'll close in on
Judy Southern, shapely 22-year-old
miss with dark red hair and big brown
eyes, now in her fifth season with the
show.
Most girls on going into show business
assume theatrical names. Judy did just
the opposite. Her real name was Mar
jory st. John. 1t sounded too theatrical
So when she started trouping she
thought up less f1amboyant handle.
Her stepfather is an automobile dealer
in Chicago, and neither he nor Judy's
mother ever had anything to do with
show business.
When Judy was little girl she went
to dancing school, and gravitated into
the Saturday matinee dancing units that
some of the Chicago theaters used to
recruit from the classes.
Through this connection in the spring
of 1887 she took a job in the ballet
which the Hagenbeck- Wallace Circus
always presented during its opening en-
gagement in Chicago. At the end of
the engagement she was one of II girls
picked out of so to continue with the
show on the road.
1AaS Aiao a Ah6ii oSklOOA otlIOidi oIllp W
the University of Chicago, but decided
to take f1ier on circus life instead.
Her mother o. KID the project because
the mother of two other girls was going
along to chaperone them.
Judy liked the circus tour, and the
next spring she went to Ringing winter
quarters in Sarasota Fla, for the pre-
season practice period and landed a job
Except for one semester at Northwest
ern University-when she studied jour-
nalism, but got tired of it-she has been
with the circus every season since.
1t takes about three weeks of practice
at winter quarters to break girl into
the aerial ballet work. Most of it is
building up their muscles so they can
hang on; the girls get Used to the height