Evening star., 1953-05-20
Girl AerioIist with Everything But insurance.
Thrills Circus With Dazzling Hands off Act
Big Top Arrives
For Six-Doy Stond
Through Sunday
By ChorIes J. Yorbroueh

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Pinto. a lovely, raven-haired
Spanish girl and one of the Ring
ling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey's
brightest lights. has everything
but insurance. Underwriters feel
she doesn't use enough hands in
her high trapeze act.
She starred yesterday as the
circus opened amid its customary
rain and performed her amazing
hands-off high act as enthusias-
tically as though there were
people in all those 10000 seats
Actually. there were $500 Gus
toners for the matinee; prob
ably fewer than 5000 for the
night opener.
The circus is here through
Sunday. with performances at
2:15 and 8:15 pm. daily through
Sunday at Oklahoma avenue and
Benning road NE.
High Acts in Spotlight.
Other than four lavishly
staged spectacles, high-wire and
high-trapeze performances high
light this years production
Pinto, 22-year-old bride of Juan
Del Orc, former radioman with
the Spanish navy, shares some
of the honor with a man who has
been in the high-wire business
for SO years and, at So, is still a
star.
For any man of SO to dance q
lively jig is something of feat
Camille Mayer. a massive man
of 220 pounds, does the jig 48
feet above no net, then calmly
balances a table on which he
cooks up a batch of pancakes
while seated in a chair.
"Candyland," first of the col
orful "specs." brings out all the
nostalgia in the older customers
and makes the younger ones feel
right at home. It has every
thing from Mark Twain atop a
stern-wheeler to Kukla and
Ollie.
''Minnehaha," which stars Pi-
nito, puts 60 girls aloft as a
frame for the pretty picture OF
the star doing virtually all her
acts on strictly hands-off basis.
Ti<%I> rofk D. H..
Asked II she was working on
any new phase of the high tra-
peze. she replied pertly, What
else Is there left? I suppose
could try standing on my nose
up there"
She makes her work sound
easy; look even easier. But it
took three years of practice,
three or four hours day, to
polish the act. Practice sessions
begin on trapeze only a foot off
the floor.
"After a while, distance makes
no difference" she laughed pref
tily.
The third spectacle is tribute
to the Kentucky Derby and
brings out an amazing amount
Of beauty-equine and human.
The finale is Americana,
U. S. A."
A horse that can canter back
wards is another star, along with
his rider, Roberto de Vasconcel-
los. Another is Dieter Tasso,
whose combination of a slack
wire and balancing a tall stack
of table china on his head proved
a great crowd favorite.
Net Saves Performer.
The net saved one high ira
peze artist i'll the matinee yester-
day when he missed his swing
ing partner and plunged about
80 feet to the net, bounced to
his feet, shook his head and
re-climbed the ladder to COM
plete the show.
One star of the show didn't
shine. Mister Mistin, jr., billed
as the tiny musical prodigy who
has "astounded millions in Eu-
rope, Asia and Africa" could
not appear because of a District
law forbidding child performers.
Aware of this regulation. the cir
Gus did not advertise him, save
in the already printed programs.
The circus takes a postman's
holiday tonight when the James
e. Cooper Top of the Circus
Fans Association Of America and
the Dupont Theater show all
hands a circus picture. The
movie, Man on q Tight Rope, I"
starring Frederic March, is be-
ing shown after tonight's per-
formance in a special pre-Broad-
way screening only for the cir
Gus to observe the 69th ami
VerSary of the Ringing show.