Harry Lewiston
Harry Lewiston (April 2, 1900 – June 1, 1965; legal name Israel Harry Jaffe) was an American showman, freak show director, and barker. He wrote his memoirs under his stage name, published posthumously in 1968 as Freak Show Man: the Autobiography of Harry Lewiston, as told to Jerry Holtman.
Early life and name change
Harry Lewiston was born Israel Harry Jaffe in
World War I
After
Return to the United States
Lewiston stayed with his family in Worcester for a short period of time, working as a shophand in a machine shop. Subsequently, he worked various jobs in New York City, then rode the rails to a few towns. In his autobiography, he mentions being arrested for vagrancy in eastern Georgia and working on a chain gang for six days. He then went to Cleveland and briefly worked in a restaurant.
Return to circus life
In 1920, Lewiston went to
In 1921 and 1922, Lewiston worked as a candy butcher and concessions buyer for
In early 1925, he worked with the newly formed Carolina Minstrels, an all-black troupe based in Shelbyville, Kentucky. He "strutted downtown at the head of the band to make announcements," and also sold reserved tickets, supervised equipment unloading and setup, and sold prize candy. Later that year, he switched to Miller Brothers 101 Ranch show, where he worked as a ticket seller and sideshow announcer. He worked for Miller Brothers again the following year, but was fired by Joe Miller for short-changing patrons. Lewiston was hired by the Boyd and Linderman Shows to organize and hire performers and musicians for a hoochie coochie show. After the touring season ended, he ran a (fixed) betting wheel for Pollack's 20 Big Shows. In early 1927, he worked as a candy butcher and a fill-in performer for Pat Whale's Traveling Burlesque Show, and then briefly ran a brothel/speakeasy in Kansas City, Missouri before the police shut it down.
Marriage and continued circus career
In fall 1927, Lewiston was hired as the assistant to Arthur Hoffman of the
In 1929, they both worked for the
Chicago World's Fair
In late 1932, Lewiston was hired by sideshow impresario
"Another of the lecturers, Capt. Harry Lewiston, formerly of the British army, also spoke of the blacks with genuine respect, adding, apropos of the Nigerians, "You know, those men have eyesight about 300 per cent better than ours. Brave and strong! Look at the play of muscles on those backs! Give me a hundred thousand such men, trained in the use of modern arms, and I'll conquer the moon -- as the German officers used to say." "[2]
That winter, Lewiston and Rose did their duo mindreading act for Morris Miller's Traveling Museum.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
While working at the World's Fair in 1933, Lewiston was approached by Clyde Ingalls and hired to work at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus the following year. He started in the sideshow ticket booth and the bally stand next to it in 1934, but was promoted as Ingalls' chief assistant on his second day. Lewiston also served as the sideshow pay master, and did special announcements. In his autobiography, he proudly notes that he adapted the circus slogan, coining the phrase "The Greatest Side Show On Earth." While the circus was closed that winter, Lewiston and Rose did their duo mindreading act for the Gus Sun Circuit.
In 1935, Lewiston started at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus opening at
Harry Lewiston's Traveling Museum
In late 1937, Lewiston and Rose left Ringling Bros. to form their own organization, and brought several circus freaks with them, including
"Charlotte, N.C., March 25 (AP) - Pete, a thirty-foot python, had a late luncheon today - six months late. Pythons, Harry Lewiston, keeper of the reptile, explained, eat only about once every three months. Pete hurt his throat nine months ago and had to pass up two meals. Today, with an eight-foot rubber hose, he was fed a snack of thirty pounds of chopped meat, fifteen dozen eggs and fifteen pounds of crushed bone. It took eighteen men to hold Pete while they fed him."[5]
While Rose ran her "Palace of Knowledge" at the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940, Lewiston continued to bring his museum on tour, traveling with organizations including truck carnival William Glick Shows and Johnny J. Jones Carnival. He ran an enlarged side show, including his snakes, plus a freak animal show. While traveling with Jones in Warren, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1940, Lewiston's sword swallower Lady Vivian Dunning was profiled in the local paper.[6] Lewiston also claims to have been the first showman to buy and repurpose the "headless girl" display, transforming it from a simple illusion act to fooling audiences by pretending she was real. He rigged the exhibit with flowing liquids and medical equipment, and created the story of "Olga Hess," who had been decapitated on a train but was kept alive by a doctor.[7]
Throughout the early to mid-1940s, the museum continued to perform successfully, typically contracting with amusement parks and state fairs during the summers and touring during the winters. In 1941, Harry Lewiston's Traveling Museum joined the Happy Land Shows for summer events in
In 1944, while the museum was installed for a month in Pittsburgh, the two legal guardians of Bobo and Kiki, the show's "pinheads," arrived to take the pair back home to Texas. After Rose objected that their contract had not yet expired, a fight broke out, and a local patrolman arrested all five of them. Charges were later dismissed, and the pinheads stayed on with the show.[9] In late 1945, he formed a partnership called Gayer & Lewiston Enterprises with Archie Gayer, operator of Archie's Playland Arcade in Detroit.[10] They co-ran the Monroe Theatre, and a new annex was added to the back of the arcade, where Lewiston managed a variety of attractions for several years, including an exhibit titled "Crime Does Not Pay," bazaars, and sideshow acts.
In 1947, while working for Lewiston over July 4 weekend, sword swallower Tony Marino "gulped a two-foot length of lighted neon tube, glowed at his appreciative audience, bowed, thereupon went out like a light, [and] was hustled to a hospital for removal of the shattered tube."
Post-performance life
In the early 1950s, Harry (now calling himself "Jaffe" again) and Rose retired from performance and management life, and moved to Florida, where they invested in several hotel properties. Rose died from cancer in April 1954, and was buried in Cook County, Illinois. In December 1955, he married a woman named Leona Decker in Monroe County, Florida.
In 1957, the couple moved to the Los Angeles area. Harry's health, especially his eyesight, had deteriorated badly. In his autobiography, he speculates that this might have been due to his heavy drinking. They invested in several properties, and a local daily newspaper ran a profile article of the famous circus man who had bought a hotel. He began writing a weekly column for a paper in Fontana, California. Concurrently, he started an employment agency, and also worked to help recent parolees reintegrate into society. His service was lauded by the state board of corrections at a testimonial dinner.
As his health waned, he began working on his memoirs. Freak Show Man: the Autobiography of Harry Lewiston, as told to Jerry Holtman, was published posthumously in 1968 by
Harry Jaffe died on June 1, 1965, in
References
- ^ Rev. Michael Adler, ed. (1922). British Jewry Book of Honour. Caxton Publishing Company, Ltd. p. 270.
- Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 9.
- )
- ^ "Big Python Fed Like Bad Child: 30-Foot Reptile Pumped Full of Eggs and Meat Like Boy Taking Castor Oil". The Charlotte Observer. March 26, 1939. p. 17.
- ^ "Python Eats, Six Months Late". The New York Times. March 26, 1939.
- ^ "Jones Carnival Attracts Many On First Night". Warren Times-Mirror (Warren, PA). July 2, 1940.
- ISBN 1-55022-529-4.
- ^ "Bedfast By Rare Malady, Pair Hold Short Visit". Erie Daily Times. March 10, 1942. p. 13 & 20.
- ^ "Pinheads' Labors Cut, Peace Reigns at 635". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. December 13, 1944. p. 11.
- Boxoffice. October 13, 1945. p. 70.
- ^ "Miscellany: Something He Ate". Time. July 7, 1947. p. 96.
- ^ "Edgewater Bows To Upped Gross Despite Strike". Billboard. May 13, 1950. p. 66.
- ^ "In the Shadows (obituaries)". The Daily Sun (San Bernardino). June 3, 1965. p. E-10.
Additional sources
- Primary source for this article was Freak Show Man: the Autobiography of Harry Lewiston, as told to Jerry Holtman, published in 1968 by Holloway House Publishing Co.
- http://circusworld.wisconsinhistory.org Archived 2009-04-12 at the Wayback Machine - a great deal of archival research was performed by Erin Foley from that organization
- Many, many issues of Billboard, including: 4/25/1925, 6/25/1926, 4/20/1935, 4/27/1935, 6/1/1935, 4/25/1936, 12/10/1938, 12/17/1938, 12/24/1938, 1/7/1939, 1/21/1939, and 4/28/1951
- Several issues of Boxofficefrom the late 1940s
- Bandwagon, September–October 1980