Modern Screen (Dec 1948 - Oct 1949)

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The masons and helpers were thereafter entertained, and occasionally alarmed, to see Burt and Nick leaping from a second-story fire-escape onto the trampoline, bouncing high in the air, and then coming down on the horizontal bars. By the time Burt had finished his sophomore year at NYU, he and Nick felt they were ready; they would become professional acrobats. Burt's family, with the exception of his father, was intensely opposed. At best, they argued, it was a precarious profession. Burt's father, easygoing as ever, simply said, "Burt, if that's what you really want to do, go right ahead — and good luck." Burt then abandoned any idea of further formal education. But just how to go about getting an engagement as a professional act was something they were a bit vague about. The Great Depression had set in, bookings were scarce and, of course, the boys were completely inexperienced. Curly had the obvious answer — an agent. After hours of sitting in outer offices with unemployed one-man bands, dog trainers and Chinese magicians, they finally talked an agent into taking them on. Following another long wait, the agent called them with great news: He'd managed to get them a booking — three nights at the Bronx Opera House. The fact that they'd receive no pay whatsoever was of small moment to the jubilant youths. All that counted was that now, at last, they were to perform professionally before a paying audience. not in the act . . . The great night came, and Burt, Nick and Curly — whom they'd persuaded to lend his seasoned if unsteady talent to the act — erected their gear on the stage. Nick, as the comedy element of the act, wore a derby hat and a handlebar mustache. Everything went beautifully. Representatives of Ringling Brothers failed to pound on their dressing-room door afterward, but the audience had been enthusiastic. The second night went equally well. So did the third — up to a point. On that final night of the engagement, their devil-may-care routine came off superbly and, as the snare-drum rolled and Nick poised himself for a running leap upon the trampoline to execute the last stunt, the boys felt they were, indeed, in. Nick ran, leaped, bounced high in the air, somersaulted, came down on a bar, swung off it, twisted around in flight, and expertly grasped the lower bar. At that, with a tremendous crash, the homemade gear collapsed on the stage. The curtain was immediately rung down on the debris. Nick, unharmed, was assisted to his feet. The audience was roaring with laughter. Certain that the mishap had ruined them, Nick and Burt, despite the urgings of Curly, refused to go out for a bow. Nick's brother, Lou, who'd been out front with Burt's family and dozens of other neighborhood supporters, rushed backstage to persuade the lads they weren't a flop. The comedy finish, he insisted, was a wow. They refused to be convinced, dressed morosely, and slipped away to a nearby soda fountain. There they sat, staring silently into their malteds, certain they were failures. How, after that amateurish climax, could they ever again get a booking? . . . Almost three years went by— and sure enough, no bookings were to be had. But this wasn't due to that first fiasco. Hundreds of well-established acts were unemployed in those days. Curly Brent, after working for a time walking the streets on stilts bearing advertising signs, left for parts unknown. (Today, he's a flourishing chicken farmer in Connecticut.) Burt and Nick were not to be discouraged. Working at whatever odd jobs they could get, they continued to polish their acrobatic technique. At last they landed a job with the Kay Brothers traveling carnival, talking themselves into it by building up their Bronx Opera House appearance as a major triumph. . . . Tne salary? Well, the team got three bucks. (After a week, they were raised to five.) When the 30-weeks' tour ended, Lang & Cravat were an established attraction. Now they were taken up by a good, bigtime agent, whose clients included Cab Calloway and such top stars. But now the boys aimed at bookings in the betterpaying field of night club and theater work. They had great difficulty getting these. Trouble was, the proprietors and theater managers took a dim view of having holes bored in their dance floors and stages — a thing essential to erecting the acrobatic gear. Then they came up with a solution to their booking problem — a perch act. A perch act is one in which one man supports a long pole atop which gymnastic feats are executed by the other performer or performers. This, of course, requires no boring of holes. The new act was developed in the Settlement gym, to which they continued to repair for workouts between engagements. Soon they were getting excellent dates — touring theater circuits with name bands such as Ozzie Nelson and Guy Lombardo. Then they signed on with another carnival to do two acts — the horizontal bar act plus the perch act. This arrangement resulted in some sudden improvisation. They'd never done the perch act except indoors, where there'd be some point of reference overhead at which the pole could be aimed and hence kept in balance. When they attempted to do it outdoors in rehearsal at the carnival lot, they ran into trouble. The only points of reference overhead were clouds, and these just wouldn't stand still. After several tries, they concluded that the act would wind up with an excessively dramatic climax — somebody getting killed. They told the manager. "But I signed Burt Lancaster rehearses the act he did on his recent four-weeks tour with Cole Bros, circus. His new film is Hal Wallis' Rope of Saud.