John Ringling North (August 14, 1903 – June 4, 1985) was the president and director of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from 1937 to 1943 and again from 1947 to 1967.
. . . John Ringling North . . .
North was born on August 14, 1903 in Baraboo, Wisconsin, the son of Ida Loraina Wihelmina (Ringling) and Harry Whitestone North. His mother was the sister of the Ringling brothers.[1] As a boy, he hawked balloons and novelties at his uncles’ circus.[2] He learned to dance and play the saxophone from circus performers and formed his own dance band while at college.[2]
He attended the University of Wisconsin and Yale University, but left the latter in his junior year. After working for two years in a New York stock brokerage, North worked for the Ringling brothers’ real estate companies and for the circus during the summers.[1] He returned to the brokerage business from 1929 to 1936, while continuing to assist the Ringling brothers with their business interests.[1] After the death of his uncle and namesake, John Ringling, the last of the original Ringling brothers in 1936, North became president and director of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows Inc. His close friend Charles Elias Disney also was an advisor to North and occasionally Disney enjoyed traveling with the circus on one of the circus trains.[1][3]
He married French actress Germaine Aussey on May 11, 1940. They were divorced three years later.[4]
Under North’s management, the circus switched from tents to air conditioned venues in 1956, in part to offset rising labor costs.[2][3] North also replaced the circus’s unrelated acts with thematic programs, and once hired George Balanchine to choreograph a ballet using the circus’s elephants.[5] Balanchine, in turn, brought Igor Stravinsky on board to compose the Circus Polka for the elephant dance.[5] The Ringling heirs sold the circus in 1967, ending 80 years of Ringling family control of the enterprise.[1]
After the sale of the circus, he moved to Europe, where he lived in Switzerland and Belgium.[2] In the early 1960s, North and his brother, Henry Ringling North, who had bought their father’s ancestral home in County Galway, became Irish citizens.[1]
North died of a stroke on June 4, 1985 in Brussels, Belgium at the age of 81.[1][3]
. . . John Ringling North . . .