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Clyde
Ingalls
Clyde
Ingalls was a man
of many talents.
Besides being a
local boxing champion
in his hometown
of Hastings, Minnesota,
he played cornet
with the Merle
Evans Circus Band,
and worked with
his cousin and
famous showman,
Jim Sturgis, on
a sideshow with
the Forepaugh-Sells
Circus. Sturgis
presented a moving
picture of the
1897 Corbett-Fitzsimmons
fight, which today
is considered a
ring classic.
Outside the black tent Signor Clyde
Ingalls appeared on a platform
as ballyhoo and took on any local
who wished to spar with him. Later
Ingalls became the street parade
leader and lot superintendent for
the Forepaugh-Sells show. There,
it is said, he discovered his talent
as a sideshow talker, working as
the Barnum & Bailey sideshow manager
and later with Ringling Brothers,
making quite a name for him. His
winters were spent as general manager
of the Bertram Mills Circus at
London's Olympia. Clyde was an
efficient circus announcer, but
when microphones and loud speakers
replaced, he specialized in sideshow
attractions.
Betty Broadbent first met Clyde
Ingalls in the 1920s while Charlie
Wagner and Joe Van Hart on the
Bowery in New York City were tattooing
her. Ingalls and Wagner were in
much the same business--Wagner
tattooed the attractions and Ingalls
managed them. Because of Ingalls's
position in the show business world,
he knew many tattooists that could
help him find attractions when
he was framing a sideshow. Wagner,
being one of the most famous and
prolific tattooist of that era,
probably supplied many attractions
for Ingalls's shows. Ingalls met
Betty when her tattoos were still
in progress and he offered her
a job with The Greatest Show On
Earth, the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey
Circus. Betty went on to spend
most of the next half century in
show business. Of Ingalls she said, "he
was a very good man to work for,
he treated his people well."
Tattoo Archive © 2000
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