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Submitted by Editor on 9/27/2006 Last Modified
Mickey had more than one specialty with her act. The late, great aerialist, Lilian Leitzel had set the standard for aerial work in the 1920s. Every solo female aerialist in the 1930s wanted to break Leitzel’s record of one-arm swings. This feat consisted of hanging from a loop by one wrist some 20 or 30 feet in the air, and pivoting on the shoulder, swinging the entire body over and over. Mickey’s accomplished 276 one-arm swings during one performance for a crippled children’s benefit in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ultimately, the record for one-arm swings went to Erma Hubble, however, who did 316 or 317 at one time. Besides the one-arm swings, Mickey, Erma Hubble, Ullaine Malloy and Lilian Leitzel were the only aerialists who performed a trick called the “one-arm plange.” This trick began like the one-arm swings, but instead of swinging over and over the aerialist swung her arm behind her back. Mickey did seventeen of these in succession in one performance. A similar trick was called the “roll-up.” This trick was done on the vertical rope instead of a loop. The aerialist swung up the rope hand over hand, rolling into a plange with each successive hand-hold. Mickey stated that she was the only performer who could do ascending and descending roll-ups on the web. Just short of five foot tall, under 100 pounds, she was cute and energetic. Her act always had class and style. Early in her career her musical accompaniment was a song called “Sweet Madness.” Later she used “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” but discarded that song after the Hartford circus fire in 1941. After that she used “Twilight Time".
Once, when working for the Hamid Morton booking agency, a show manager knocked on Mickey’s hotel room door. “Oh, Mickey,” he said, “what am I going to do? I’ve booked a rigging and no act!” A beautiful young dancer named Ullaine Malloy had bought an aerial rigging with the intention of teaching herself to do an aerial act. She booked her act, but was afraid to go up. Mickey met Ullaine and taught her everything she knew. Ullaine was very flexible, and she became the foremost aerial contortionist of her time. She worked with Mickey on the Hamid Morton circuit for a number of years.
During her stage career Mickey worked with some of the most popular vaudeville people in the business. She knew Jimmie Durante and Red Skelton personally, and played the Radio City Music Hall, the Roxy Theater, and many other major theaters around the country. In the late ‘30s she traveled over seas. She performed on the stage in England, France and Germany before the political hostilities forced her to leave Europe and travel to Australia. There she appeared in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and other large cities. Returning to the states in 1939 at the outset of WWII in Australia, she was delighted to discover that she had been chosen by a Billboard magazine poll as the best female solo aerialist in the business. She was awarded a certificate and a silver medal.
Mickey became a headliner with “Sally Rand’s Gay Paree Review.” Sally was already a legend in the business when Mickey joined her. She had caused a sensation at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1932 as the original fan dancer. Mickey performed with Sally in Mexico City, and continued with the show at Treasure Island in San Francisco in 1940. At one point Sally told Mickey that she wanted to learn to do aerial work. Mickey was more than willing to teach her, but the work was too hard for Sally. The ropes burned her hands. She let the idea drop. Mickey continued to work through the war years doing shows for the troops.
Mickey remained one of the most versatile and sought after performers in the business. Late in her career Mickey worked in Billy Ward’s flying return act. Mickey had known Billie for many years. They had both been pupils of Eddie Ward in the 1920s. Billy called Mickey when one of his flyers was injured, and Mickey worked with him for at least one season. She developed a close relationship with Billy’s catcher, Jimmy Olson. She and Jimmy traveled together, and he worked as her rigger for several years. She also substituted in an adagio act called ‘The Kitchen Pirates” at one time when the girl partner became ill.
Mickey performed stunts in a few movies. She took eighty-five foot dives wearing a black wig that fell to her ankles for the movie “Crime Without Passion;” worked in the Broadway play, “Jumbo;” and she flew from Florida to Hollywood several times to make a movie with Red Buttons and Jack Palance. Mickey was contracted to play the part of Lilian Leitzel in a movie about the great trapeze flyer, Alfredo Codona. Clayton Behee, another pupil of Eddie Ward, was slated to play the part of Alfredo. The movie never was produced. Reaching for the flybar during shooting one day, Mickey fractured a couple of bones in her hand. The producers could not replace her, and the production was dropped. Mickey managed a restaurant in Elkhart, Indiana while her hand was injured.
Mickey’s last engagement was with the Fred J. Mack show in 1968, where she had a “Maximum and Minimum” horse and pony act, and did her aerial act. When the show folded she worked for Bob Musselman, another protégé of Eddie Ward, operating a duck pond game at a major amusement park.
I met Mickey in 1984 through our mutual friend, Lorraine Valentine. Mickey returned to Bloomington, Illinois often over the years to renew acquaintances, and for regular appointments with her dentist. At that time I was piecing together the story of Bloomington’s circus history. So often when I asked Lorraine for information she would say, “I don’t know, but you should ask Mickey. She’ll know.” Lorraine wasn’t exaggerating. Mickey was a fountain of information.
In the 1980s Mickey was living in Niles, Michigan, but she still owned property in Sarasota, Florida. A short time later she married James Mc Leoud, a wild west performer, and widower of her old friend, Polly Bednarski. She settled in Peru, Indiana, former home of the American Circus Corporation, where so many of her old circus friends still resided. Jim Mc Leoud died a few years later. Her ex-husband, Allen King died in 1952. Mickey died January 4, 2004 in Peru, Indiana, and was buried the Comeau family plot at Park Hill Cemetery, adjacent to that of the Ward family.
In an interview with the Detroit Free Press February 21, 1932 Mickey stated:
There is one thing I like better than any other. I like the people in the audience to like me. I want them to applaud and cheer me. I know when I please those who come to see me that I can be with them for a long time, and that is a great thing for a performer to know.
And besides that, it means money. After all, money is the thing that counts. Does it count more than applause? Well—I don’t know. But if you can get applause, why, you can have money, too, and that’s money and applause. And what’s wrong with that. Eh?
I don’t think I could stand it if the spectators behaved as if my act were a flop. It would be tough going up there and turning somersaults-more than 100 somersaults-while hanging by one wrist, and have people act as if they didn’t like it or didn’t care…"
Mickey King was a strong, brilliant, resourceful and courageous person. Though she was a part of an elite group of extremely motivated and gifted people, she retained a profound respect for the common, hardworking people of America all her life. Their entertainment was her life’s work.
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