Digger Pugh by Don Stacy To those who remember him in the Circus world, it will hardly seen possible that three decades has passed since the death of Digger Pugh. There will be many people today who, perhaps have never even heard of him. They missed meeting a man described by the International Clowns Club as "a genius of the modern circus and showbusiness". I met him, knew him to some small extent, and worked with him at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and grew to admire this rough, tough, good-hearted circus man, one I would describe with the greatest affection as "one of the loveable rogues' of the Circus world. That nobody has previously tried to set down in print anything substantial relating to his life and adventures seems to me rather surprising. I am attempting to do so now, and in doing so have enjoyed the co-operation and help of his widow, Sheila (MacMahon) Pugh (Digger's third wife) who, herself, was so closely linked with the Circus throughout her career. Digger Pugh
Sheila herself believes that Digger, whose Australian slang name stuck with him for most of his life, was born John Wallace Llewelyn Pugh in Northampton, and that he emigrated with his family to Australia at an early age, becoming a naturalised Australian and enlisting in the Army as a teenager. Certainly, his date of birth was August 11, 1902, but the 1950 edition of Who's Who in Variety gives his place of birth as Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia. Whatever, he was to become a flying ace, gold miner, boxer, wrestler, motor car racer, dirt track rider, trick roller skater, trampolinist, acrobat, contortionist and a circus celebrity in his own time, on an international scale.He enlisted in the Australian Army at the age of sixteen, serving in the Australian Imperial Forces, during the first World War, afterwards obtaining a commission in the Royal Air Force, and being decorated as a Flight Lieutenant, becoming one of Britain's flying aces during the first world war. As a youngster, He took a great interest in boxing and became Flyweight boxing champion of Australia for two years, lost the title and regained it two years later. It was reported that he fought twice for the world's title, once in a fifteen rounds fight against Pancho Villa (no decision), and against Emile Pladner of France (20 rounds, a draw).
Sports were obviously his forte since he was also the champion motor cyclist of New South Wales and introduced dirt track motor cycle racing to England in 1928, and was the first Australian rider to demonstrate broadsiding. He was also reported to be the first person to reach 100 mph on a motor cycle in Australia
It is said his first stage appearance was in 1918 in Sydney, and his first appearance in a London theatre was at the London Coliseum in May, 1930. His trampoline act , The Wallabies, also appeared at the London Hippodrome in George Black's "Jenny Jones", and doubled at the Prince of Wales Theatre in "Strike it Again". Then the act went to the Palladium in "High Time". The Wallabies appeared at the London Palladium on November 4 1946, and were in another Royal Command Performance a Opera House, Blackpool in1955.
Pugh, who saw the bombing of Pearl Harbour, had played throughout the Far East during 1936 and 1937, in Ceylon, Singapore, and Malaya. They worked at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore three times, at the Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur twice, at the Green's Hotel, Bombay, at the G.O.H. Hotel, Colombo twice, the Grand Hotel Calcutta, and a three month tour in Japan. At one time in Shanghai, they played cabaret dates in four different ballrooms in the same week, at the Paramount, Casanova, Majestic, Ambassador, at a time when the troupe's repertoire consisted of eight different acts.
The nucleus of the troupe consisted of Digger, his second wife, Sheila de Hagen (Smale), their adopted daughter Heather (who married Don Arroll the comedian who had also worked as a clown in America with Mills Bros. Circus), son Johnnie, two girls from Miss Chrissie Royd's Dancing School, Marie Johnson and Beryl Howlett, together with two girls from Alice Wren's School in Melbourne, Dorothy Kinner and Bettv Grant.
In 1937 their performances consisted of:
1. The Wallaby Whirlwind tumblers.
2. Little Marie - Shirley, Temple Impersonations.
3. The Four Imps - Tap, Dance and Tempo.
4. Sheila de Hagen - Operatic Ballet Dance.
5. Dorothy - Songs and Skipping Tap Dancer.
6. Marie and Austen - Fancy Dancing.
7. Beryl - Irish and Scottish Dances.
8. Whizzing Whirlwinds - Sensational Trick and Fancy Skating.
Marie Johnson received a tremendous reception during the tour, as she sang and danced in the manner of the American child film star and was quickly named the "Shirley Temple of Australia". She was also a talented contortionist and acrobat. In Tokyo and Kobe in Japan, crowds followed them everywhere, showering gifts on the juveniles in the group, and Japanese children did not believe Digger Pugh when he tried to explain that Marie was not the real Shirley Temple, but an impersonator. After success in the Far East, the group headed for Europe and England, playing a command performance before Hitler at the famous Wintergarten Theater in Berlin, and also giving a performance for Mussolini.
When they reached England in 1938, Digger issued a challenge in The Performer magazine, at that time the variety artistes' leading journal, challenging agents and bookers and offering £100 (then a large sum of money!) to anyone who could produce a better troupe of lady acrobats, or who could repeat the tricks of either the two smallest or two youngest members of the troupe. His challenge was not met, and bookings flowed in.
After the Prince of Wales, London Hippodrome, Coliseum and Palladium, they also appeared at the leading theatres like the Finsburv Park Empire, Victoria Palace, East Ham Palace, Southampton Hippodrome, Metropolitan Edgware Rd, London, the Empire in Newport, the South London Palace of Varieties (where they topped the bill in June, 1939) and the Waverley Market Circus in Edinburgh.
In 1940, they returned to Australia and the Far East, repeating earlier successes, and then went to Canada, via Honolulu and Hawaii. They were to play six months in the E K Fernandez Circus in Hawaii, and after Canada they toured all North America with the Cole Brothers' Circus. In 1941, they joined ENSA, the five Wallabies then consisting of Digger and Sheila (Smale), their children Johnnie and Heather, along with Beryl Howlett.
After the war ended, they found themselves back in England, where they appeared at the Royal Variety Performance in London, a highlight of Digger's career. Both Sheila and Beryl could perform over 100 consecutive somersaults on the trampoline and Beryl, one of the world's finest tumblers, later turned 262 consecutive flips,
In a diverse career, Digger Pugh promoted boxing and Carnivals in India, Australia and Hawaii, and was Director- and General Manager of the Stock Car Racing Company Ltd at New Cross and Haringey Stadiums, as well as Managing Director of BASCAR Stock Car Racing Co Ltd. He was the man who introduced Speedway racing and Stock car racing to England. At one time he was Managing Director of the Mobile Amplifiers and Radio Publicity Co, and was both producer and proprietor of The London Revue which toured the Far East for six months in 1936. He became producer and manager of the Daily Mirror's '8' Tour, of the Daily Sketch Life Saving Team Tour, and the Daily Express Community Singing Tour. He also organised the Lord Beaverbrook Campaigns.
America was to have a great influence on Digger Pugh's circus activities. His tour with Cole Bros Circus covered 15,223 miles through 25 States and visited 158 cities. The show was a big one, with a staff of some 1,500 people. When the show was in Hollywood, the circus was used as background for a Charles Boyer movie. Later, Digger's acts were to work in numerous American shows, including Mills Bros.Circus for three seasons, Polack Brothers' Circus, Royal American Shows, and at the Palace, New York, and in TV shows like the Milton Berle Show in New York and the Big Top Circus in Chicago.
Johnnie Pugh, who continued the Wallabies' trampoline act long after his father retired from performing, eventually joined the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros Circus as a performer, working his way up from Manager to his present status as sole owner of this show, which is billed as "The World's Largest Circus under the Big Top". Johnnie spent most of his early days performing in cabaret, theatres and circuses and was a stunt performer in the film Cleopatra. Working hard at the Beatty-Cole show, he was to become its President and Owner in 1981.He is married to Brigitte. a daughter of the illusionist Ferry Forst (who worked with Bertram Mills Circus in England before going to the Ringling show) and he was a judge at the 1990 International Circus Festival in Monaco, where he presented a young and valuable white tiger cub to Prince Rainier.
I first met Digger and his second wife, also named Sheila (Smale), at their home in Hounslow, the impressive Old House, Alexandra Gardens, in the 1950s. Not only their home, it was where they trained girls in various acrobatic skills in the spacious gardens. With a group of members of the Circus Fans' Association, I enjoyed an entertaining evening of hospitality highlighted by Digger Pugh's home movies, One of his greatest hobbies was cine photography and he had the best possible equipment at the time and had recorded in colour all his travels and the shows in which his troupes appeared. The quality of his filming, I recall, was as good as any professional's. Digger had had a brother, Stanley, who was a member of a bomber crew killed in 1941. Their mother lived in Northampton, so perhaps indeed Digger did originate there and not in Australia.
In the garden of the Pugh House at Hounslow
Thus, he began to produce numerous troupes of girl performers adept in aerial ballet work, acrobatic dancing, trampoline, tumbling, trapeze, swinging ladders, aerial rope and other circus skills. An ideal shop window for his troupes proved to be the annual Tom Arnold's Haringey Circuses in London.
Producer Clem Butson, faced with putting on a gigantic circus in a huge barn of a hall, Haringey Arena in North London, had a real need of a big group of girls capable of dancing, introducing acts and performing a really big aerial ballet. Haringey Arena seated 7,000 people and such a huge arena demanded a bigger style of circus than at Olympia, where the seating arrangement was circular; thus, a three ring set up in the American style was adopted from the first year. The first Haringey season opened in December 1947 and there were eleven annual seasons before the owners sold the building. For the first six seasons Digger Pugh produced troupes for Haringey circuses. In 1947/48, the Clown Charivari consisted of 15 or more clowns, plus the Circusettes, with the Show Ladies, Betty Hobbs Whirlwinds, Digger Pugh's Aussies and his 10 Wallabies, tumblers and aerialists. The following year, he provided 4 Kinkeroos, 4 Wallabies, 6 Aussies and 6 Imps in the Charivari with 20 or so clowns. The Wallabies and Kinkeroos also performed trampoline acts flanking the centre ring act of the Five Rastellis, and all his girls combined in an 'Arabian Nights Fantasy" along with the 12 Ben Abdrahman Wazzan Arabs. Digger assumed the title of 'Chef de Clowns', and in the third programme in 1949/59, his girls appeared in the big 'The Girls in the Moon' aerial ballet which featured Chrysis de la Grange, Julie Enoch and Olga Varona, along with three of the Alzana girls, Sue Fox, Anita, Frances Duncan and Madge Proctor in what must have been one of the greatest aggregations of aerial talents ever seen in one number. Among Digger's troupe were Beryl Hughes, Gladys Rimmer, Sheila McMahon and Margaret Smith, all notable performers.
In the 1950/51 programme, The Wallabies appeared with two other acrobatic troupes and Digger Pugh's 6 Cockatoos were featured in the "Birds of the Air' aerial extravaganza which starred the 5 Varias and seven other well-known aerialists, among them the Reco Sisters, Frances Duncan and Dandy Mery. Among other duties, the girls were ballerinas in the ten elephants carousel from Chipperfield's Circus, presented by lvor Rosaire,
In 1951/52, the Wallabies, Kinkeroos and Starlets were back at Harringay, and his cloud swing Ballet backed the Parisian aerialist Janine Duc in the aerial display, "Paradise. Island'. For the 1952/3 season, the Wallabies and Aussies joined the springboard act of the Great Alexander Troupe in an acrobatic display, and Digger trained his girls in a nautically inspired aerial extravaganza, "Shipmaids Aloft" on swinging ladders. Tom Arnold also staged a circus, "Knights of the Ring", at the Palace Theatre, Manchester in November, 1953 for which Digger provided girls in the 'Birds of the air" number. For most of the other seasons of circus staged at Haringey Arena, less elaborate shows were forthcoming but Digger Pugh returned for the lOth anniversary show, 1956/57, to provide an aerial ensemble or ‘The Aerial Can-Can’ number.
During these years, while the troupes worked in London during the winter, they were invariably to be found in America in the summer seasons, and he also supplied acts troupes to Mullens Circus in Holland in 1954 and in England 'to Chipperfield's Circus for two years and Billy Smart's Circus for three seasons, at Robert Brothers' Circus, at Prince-Coxe's annual summer circuses in Rhyl from 1956 to 1961. From 1960 to 1970 there were Digger Pugh troupes featured at Billy Russell's Circus at the Hippodrome, Great Yarmouth. Digger's third wife, Sheila McMahon took over the training of the girls in later years, while her husband concentrated on the business side and after his death in 1969, she provided girls at Yarmouth for only one more season.
On the continent, they provided big troupes at the Stadthalle, Vienna, for 'Menschen-Tiere-Sensationen' at the Deutschlandhalle, Berlin, in Italy with Circo Heros and Circo Enis Togni, in Germany with Circus Williams, and in Spain for Arturo Castilia's Circo Americano and Circo Price and his revues in Madrid.
In 1963, I had made his acquaintance again when we were both involved in the European Tour of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, where I handled the publicity side and Digger was contracted to provide twenty girls for "The Greatest Show on Earth" for the big aerial ballet ‘Top Hats, White Ties and Tails' with Galla Shawn and to appear in the production highlights, "Around the World in Eight Minutes" and "Elephants and Feathers". Margaret Smith, who had long been a Digger Pugh girl, was credited as Choreographer but after the show's opening in Lille John Fingling North dismissed his executive .producer, Art Concello, and they left together, later marrying. For the rest of the short, ill-fated tour, Shirley Coombs took over as Aerial and Dancing Director for Pugh.
In 1959, Digger Pugh was a technical consultant/advisor for the exciting new vaudeville and circus television series, "Hippodrome", put out by Associated-Rediffusion Ltd from its studio at the old Wood Green Empire, the success of which prompted producer Will Roland to write to Digger: "There is no question in my mind that the wonderful team work of everyone involved is responsible for the high I standard of entertainment 'Hippodrome' has been able to provide consistently. As a member of that team you have played a very important roles and I deeply appreciate your assistance and judgement". Associated Rediffusion Director of Production Lloyd Williams went further, saying "This has been one of the greatest team operations ever in the history of this Company and I am privileged, in as much as I was able to work with what is I think the most expert production team existing in television today'.
Digger Pugh Girls in Cleopatra
Digger was also closely involved in organising the first attempt to film "Cleopatra" in this country. He had gathered together an enormous number of animals, film extras and the wardrobe which was accommodated in the largest collection of canvas dressing rooms, stables and portable storage space assembled in this country since Barnum and Bailey had toured their circus here. Its filming here was called off, due to the illness of the star, Elizabeth Taylor, but it was later made in Italy. Digger provided his troupes of girls, engaged many animal and circus acts, including Chipperfield's herd of elephants, and took part in the filming himself, along with son Johnnie.
Digger was closely associated with the Clowns Club (now renamed Clowns International) from its inception, and for over fifteen years was its Chairman. A man of boundless energy and enthusiasm, he could be blunt and even rude and his criticism of anything he did not like or think was good enough often caused him to fall out with managements. On the other hand, he could be lavish with his praise for anything he felt was good in show business. His own contributions were always supremely professional, his girls well-dressed and immaculately turned out. Sheila being in no small way responsible for the excellent costuming and training of the girls.
After his death, Sheila was asked to continue providing troupes for big shows like Circo Americano in Spain, but she had two young daughters to bring up and no longer had the enthusiasm or time to devote to training groups of girls in various circus skills. Today, of course, nobody could afford to put on the sort of lavish productions in which Digger's troupes appeared at Haringey Arena, in Vienna and Berlin or at Circo Americano.
Digger married Sheila McMahon in 1952, when she was a member of one of his troupes.
She joined at the age of 14 and worked in all the Haringey shows. She recalls the exciting days of bookings in America, when the troupe of 20 or so girls would leave England on the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth or Aquitania. Inevitably only three or four girls would return, the others remaining in the States and marrying well. She still keeps in touch with Maggie Smith, who later married Art Concello, and with many other members of the troupes over the years, many of whom she coached as complete greenhorns on aerial rigging set up on the lawns of the House in Hounslow.
There were the two former factory girls, Margaret and Maureen Quinn, who went into a 40 weeks' tour of Spain with Circo Americano, after only a month's training, later going to the Clyde Beatty Circus in America. Sheila Robertson, from Liverpool, was trained by Digger in 1949, went with her sister to Mills Bros. Circus in America and later became head girl of the troupe with Circus Trolle Rhodin before appearing in the "Cleopatra" film. A miner's daughter from Atherstone, near Tamworth, joined Digger's troupe when she was only 14 years old, joined Billy Smart's Circus here, before going to America with the Mills Bros. Circus for five years and ending up as a choreographer for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.
Apart from those far flung places already mentioned, Digger Pugh had worked in cabarets in Hong Kong, Saigon, Manilla, Malacca, Italy, Germany, France, Arabic countries, New Zealand, Canada and Belgium, while in London his cabaret appearances had included the prestigious Grosvenor House, Park Lane Hotel, Savoy Hotel, Hyde Park Hotel, and the Dorchester.
While we were in Lille, France for the premiere of the Ringling Barnum show, I recall being impressed by a demonstration of a series of flip-flaps across an office floor by the short, stocky Digger, who all his life had been a healthy, active man. At the age of 61, he was still a supreme acrobat. He returned to England for what was to have been a relatively minor operation, but prostate cancer was diagnosed and he was to remain bedridden for the rest of his life, a terrible lingering and painful illness, particularly hard to bear for somebody who had always been so active. It was a long and painful period too, for his wife Sheila, who nursed him through the years of incapacity. Johnny spent much of the final winter of Digger's life in Hounslow but had flown back to America only two days before the end, on February 1, 1969. Ironically perhaps, his employer at the Haringey Arena circuses, Tom Arnold, died the following day. Digger was cremated at Hanwell Crematorium the following Friday February 7, son Johnny being present with other members of the family.
At the tine I wrote: "Digger had a roguish, engaging wit, and great strength of personality; for his friends, a deep sense of loyalty; and for his family a great love. I cannot recall ever having heard Digger called by his real name; it is as Digger that many in the circus world will remember him". Nearly thirty years on, I have attempted to record just why he deserves an undying place of honour in Circusdom.
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