Starting with none of the traditional
advantages, he capitalized instead on determination and business skill
to climb to the top of the entertainment mountain.
Using common sense,
business sense and juggling skill, Dick Franco has become one of the
most successful solo jugglers in the world. And unlike many others,
Franco had no logical springboard to the art. His family practiced
business in Youngstown, Ohio, not circus. Franco didn't even learn
to juggle until 1970 at age 20.
But he seems to have sensed the calling
from the moment he discovered it, and was able to seek out and befriend
people who could help him further his career. The first was Bobby
May, who lived in retirement not far away in Akron, Ohio. Franco sought
him out and visited regularly. May encouraged Franco to follow his
instincts, helped him put together an act, and taught him about the
business of juggling.
Franco's early career as a trucking dispatcher
gave him a good education in management and negotiation. He was able
to follow the leads he got from May and others like Paul Bachman and
El Gran Picasso to work his way into major contracts with groups like
the Harlem Globetrotters and EMI, the European agency that managed
the Beatles. In the last nine years since he left the Globetrotters,
Franco has played cruise ships and hotel variety shows all over the
world, won two "World Championship" titles competing against the likes
of Rudy Schweitzer and Kris Kremo, and won a Silver Clown at the Monte
Carlo Circus Festival.
His knowledge of juggling history runs as deep
as his business acumen. His home in Las Vegas is a virtual juggling
museum. A confirmed packrat, he still has the first taped plywood
hoops and drilled-out wooden Indian clubs that he and his early partner,
Joe Sullivan, used in 1970.
Eager to seek out responsibility and leadership,
he volunteered to host the IJA's 1975 convention in Youngstown when
he attended his first convention in 1974 in Sarasota, Fla. The 40
or so jugglers in Sarasota also elected him as their president. He
used his studies in advertising to actively promote the 1975 convention,
and turned it into a huge success. It attracted more than 300 jugglers,
national media and marked the beginning of new era of large turnouts
for the IJA.
Franco intends to build on his success thus far to make
a long lifetime of juggling. He says that demands that his act change
to suit the times, and in America that means comedy. Since he has
added chain saw juggling and a number of non-juggling sight gags to
his repetoire of technical skills. Though he can do five ping-pong
balls with no hands from his mouth, he gets more audience response
with a silly trick using three. This year, he says, is his best year
yet as far as good bookings and earnings.
W
You're saying the European
market and American market are different?
DF
Definitely, and in several
ways. Besides prefering the technical act, the European entertainment
directors really know juggling. You'll walk into their offices and
see pictures of all the great jugglers plastered on the wall. They
hire you because they want you, and are usually willing to pay whatever
it takes to get you.
Entertainment directors in the States want comedy.
You break your neck with technical juggling and they say, "that's
nice, but do you eat the apple?" So, to work here you have to adapt.
It's impossible to impress an American audience with technical juggling,
but in Europe the more technique you demonstrate the more they like
it. Here in the states you have to erase the barrier between the performer
and the audience. The straight act is dead in America.
What that means
now is that if I want to work in Europe again, I have to sell myself
to those people all over again. They came to know me as a picture
act and are very wary when they hear that Dick Franco is doing comedy
now.
Europe is nice, but I'd rather live in America. So, I've got
to make the transition to the type of juggling that sells here. I
want to do comedy, but keep the quality in the act. If I keep all
my technical juggling and add comedy, my 8-minute act is now 25 minutes.
But that's OK. It's a challenge and will help prolong my career. I'm
in it for the long run. I don't want to be 50 years old pretending
I'm 30.
Other people are doing it. Dieter Tasso made a beautiful transition
from a circus act to comedy. And look at Kris Kremo, he's doing a
lot more comedy.
JW
Were you nervous at 1979 Circus World Championships
in England against Schweitzer and Kremo. What was it about your act
that judges saw and liked so you could win it?
DF
I decided to do the
performance because I felt it could only help my reputation to be
on the same stage as Kris Kremo and Rudy Schweitzer. I wouldn't have
even done it otherwise. On the night of event, we drew lots for our
slots in the show. Kris ended up first, Rudy second, and me third.
Kris did boxes, hat and balls, then Rudy used the same props.
I came
out with totally different props and finished with ping pong balls,
which no one in England had ever seen. The luck of the draw, going
last, and the reaction of the judges to the different props worked
together to help me win.
None of us went there to win or lose. But
I figured I couldn't lose by just being in the same forum as these
other two great names. Competitively it was totally inconclusive,
but it was a good paycheck and good way to sell myself. It couldn't
have helped Kremo or Schweitzer at all, but I was new in Europe.
So
I got to ride on Kremo's reputation for one day and ended up earning
years of work out of it. After I won, people were asking, "Who is
this guy who can beat Kremo?" It got everyone's attention and got
me an invitation to the Monte Carlo Circus Festival.
Those two appearances
opened the continent of Europe for me. I got TV offers and did three
shows a day sometimes. I'd hire a taxi for the whole day to shuttle
between performances. I had enough engagements to make $10,000 a week
sometimes.
So it was luck, but you have to be prepared when these opportunities
come up. Bobby May had told me that to succeed, first you have to
be good, then you have to be lucky!
JW
Describe for us the tricks you
do in your act.
DF
Well, I'll describe the technical part, but I'm
not going to give away the comedy bits. They're too difficult to conceive
and too easy to steal!
I do three and four balls, and sometimes five
and seven. My ring routine includes five with a half-shower, a five-up
pirouette, pancake tosses and color changes. Then I do seven rings
down to three and back to seven, putting and taking them from under
my arms and between my legs.
Then there's a picture trick with six
hoops, a spinning ball on a mouthstick and hoop on my leg. I do eight
rings several times around, starting with simultaneous tosses and
breaking into alternate throws.
The first part of the act establishes
me as a good juggler, then I stick in some goofy stuff -- a nine ball
gag and four connected cigar boxes. The gags that have nothing to
do with juggling usually get the biggest reaction.
After the rings,
I do a three and four club routine I've been doing for years. People
applaud twice during it, then strongly at the end. I end it with a
kickup from four to five clubs with a couple of under the leg throws
and a pass-and-a-half of behind the back triples.
Now I end the show
with chain saws. They've been a good selling point in American theatres,
but wouldn't sell at all in Europe. I begin with one, tossing it around
my body. I cut a piece of wood to show everyone it's real, then put
it up into a chin balance. I purposely let it slip off my chin and
the audience gasps. Then I do the three.
JW
What is your practice regimen?
DF
I really don't practice at all. Technically I get better just by
performing every day. I have better control of 7, 6 and 5 rings now
than ever before. I do spend 20 minutes warming up before each show,
and every once in a while I work a while afterward to keep my hands
in shape. I work on eight and nine some just to make my seven easier.
I also had a pretty fair 10 ring juggle. It took a lot of work to
get it to where it was and I'd like to maintain that.
I still enjoy
working out, but you gotta start worrying about your elbows and aches
and pains. After all, how many old Russian jugglers do you see? They
work so hard they get hurt and can't perform after a few years. Where
did Petrovski and Kiss go? On the other hand, Bela Kremo juggled the
year he died because he took care of himself.
I'm working out a little
now because I'm want to return to Europe soon and will go back to
my classic routine. I'll drop the comedy, use my old props and do
a technical act again. I want to show them I'm still the Dick Franco
I was over there six years ago.
JW
Is the increased number of jugglers
and exposure of the public to juggling helping open markets for jugglers
or just increasing competition for established professionals like
yourself?
DF
It has definitely opened up markets in advertising. But
I think it's mostly incidental to the main point of those commercials.
Instead of having someone jogging or break dancing, they're putting
in jugglers. The problem is that there's no quality there. The people
who see juggling in that forum don't know anything about good jugglers
or the IJA, they just think it's a neat thing to do.
I reflect back
on Art Jennings' article in the last issue, and agree that the more
quantity you have, the lower the quality is. I think the American
public is seeing less quality juggling now. And what's good for commercials
is bad for nightclubs. There it creates more competition and brings
the prices down. Suddenly you've got 100 jugglers to pick from and
a lot of them are doing the same thing. The management naturally hires
the least expensive performer.
JW
There seems to be some rivalry and
hostile feelings between professional stage jugglers today. Is that
so?
DF
I think it's just general show business. There's a lot of trials
and tribulations involved with becoming a good entertainer. The jealousies
arise when someone comes along and copies your stuff. It's not fair.
The way to avoid problems is to get inspiration from others rather
than verbatim routines.
You derive the inspiration from someone, but
inject your own personality into it. Then if you're real lucky, you'll
come up with something totally original.
There are honorable exceptions,
of course. My three and four ball routines, virtually unchanged for
years, were given to me intact by Picasso. He gave me those tricks
because he didn't have room for them in his act. I watched tapes of
Ignatov and May when I was learning, but I was always trying to find
a different way of doing things. I got my inspiration for rings from
Ignatov, but I think I took his idea and bettered it.
Barrett Felker
and I had the same inspirations and originally juggled a lot alike.
But over the years he did things his way and I did them my way to
the point where we're not even close now.
But it irks you when you
construct something over a period of years, then some guy in the audience
decides it looks good and starts doing it too. Next thing you know
you go in for an audition and a producer says "Oh yeah, what's-his-name
showed me that trick," and it's become his trick. You've got to have
respect for other people.
JW
What advice do you have for young jugglers
contemplating professional careers?
DF
Study it and perfect your skills.
If you're going to do it professionally, you ought to put together
something of quality. Too many people get the impression that jugglers
are bad because they see one locally who is. If you can't juggle well,
don't juggle in front of people. That ought to be a law!
