PT Barnum and Hugh Jackman

choi

* James Mottram wrote this piece.

Every Bit the Showman. Hugh Jackman stars in a new musical about circus impresario PT Barnum. He tells James Mottram how he honed his skills for the role. Financial Times, Dec 23, 2017.

Quote:

(a) the first 1 ¼ paragraphs: "Hugh Jackman is recalling a professional low-point: his days entertaining kids' parties dressed as a clown. 'I can tell you -- an eight-year-old's birthday party os the toughest audience I've ever had to face,' he says. One day, after a disgruntled child yelled out 'This crown is crap,' Jackman produced a carton of eggs in desperation. 'I just gave them the eggs and let them check 'em at me!' he smiles. 'I really didn't have any skills. I was very Barnum-esque.'

"In some ways he still is. Jackman plays PT Barnum, the 19th-century circus impresario, in The Greatest Showman. * * *

(b) Indeed, when The Greatest Showman closes with Barnum's words 'The noblest art is that of making others happy,' it's a quote easily attributable to Jackman.


Note:
(a) In 2011 Jackman told Daily Beast and In the News that he had been a clown earning $50 a party: "I was Coco the Clown, and I had no magic tricks."  Dailymail.co.uk had a photo of him dressed as and with makeup of a clown.


But I googled and nowhere said when was his clown days, where or how long. Jackman (1968- ) is Australian. Since, the reports of his clown days have been repeated in other outlets, but not the part of him as aim of egg-throwers.
(b) chuck (vt): "TOSS, THROW"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chuck
(c) There is no need to read the rest, which is about the incoming movie. It is not a great piece of writing.

(d)
(i)
(A) PT Barnum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum
(Phineas Taylor Barnum; 1810 – 1891; surnames of his father and mother Barnum and Taylor, respectively; his given name came from "his maternal grandfather Phineas Taylor”/  "Barnum did not enter the circus business until he was 60 years old [in 1870]. * * * [His circus] went through various names [including] Greatest Show On Earth; an 1881 merger with James Bailey's)
(B) The English surname Barnum is "from any of various places called Barnham * * * They are probably all named with the Old English byname Beorn(a) (see Barnes 2) or Old English beorn warrior + ham homestead."
(ii)
(A) "The Ringling brothers had purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd following Bailey's death in 1906."  en.wikipedia.org for Ringling brothers.
(B) The Ringling family being German immigrants, their original name was spelled Rüngeling.

The Ringling Family Crest. The Ringling Museum, undated.
http://ringlingdocents.org/pages/ruengeling.htm
* from this website: "This website is not part of the The John and Mable Ringling Museum / FSU organization, but a private development created and maintained by Willem van Osnabrugge, active docent from 1999-2014 at the Ringling Museum."
* John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo ... gling_Museum_of_Art
(1927- ; located in Sarasota, Florida; Florida State University [located at Florida capital Tallahassee] assumed governance of the Museum in 2000; designated as the [not a] official state art museum for Florida)

John was one of the seven Ringling brothers, five of whom "worked together to build a circus empire."  en.wikipedia.org for John Ringling.