PETE CRISTIANI
(submitted by Lane Talburt)
Pete Cristiani, the last of the legendary Cristiani brothers and a personable circus owner, died on June 4 in Sarasota. Funeral mass was held at St. Martha’s Church there on June 24, commemorating what would have been Cristiani’s 91st birthday. He is survived by four children—Anthony (Tony), Eva, Desiree Martin and Pete Jr., all raised on the circus by Pete and his late wife, Norma Davenport Cristiani. He also is survived by his sister, Mrs. Corky Bowes, the last member of the famed equestrian and acrobatic troupe.
Rebounding from serious injury to his right leg when he was only 13, Cristiani turned to his childhood passion–selling concessions on the circus midway. This was a valuable skill that helped move his family’s Cristiani Bros. Circus on down the road from 1956 to 1960. It also led to his founding Wallace Bros. Circus in 1961, when a principal core of his brothers and sisters took their equestrian and acrobatic routines on a South American tour with a special unit of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Pete added the family name to the title in late 1961 and toured his Cristiani-Wallace Bros. Circus through 1965.
Born Paraito (after a Spanish bullfighter) Cristiani in 1925 in the family’s circus wagon in Parma, Italy, Pete was the youngest son of Ernesto and Emma Cristiani, who had toured Europe with a circus bearing the family name since 1919.
Feeling threatened by the rise of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the Cristianis fled in 1931 to Paris where they joined the famed Cirque Medrano. At age 6 or 7 Pete made his first ring performance on that building circus, assisting Charlie Revel in comedic routines.
A talent scout (none other than the legendary Pat Valdo) signed the family to a contract on The Greatest Show on Earth while the Cristianis were performing in Scotland. Sailing out of Great Yarmouth in 1934 to make their Ringling Bros. debut at Madison Square Garden were Papa and Mama Cristiani and 10 siblings. In birth order, they were Oscar, Daviso, Lucio, Machaquita (Chita), Belmonte, Cosetta, Mogador (Paul), Hortense (Ortans), Paraito (Pete) and Corcaita (Corky).
The Cristianis balked at having to share the spotlight with their longtime equestrian rivals, the Loyal-Repenski Troupe, but acquiesced for the Garden engagement only. For the next four years they were assigned to Ringling’s corporate-owned Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, which toured the Midwest, and later to the West Coast based Al G. Barnes show. Both circuses enabled the Cristianis to perform their riding act as a center-ring feature sans completion in adjacent rings. Though Pete and sister Corky were too young to join their older siblings on horseback, they were dressed in bellhop uniforms to lead the family into the ring.
On the 1937 Barnes circuit Pete—unknown to his doting parents–was hired by concessions manager Willie Lawson to sell peanuts, popcorn and cotton candy during the come-in and blow-off. That’s when the youngest Cristiani brother developed his passion for concessions and, more importantly, his own independent source of money–$2 a day–that came with the job. He also learned the importance of concessions in contributing to the circus bottom line.
The Cristianis rejoined the parent Ringling Bros. outfit in 1938, remaining on America’s premiere circus through the 1943 season. Pete’s evolving ring career was unexpectedly cut short by a tragic fire in the family’s private car in Atlanta in November 1938. An overturned stove fueled by white gasoline ignited grease from a pan onto one of Pete’s legs. Third degree burns requiring a series of skin grafts confined him to the family home in Sarasota for more than six months. He was on crutches when he rejoined the Ringling tour in 1939. Through his father’s patient but rigorous efforts, Pete was eventually able to perform as an understander in the family’s tumbling act and to make leaps with his older brothers on horseback in the widely acclaimed riding act. He also learned to train baby elephants and to participate in leaps over elephants in the ring.
Pete romanced first-of-May showgirl Connie Clawson during the 1942 Ringling tour, a fling which Ms. Clawson later chronicled in her classic circus book, “I Love You Honey But the Season’s Over.”
With the outbreak of World War Two, the enlarged family began to break up. Pete was drafted into the Army, and was sworn as a U.S. citizen in boot camp. However, his leg injury precluded combat duty, so he was assigned as a prop hand on the production of Army training films at Hal Roach Studios in Hollywood. He later was signed to a studio actor’s contract, but gave up this pursuit to rejoin his family on Zach Terrell’s Cole Bros. Circus in 1946. There he was tutored in the art of grift, especially resetting slot machines in the employee gambling car.
With Lucio Cristiani as the family’s manager, the Cristianis became Floyd Kings’ partner on King Bros. Circus in 1948. In 1950 Pete Cristiani left the family once again to manage the pie car on Ben Davenport’s five-ring grift-laden Dailey Bros. Circus—in reality an employee gambling den on rails. He married the boss’s daughter and multi-talented performer, Norma Davenport Plunkett, that same year. As a wedding gift Ben Davenport gave Pete and Norma five elephants, which the couple took to King Bros. after the Dailey rail show collapsed that Fall.
Pete managed concessions on that truck show, which toured under the King Bros.-Cristiani title from 1951 through 1953. After Floyd King broke the partnership, the family toured and provided most of the acts on Little Bob Steven’s outdoor Bailey Bros.-Cristiani Circus for the next two years. The Cristianis made circus history in 1954 by taking the show overland to Alaska for summertime performances before overflow audiences in Anchorage and Fairbanks. The caravan had to stop numerous times along the way to permit Intuit natives to oogle elephants for the first time in their lives.
In 1956 the family launched their own Cristiani Bros. Circus, taking it to cities and towns throughout the U.S and Canada that seldom had the opportunity to see such a talent-filled performance. By coincidence—and literally to the new show’s good fortune–this was the year that saw the Clyde Beatty Circus going into bankrupcy and Ringling Bros. folding its white tops, leaving the field wide open to the Cristiani three-ringer. Pete continued to manage and expand concession operations through 1960, when a series of accidents and declining attendance forced the struggling enterprise off the road.
With the performing Cristianis having signed on for a South American tour with a special Ringling Bros. unit in early 1961, Pete fielded his own Wallace Bros. Circus—a title owned by his father-in-law, Ben Davenport. The show—playing many communities along the old Cristiani Bros. route–was renamed Cristiani-Wallace Bros. later that year, and many family members returned to perform on Pete’s outfit. Pete handled show operations, including concessions, and wife Norma served as the performance director. But this circus, too, encountered financial problems.
In 1964 the show toured as an open-air one-ring circus, also offering carnival rides, at shopping centers under the Dailey Bros. title. Pete reframed and downsized Cristiani-Wallace to a single ring tented show in 1965; it completed the season in the red. Failing to find a financial backer, Pete rented part of his route of Von Bros. Circus in 1966 and eventually sold off the circus assets. In the meantime, Lucio Cristiani and his family had taken his comedic equestrian routine to Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. and Daviso Cristiani performed his single horse routine on Kelly-Miller.
In subsequent years, Pete bought a stainless steel food truck which he operated on Hoxie Bros., and managed Hoxie Tucker’s Lewis Bros. Circus for one season. He also helped Richard Garden frame Toby Tyler Circus and managed the problem-plagued show for a short time.
In addition, Cristiani served as entertainment director for Circus Circus Casino in the early 1970s. He spent the remainder of his outdoor entertainment career with his food truck on carnivals, including the Drew Shows and Royal American Shows—the latter during its final season on rails in 1981. He was severely injured in an auto accident in 1994, which forced him off the road permanently. He continued working concessions at spot dates for various shows in the area, including Circus Sarasota in the early 2000s.
Pete and Norma Cristiani were divorced in the late 1970s; the couple later reunited at their home in Sarasota. They were together when Norma died in 2010 at the age of 79.
The Cristiani family was inducted into the Circus Ring of Fame on St. Armands Circle in 1989. Norma and her parents, Ben and Eva Davenport, were 2007 inductees.