In the Shadow of the Big Top: The Life of Ringling's Unlikely Circus Savior

by Maureen Brunsdale

Overview

A thrilling behind-the-scenes biography of the Ringling brothers’ chief henchman.

Art Concello wasn’t born into the circus. But he was in the right place at the right time, becoming one of the world’s best trapeze artists before transforming himself into a shrewd circus businessman.

In the Shadow of the Big Top: The Life of Ringling's Unlikely Circus Savior details Concello’s fateful path from flyer, to manager, to owner. Against the backdrop of the golden age of the American circus, this book goes beyond the showmanship displayed in the ring to reveal how the circus could both thrill a crowd and make incredible money—and exposes the human toll extracted for doing so. Maureen Brunsdale not only tells Art’s incredible life story, but also that of his wife, an orphan-turned-acrobat who was determined to never be left behind in a career every bit as terrifying and electrifying as her husband’s.

The first-ever biography of Concello, In the Shadow of the Big Top draws back the curtain on the inner workings of the circus and casts a light on the man who shaped not only Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, but the circus industry as a whole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538172100
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/10/2023
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Maureen Brunsdale is a circus historian and board member of the Circus Historical Society. She is the Special Collections Librarian at Milner Library, Illinois State University. Brunsdale is the coauthor of The Bloomington-Normal Circus Legacy. Learn more at MaureenBrunsdale.com.

Editorial Reviews

Maureen Brunsdale takes you under the sidewall and into the spangled world of the circus, where the spotlight shines on performers and shrewd operators, and the craftiest of them all provides a breathtaking center ring performance.

Chris Berry

In the Shadow of the Big Top is a prodigiously researched look at one of the most enigmatic figures of the golden age of the American circus, Art Concello, an extraordinary star of the flying trapeze who dreamed not of further aerial achievements for the enthusiastic audiences below, but of his ambition to run the whole Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus, all three rings of it, which he handily did through his entire life. Think Charleton Heston, running The Greatest Show on Earth, and then meet the man on whom his character was based. It is quite the ride.

Tom Moore

One of the greatest circus performers and managers of the 20th century, Arthur Concello was as controversial as he was brilliant. Using a mountain of unmined sources, Maureen Brunsdale has brought this complicated and charismatic showman back to life in this first-rate biography. If you want to know how the great Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus really functioned, this is the book for you.

Fred D. Pfening III

A stupendously fascinating biography of Art Concello – a complex individual who had a Jumbo-sized impact on the 20th century American circus. Maureen Brunsdale brings to life this enigmatic man as he stayed “in the shadows” yet modernized John Ringling North’s giant extravaganza, charting it through turbulent as well as triumphant times. The interwoven account of Concello’s first wife and triple-somersaulting flyer, Antoinette, is equally compelling. Bravo!

Greg Parkinson

As Art Concello himself would have said, "Great f—ing read!"

John Ringling North II

Circus is a part of show business. In the Shadow of the Big Top by Maureen Brunsdale chronicles the lives of two extraordinary show people who had a major impact on the business aspects of the circus in the 20th Century.... After reading this scholarly and well-documented book... you will not only know what made these two people circus legends, but you will have also learned a great deal about the history of the American circus.

Circus Talk

Brunsdale brings to life the controversial Arthur Concello in her in-depth new book. Brunsdale takes a clear-eyed look at the team of Antoinette and Arthur, the Flying Concellos and how Arthur sometimes bullied his way into becoming a circus legend.

Leslie Zemeckis