THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

Movie Poster

Charlton Heston & James Stewart

Betty Hutton & Cornel Wilde

The Greatest Show on Earth won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1952. And part of it was made in Sarasota the year before.  The  Ringling Brothers Circus wintered in Sarasota and many famous circus families made their homes in our town.

So when Sarasota heard that big stars like Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart, Cornel Wilde and Betty Hutton were coming to our town to make a movie about the circus, we were, collectively, over the moon.  I particularly admired Mr. Heston (and I admired him even more years later when I saw him nearly naked in Planet of the Apes.)  I was sure that I was destined to be an actress due to my early success playing a Mother Hen in the first grade.  This triumph coupled with the fact that I had been a beautiful child who had modeled in New York assured me that show business was in my near future.  The mirror told me that my early childhood beauty had faded quite a bit and I had entered an "awkward stage" (from which I was never to emerge), but I felt sure that directors would see beyond my current failings and I could be the next child star. So when I heard that school children and townspeople were needed as extras in the circus scenes, I knew that fate had smiled on me.  As the big day approached I grew more and more excited.  The night before my film debut I went to bed early so that I would be well rested.  And besides I felt very tired.  Very tired indeed.  I remember my father taking my temperature in the middle of the night before I drifted off again into troubled sleep.  When morning came I was told that I had a high fever and was quite ill.  There was no possibility of my going on the school field trip to the movie set.  I was heartbroken and cried all day.

My father stayed home from work with me and my mother took our camera to the movie set.  Since Mom was quite the beauty, she had no trouble snapping photos of Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart and Cornel Wilde.  Somehow, Betty Hutton and Gloria Graham were left out of her picture spree.  Eagerly, we waited for the film to be developed (this was in the Olden Days.)  And finally, there they were--the smiling black and white images of Stewart, Heston (fully clothed) and Wilde.  We had the pictures for years until they faded at last into obscurity.