Gerry Cottle CIRCUS IMPRESARIO

WORDS BY BRIAN CLARIDGE

HE RAN OF TO THE CIRCUS AT A YOUNG AGE AND STARTED OUT PLAYING THE BACK END OF A HORSE, BUT IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE GERRY COTTLE WAS RUNNING THE MOST SUCESSFUL CIRCUS IN THE WORLD. BUT IT WASN'T EASY...

Circus impresario, Gerry Cottle, is one of the most famous names in the circus world.

His shows have trail-blazed across several continents and become a benchmark for circus performances across Europe. His colourful life of ups and downs, includes bankruptcy and an addiction to sex and drugs.

It’s hard to imagine Gerry Cottle having an addiction to sex and drugs or to believe all the lurid stories about him in the tabloids over the past four decades. His wild-man image is light years away from the genteel 61-year-old who now owns Wookey Hole Caves, in Somerset, England which he acquired in 2003 after retiring as owner of the most famous circus in Britain.

“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride,” admits Britain’s most famous showman referring to his life. The son of a stockbroker, Gerry’s love affair with the circus started when he was taken to see Jack Hilton’s Circus at Earl’s Court, at the age of eight. He taught himself to juggle with oranges from his mother’s kitchen and got a part-time job while he was still at school mucking out the horses and picking up litter at Chessington Zoo. His parents tried to get him to knuckle down to schoolwork and got him into a posh grammar school, which he hated. “My Latin teacher said I was the worst pupil he had ever come across,” he recalls. At the age of 15 Gerry decided to take matters into his own hands and ran away to join the circus, leaving behind a small note to his parents. He then caught a train from his home in Cheam to Newcastle and joined the Robert Brothers Circus. When his school found out he had left, they were only too happy to see the back of him, as he was regularly bunking off to practice his circus skills.

One of his duties as a circus apprentice, earning £5 per week, was to clean up after the elephants. “It was one of the worst jobs in the circus,” he says. He also played the rear end of a pantomime horse, “although it was a dam sight better than shovelling elephant shit.”

Gerry decided against working with caged lions because the previous trainer had been mauled to death. Also, after several nasty falls, he knew he was never going to make a horse-trick rider. He soon learnt that circus life required enormous amounts of energy and staying power. “We were constantly on the move and had to pull down the big top and put it up three times a week, often without sleep. It’s one of the most physical jobs there is and you have to be cut out for it,” he says.

THE BIG CIRCUSES WERE USUALLY FAMILY AFFAIRS, AND AS A 'JOSSER’ (CIRCUS SLANG FOR AN OUTSIDER), GERRY FOUND IT HARD TO GET A JOB AS A PERFORMER. He worked on his juggling, and practised being a clown, but was told he would never rise above that. He decided to join a smaller circus, run by Joe Gandey, and finally got to perform.

He realised, though, that as much as he enjoyed showing off, especially to the girls, he was not the most talented of performers. One of his early sexual encounters, aged 17, involved Gerry and another circus hand being approached by two local girls half an hour before the show. “They offered us sex if we’d give them free tickets to the show!”

DESPITE ALL HIS EFFORTS TO MAKE A SUCCESS IN THE CIRCUS, GERRY REALISED HE WASN’T GOING TO GET ANYWHERE WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF AN ESTABLISHED CIRCUS FAMILY, OR BETTER STILL TO MARRY INTO THE CIRCUS. The dream seemed less distant when he came across 12-year-old Betty Fossett, who worked in her family’s circus. “She was gorgeous, an absolute princess. There was one small problem, she didn’t like me very much.” He decided she was too young to get serious about and left England to work on a Holiday on Ice production travelling across Europe for a couple of years. He managed to save up quite a bit during this time and on his return to England went to see Betty’s father, Jim Fossett, who offered him a job at the family’s circus. By now, Betty was 15 and even more attractive to Gerry. “I used to watch her perform a lasso act every night in her tight black satin trousers and was determined to marry her one day.” By the time she was 16, Gerry had saved up enough to buy a caravan and persuaded Betty to move in with him. They married a few years later and had four children. The marriage, however, went through a rocky patch when Gerry started messing about with other women and they eventually separated.

Shortly after his failed marriage, Gerry teamed up with Brian Austen to launch the Cottle and Austen Circus, in 1970, which was phenomenally successful “People used to come from miles to see the show, especially the animals,” says Gerry. “At one point we had five elephants, six lions, ten horses, ten monkeys and baboons, three camels and five llamas. We employed men solely to look after them. Our lion trainer had to seek out local butchers that could supply us with four ox heads a day for the lions, not to mention all the other food for the rest of the animals. It was a monumental task feeding them and transporting them round the country.” He got his big break when he was commissioned by the BBC to host the popular variety TV show Seaside Special from his Big Top, and he soon became a household name.

AFTER SPLITTING FROM BRIAN AUSTEN, GERRY FORMED THE GERRY COTTLE CIRCUS, WHICH BECAME THE BEST-KNOWN CIRCUS IN THE COUNTRY. One of the highlights of Gerry’s career was being invited by the Sultan of Oman to take his circus over to Oman for the princely sum of £60,000. “It was a huge honour and a lucrative contract,” says Gerry. Despite the highs, though, there were also the lows, and the winter of 1978 turned out be the worst year on record for Gerry when attendances dropped to an all-time low, due to a long bout of severe arctic weather. “Who in their right mind wants to go out when it’s freezing cold?” says Gerry. The weather had a dire effect on box-office takings and his accountant gave him the breaking news that he would have to liquidate and declare his company bankrupt. “I was absolutely gutted when he informed me that we had debts amounting to quarter of a million pounds,” says Gerry. The press had a field day with 'Circus Owner Goes Bankrupt’ flashed across the front pages and it became the hot topic of conversation everywhere. He got himself out of difficulties by being offered a chance to put his debts on hold for a few months, trim down his business and trade for a few months in the hope of paying off a significant amount of debt at the end of it, which he decided to do. Fortunately for him, it was the right decision and he was back on course within a few years.

He decided to diversify when there was a huge public outcry about the use of animals in the circus, realising that the glory days of big shows were over and he is partly responsible (along with Cirque du Soleil) for contemporary shows such as the Circus of Horrors, Cottle’s Daredevil Circus and the Cottle and Austen Electric Circus. His best investment to date has been his 15-acre farmhouse in Addlestone, Surrey. “I bought it in 1975 for £40,000 and sold it 30 years later for £3million,” says Gerry. With the money he made from the sale, plus the profit he made from selling his shares in the circus, he acquired Wookey Hole Caves for £5million. He’s already put his unique stamp on the place and added a dinosaur park and circus-themed restaurant and has plans to open a resident Circus School for children. “Wookey has surpassed all my expectations,” says Gerry. “Turnover is up by more than 40% and it has given me a nice stable income.” I ask him when he plans to put his feet up and enjoy retirement. “Do I plan to take it easy now? Not for a long time!” It seems the show must go on.

The whole story

Running off to the circus might sound like a blast, but before packing up your rubber nose and big shoes, find out what it’s really all about. Confessions of a Showman by Gerry Cottle and Helen Batten (€27, published by Vision) is out now. If you still feel circus-bound, check out www.circusarts.org.uk for more information.