Lords Of The Rings

What has $2 million in sequins and feathers, loads 11 flatcars in an hour and a half, and thrills 7 million people? Ringling Bros. is actually a very serious business, managed by a father-and-son team.

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Two broad-backed houses canter steadily around the inside perimeter of the ring. On the lead horse stands Petar Avramov, of the Slavovi Troupe. He tenses for the somersault that will send him backward through a hoop onto the horse behind him. He springs -- he's into the roll and through the hoop and, oh God, he missed the horse. Nine thousand eighty-six people gasp as his head hits the ring curb with a sickening thud. But wait. Surrounded by a gaggle of concerned Slavovis, he shakes his head and, dazed rises slowly to his feet. The audience sighs and then breaks into applause. He tries it again. Again he misses. A collective groan. The third time he makes it. He stands balanced on the second horse, hands raised in triumph, acknowledging the cheers, the applause -- tributes to courage, skill, and derring-do.

Forty-eight hours ago, in another city, 375 miles away, Petar performed the same act, striking his head in precisely the same spot. Five nights from now he will do it again in still another town before 10,000 more people. At year's end he and nearly 300 other performers in two traveling units will have given 1,000 shows in 82 cities for more than 7 million people, all of whom come to marvel at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the Greatest Show on Earth.

Petar's talent is formidable. Yet what he does looks almost easy compared with the job of developing the show, putting it on the road, pitching it anew in each town, and turning a profit on the whole unwieldy, capitaland labor-intensive operation. For 27 years this task has been both challenge and reward for 64-year-old Irvin Feld, who, now with his 34-year old Kenneth, owns and runs the circus.

Tonight both Felds are in the audience, as one or both are perhaps 100 times a year. Unlike the other spectators, of course, they both know that Petar is going to miss the horse. Yet their applause is not merely polite; they know the real dangers each act holds. "Even though we know what's supposed to take place," says Irvin, "every performance is different. Anything can happen at any time. That's one of the thrills of the circus, and a lot of people go because of the danger, because they may be there when something happens. So we strive to control what we can control. We strive for perfection in the rigging, the whole manner in which the show is set up and taken down. It's a well-oiled machine. I don't feel there's anything in the whole entertainment world that is as polished or precise." Irvin Feld is a proud man.

"I'm an absolute fanatic about what I want to offer the public," Irvin says. "This is a freak business, the one and only of its kind. There isn't a second, and the reason is that there's no chance of survival unless you have a life of total dedication, and that's what Kenneth and I have. It's what motivates me, what keeps me alive, and it's what I want to do."

It was always what he wanted to do. "From the time I was five," he says, "I told my mother I would own the circus." But the road to Irvin's goal had more than a few twists and turns. For more than 20 years he honed his skills as a promoter, waiting for his opening. Then he waited 9 more years to apply all his talents to his first love. Within 2 years of realizing his dream of ownership he sold out, first to a willing public and subsequently to a corporate giant. Only last March, when he and Kenneth reacquired Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey from Mattel Inc., was the odyssey complete.

The journey began in Hagerstown, Md. "Poor is not the word" to describe his childhood, he says. "We had nothing." So when Feld turned 13 he hit the road, along with his brother Izzy, selling snake oil at carnivals. "I was a great salesman " he says, and the numbers prove it: The two made $8,000 in their first summer. By the time he was 21, Feld owned a drugstore in northwest Washington, D.C. Being in the drugstore business seemed "a fate worse than death," so he added phonograph records, which brought him a little closer to show business. The drugstore became a chain of record stores, which in turn helped him discover and then promote emerging musical talents, at first gospel and jazz stars, later such rock-and-roll luminaries as Chuck Berry, the Platters, Bill Haley and the Comets, nnd Fats Domino.

"I was a pioneer," Feld says, "an innovator. I was fortunate enough to figure trends in entertainment, in music, all my life." By the early 1950s, he has running an 80-city national tour called the "Biggest Show of Stars," booking his rock-and-roll acts into the new indoor arenas that were springing up around the country. Then came his chance.

In 1956, John Ringling North, heading an organization that was sagging under $1.8 niillion in debt, declared that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey had given its last performance under the big top. He was right -- up to a point.

Feld went to see North the next day. North, Feld says, was willing to sell the circus to him for $250,000 in cash and absorption of all the debts. Feld thought he could raise the cash but knew he wouldn't be uble to repay the debt. Not then. Instead he told North he had a plan for getting the show back on the road.

At that time the circus carried a permanent work force of 2,000 roustabouts and 80 work elephants. "You are in every business except the circus business," Feld pointed out to North. "Every night you erect a tent with 12,000 seats, and every night you tear it down. You're in the construction business." To feed all the roustabouts meant North had "the biggest restaurant business in the world," not to mention the plumbing and sanitation businesses.

Feld also pointed out to North that his promotion methods were passe. It was all very nostalgic, he said, to paste up a big poster in some alley and hope people would happen upon it. But television had arrived, and North wasn't taking advantage of it. All in all, said Feld, he had a better idea.

He proposed that North let him do with the circus what he had been doing with his rock-and-roll shows -- book it into indoor arenas. North agreed. North's people would produce the show and deliver it wherever Feld said. Feld would market it, advertise, rent the buildings, and plan the itinerary. Each of the men would get a percentage on every dollar.

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