by Anthony DeMatteo
Staff Writer
Each Thursday night, a group of teachers and students gather in a large room at a church off University Boulevard.
Fred, who has been with the group since the early 1990s, is the former Chief Executive Officer of Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, where, for years, he lived a double life.
Gopher has taught with the group for 24 years. He repairs air conditioners at a local nursing home and can make his wedding ring shimmy up a rubber band.
His wife, Rosebud, is a hair dresser who often disguises herself with heavy makeup.
It is a small class, with instructors emphasizing cheerful, one-on-one assistance. But some who have attended for parts of three decades don’t know any of the other clowns’ real names.
At Gator Clowns of Jacksonville, veteran clowns teach students about the art Dan Rice and Emmett Kelly helped make legend.
“They learn to put on their makeup, they learn a little bit of magic, they learn some balloons,” said Professor Clown, Olene Lockwood, who is Rosebud when she clowns. “We teach them as much as we can.”
Lockwood has been a clown for 25 years. For 21 years, she and her husband, Paul, whose clown name is Gopher, owned a business that had them traveling the city to clown at children’s birthday parties.
“Most of us have always had other jobs,” she said. “For 12 years, I had a clown ministry here at church. We do gospel clowning here, and we used to take the kids to nursing homes and stuff like that.”
But despite early interest in the profession, Lockwood said clowning often loses the battle for kids’ attention.
“Of course, they grow up and get interested in music and softball and baseball,” she said.
Lockwood gives student clown, Charity Riffe, advice on choosing a clown name.
“You want something that is not so difficult for the children to remember,” she tells her.
Lockwood said she thinks “Charity” is a perfect name for a clown, but Riffe wants a change.
“I don’t want to keep the same name,” she said.
“We’ve got a bunch of new clowns tonight,” Lockwood tells the school’s director, Hi-D-Ho, whose given name is Joe Cloutier.
All students who graduate from the school on May 1 will be clowns.
Cloutier said the school – called an “alley,” because clowns in history waited in alleys to distract people from a gored matador or an uncooperative elephant – has about 120 members.
“I got into clowning because my family were clowns,” said Cloutier, who is a faculty member at the University of Central Florida.
One of about eight prospective clowns the school attracted last Thursday was Loretta Nerbonne, who saw an advertisement for the school at a car show in St. Augustine, where she works with children and runs a network marketing firm.
As she smeared the first gob of white clown makeup on her cheek, she got help from clowns all around her, particularly veteran performer Joan Moses, who is clowning again after a layoff.
Moses is a Whiteface, like Bozo. Clowns are either Whitefaces, Auguste, like Lou Jacobs, or Tramps, like Kelly.
“I know two girls who are both 24 and both of them are scared to death of clowns, and I thought, ‘How can you be scared of a clown?’” said Nerbonne.
New clown, Joy Clute, whispers in Nerbonne’s ear about being paid for clowning jobs not affiliated with the school, as though commerce is an unholy side effect of the profession.
But Lockwood said her business did well, and if a clown works hard enough, she can get rich with her big black shoes and red rubber nose.
“You could get rich if you wanted to,” she said. “I didn’t get in it to get rich, so I didn’t. I got into it because their was nothing else for children. We had one clown in the city when I got in it.”
Moses tells Nerbonne to put the last layer of makeup on her bottom lip – because you need a naked lower lip to pucker through most of the process – and shows her how to apply “pips,” little lines at the mouth’s corners that freeze her face in a smile.
“I think I might really want to do it,” said Riffe, “Go to hospitals, see the children and make them laugh.”
On Oct. 23, members of the school are going to French Guyana on a mission trip.
Officials at the church try to give Lockwood the room at no cost, but she insists on paying something for the electricity.
The school is composed entirely of volunteers. Lockwood laughs when asked for an address where people can make donations to the school – Gatorclownsofjacksonvilleflorida.com.
“Nobody ever sends us anything,” she said. “Nobody mentions us in their will. I wish they would. We’d love to get a building one of these days.” Gator graduate, Ken Wilson, who is Brooks Rehabilitation’s former top boss, said clowning is part of a longtime passion.
“I’ve been following the circus ever since I was in kindergarten,” said Wilson, whose clown name is Fred. “Once I did it, I realized that I could say things I’d never say and do things I’d never do.”
Slowed by back fusion surgery, Wilson now limits himself to appearing about once a year as Fred – at a kids’ event in Orange Park.
He said the old art of clowning, which showed off clowns’ pantomime skills, is vanishing.
“Today, unfortunately, it’s become more slapstick,” he said. “You go back and you had someone like Lou Jacobs, who I took my makeup after, and Emmett Kelly.”
Olene Lockwood said it takes a certain kind of person to be a clown.
“I think you have to be not only a loving person but one who thinks about other people,” said Lockwood. “You hardly ever find a selfish clown.”