Joseph Grimaldi

, Also called Joseph Grimaldi Old Joe, ( born December 18, 1778 in London, † May 31, 1837 ) was an English mime and clown.

Life

Joseph Grimaldi was the son of Italian clowns and ballet master Giuseppe Grimaldi. His debut in England was Giuseppe Grimaldi on October 12, 1758 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with the pantomime dance Müller. Joseph has already appeared as a three year old child - and his father - in the role of Harlequin in the theater Sadler's Wells on.

Grimaldi's version of the clown, which he developed as a stationary roller or funny person for himself, had a white- painted face with red lips and cheeks. As modernization of traditional commedia figures he was comparable to the Parisian Pierrot Jean- Gaspard Deburau ( which was, however melancholy and poetic ).

Grimaldi occurred not in the circus, but in the English pantomime, especially in the Christmas Pantomime. This art form was a kind of popular ballet with grotesque acts and opulent stage sets were composed of recurring elements and were not necessarily silent. Grimaldi was famous for that he encouraged the audience to sing. Grimaldi invented slapstick gags that lasted until the silent movie era. Grimaldi's main places of activity were the Sadler 's Wells and the Drury Lane Theatre in London. His greatest success was in the Mother Goose Theatre Covent Garden (1806 ). Joey, an abbreviation of his first name, was generally the nickname of clowns.

The heyday of his performances included the 1810 bis 1820. Due to a paralysis of his legs Grimaldi could not occur in the last years of life.

A year before his death Grimaldi was busy to write a detailed account of his life. The manuscript he confided to the dramatist Thomas Egerton Wilks for processing. Wilks finished its processing in September 1837, and sold this version to the publisher Richard Bentley. He commissioned the writer Charles Dickens with a repeated processing. Dickens brought the memoirs under the pseudonym Boz in 1838 in two volumes published by Richard Bentley out. The work is a fruitful document for the history of the then popular theaters in London.

From Grimaldi comes the legend of the sad clown, he spread by the following joke about himself: A young man goes to the doctor and complains about his insurmountable depression. Then the doctor advises him that he should go to the famous clown Grimaldi, to cheer himself up. The patient replies, " But I am Grimaldi. "