Grimaldi: The First Modern Clown

This would make a great horror film.  The below excerpt is from a terrific article by Ed Simon:

The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi is a trauma narrative. It offers a a horrifying portrait of the abuse Grimaldi endured at the hands of his father; when the two performed together the father “fell upon his son at once, and beat him severely,” writes Dickens. “This was all taken by the audience as a most capital joke” and “the papers the next morning declared that it was perfectly wonderful to see a mere child perform so naturally.” A haunted man, Grimaldi would “sob and cry aloud, and suffer so much violent and agonizing spasms” his fellow actors feared he’d be unable to return for the second act. Yet return he did, always ready to “rally at the necessary time.”

In his own 1887 memoir, theater critic Thomas Goodwin recounted how Grimaldi visited a famed surgeon to find a cure for his melancholy. The doctor suggested he pursue “relaxation and amusement… perhaps sometimes at the theater;—go and see Grimaldi.’ ‘Alas!’ replied the patient, ‘that is of no avail to me; I am Grimaldi.’”

Click below for the article...