Kids dream of running away to the circus, but Oscar Liendo Jr. actually did. He has made people laugh with companies like the world-renowned Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the Houston Astros, and San Antonio’s Magic Saloon.
He said he has wanted to make people laugh since childhood. His mother, an avid movie collector, introduced him to comedies and even showed him Eddie Murphy’s Delirious, on the condition he would never repeat the jokes. Unfortunately, she didn’t say anything about the gestures, which Liendo imitated at a carne asada to his family’s delight and his mother’s embarrassment.
Cartoons, comics, and comedies heightened Liendo’s love of performing. “I always wanted to read in front of the class,” he said. His introduction to magic was watching Harry Anderson on Saturday Night Live and his tío doing the “hanky-in-the-fist” trick. Once Liendo learned that trick, he wanted to know more.
For his birthday, his mother bought him a prop, a trick, and a book from a San Antonio magic shop. “She was like my manager,” he recalled. She and his stepfather supported his love of performing, and so did Liendo’s biological father, who took him to local bars to perform. A “way too young” Oscar performed magic tricks for rough and slightly tipsy customers whom he remembered, “had no problem telling me what I did wrong. Those critiques taught me to be more critical and faster with the jokes.”
As a teenager, Liendo bounced from odd job to odd job because he wanted something Laredo couldn’t offer him — a chance to perform.
He enrolled in the San Francisco Circus Center’s Clown Conservatory Program. “It was like Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters,” he said, referencing the X-Men. “It was a necessary and wonderful culture shock that introduced me to circus performers from all disciplines,” he continued.
But when Liendo wanted to learn flashy acts, he was given theory and improv instead. He found that very frustrating, until an improv class gave a crestfallen Liendo a simple scene: he had a dollar, the class wanted it, but they couldn’t have it. Frustrated, he acted like he would with his friends. He hiked up his pants dramatically, refused to speak, and used physical comedy to thwart his classmates.
After graduating from the 10-month program, Liendo was hired as a clown on the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Blue Team, the final crew of performers touring coast to coast by circus train.
“We were like a goofy military,” he said, remembering the eclectic friends he’d made during his five year run — acrobats, trapeze artists, horse riders, stunt drivers, animal trainers, and clowns from all over the world. “Circus life was grueling. In five years, I got maybe two months off,” he said.
Liendo was one of 12 clowns performing a dozen shows weekly. The builds and breakdowns at venues happened so often and so fast, that during WWII, the U.S. Army consulted with Ringling Bros. about wartime logistics.
Despite all the difficulties working for the circus and living in a 5 ’ x 8’ room on a train, Liendo remembers his adventure fondly. He wore the red nose, entertained crowds, and disappeared. “It was the closest I got to being a superhero.” Whether it was riding an elephant through the Lincoln Tunnel or arriving in full makeup to a surprised New Jersey subway platform with his fellow clowns, Liendo has many stories about being a Ringling Bros. clown.
He said that throughout his career as a clown he “always chose one person in the audience to perform to.” Waiting to go into the arena to perform, he overheard a child say the fire-breathing was boring because “it’s just magic.” When Liendo burst into laughter, surprising the boy, he quickly explained that at the circus, saying “magic” made clowns appear. “Magic?” the boy asked, unsure, and one of Liendo’s fellow clowns popped up, asking, “Who said ‘magic’?”
“That was the kid we performed for that night,” Liendo said, adding that one of the best things about the circus was representing who he really was.
“I’m a Texican,” he said. “Being a brown guy is part of me. I’m a representative of my culture.” As a clown, Liendo often wore silly matador costumes, played an accordion, strummed a guitar, or wore sombreros — no outlandish accents, however. He preferred the classic silent clown acts like Harold Lloyd or Les Fratellini.
“I would have been a lifer if it was still fun,” he said, but with the company trying to keep up with modern trends, Liendo decided to move on. He is proud to have been a part of the last Ringling Bros. Madison Square Garden show featuring elephants and riding with the team long enough to join the Lunar Club, logging enough miles to get to the moon.
Liendo set out for Las Vegas and honed his craft until homesickness steered him back to Texas.
The Houston Astros hired him for stadium shows and school events with their mascot, Orbit. He earned a World Series ring with the company, but said the school shows were the real highlights of his work.
“Those children would probably never have gotten to the stadium, but the Orbit Team treated them like VIPs,” he said.
Following his rule of leaving when the job stops being fun, Liendo left the Astros to focus on projects he found more fulfilling — performing comedy and magic at renaissance fairs, hosting burlesque shows, and joining variety shows.
San Antonio’s Magic Saloon, a magic shop and theater, offered him his next stage. There, he found a community of magicians who pushed him to do more magic than he’d done before.” On that stage he performs his own act that blends comedy and magic.
Last year, “Oscar with a Moustache” headlined a variety show at the Laredo Selfie Museum. He regards that performance as “a love letter to everyone.” He said the audience that night was a great example of what successful performers need — a community of understanding people.
“They don’t need to be in your same field, but they understand your vision. Performers need honesty with their audience, with their work, with themselves. Performers need exposure to different mediums,” he said.
Liendo has plenty of ideas about what’s next. “I want to further the craft of magic and put my signature on it,” he said, adding, “Maybe write an article for Genii, the Conjurer’s Magazine, or a book about my clowning days.”
The only places left to perform, he joked, are cruise ships, “the final frontiers of live entertainment.” In the end, Liendo compares performing to prizefighting. “It’s admirable just to be good at it. The goal doesn’t have to be fame and fortune. The practice is the reward,” he said,
With our interview concluded, Oscar Liendo Jr. doesn’t say goodbye. He never does, choosing the circus despedida, “See you down the road.”
(Mario E. Martinez is a novelist and short story writer from Laredo, Texas. He is the author of Ashtree, NEO-Laredo, and The Chickens That Are Not Her Chickens. To find more of his work, go to marioemartinez.squarespace.com/)
