New Photos, Videos, and Information on Carl Baggesen and Boy Foy

By David Cain

Today we will examine two jugglers about whom I’ve written before, Carl Baggesen and Boy Foy. I’ve included new photos and information about both and new video of Boy Foy.

Carl Baggesen

Carl Baggesen is little known among today’s jugglers, yet he was a major attraction during the height of vaudeville. Born in 1858 in Odense, Denmark, he began his stage life as a contortionist, performing under the name Klischnigg. In the early 1890s he traveled to the United States, where he entered vaudeville and gradually developed the act that made him famous: a silent, bungling comedy juggler. Within only a few years, the routine propelled him to stardom.

The act typically opened with his wife, Sophie—born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1864—who performed under the stage name Sapphira. Dressed as a maid, she would begin by juggling three oranges. Carl then shuffled onstage in an oversized, shabby tuxedo. Affecting a blank, oblivious expression reminiscent of the deadpan later associated with Buster Keaton, he stood at the front of the stage as if unaware of both the maid and the audience. To attract his notice, Sapphira would set aside the oranges and start juggling plates, eventually allowing one to fall. Startled into action, Carl would attempt to assist her, launching a carefully constructed cascade of mishaps.

What followed was a masterfully choreographed “comedy of errors.” Baggesen dropped, smashed, and fumbled plates, flowerpots, and assorted crockery, all while maintaining the demeanor of a mild, gentle soul. At one point, his hand would inadvertently land on flypaper, which clung stubbornly to his palm as he struggled to rescue teetering china. He frequently found himself balancing towering stacks of plates that swayed precariously from side to side, sustained at the brink of collapse by genuine juggling control. Inevitably, some small incident would send the entire structure crashing down, leaving him holding a single surviving piece. His background as a skilled contortionist allowed him to assume seemingly impossible positions during these sequences. The finale found him standing amid 300 or more shattered plates, proudly displaying one intact dish—only to drop and break it in his final moment of triumph.

Without speaking a word, Baggesen captivated audiences with sustained laughter and attention. Although the act contained flashes of authentic juggling technique, it was his precise timing, physical control, and expressive clowning that made it unforgettable.

Carl and Sapphira’s career took them widely across Europe and North America. Early successes included Chicago in 1895; London and Berlin in 1898; and in 1899 appearances in Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Brussels, and Vienna (with additional engagements in Paris). They returned to Berlin and Leipzig in 1900, and in 1901 appeared in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Their popularity endured for decades, culminating in a final performance at the Wintergarten in Berlin in February 1927. After retiring, the couple settled on the Danish island of Thurø. Carl died on May 21, 1931, and Sapphira passed away in December 1943.

Baggesen’s plate-smashing routine proved highly influential. Variations of it were adopted by circus clowns and eccentric jugglers for many years. Shortly after his retirement, a condensed version appeared in The Circus (1928) starring Charlie Chaplin. Numerous performers, including David Larible, have since presented interpretations of the concept. It has been estimated that Baggesen destroyed approximately six million plates over the course of his career—an astonishing figure that would place him among the most prolific “droppers” in juggling history. Though usually billed as comedy jugglers, Carl and Sapphira were at times advertised more provocatively as “plate destroyers.”

A review from the Los Angeles Herald from 1907 had the following high praise for Baggesen’s act:

“The cleverest acting of the week is found at a theater where acting per se is not ordinarily at a premium. It is at the Orpheum, and the actor is a man billed as a comedy juggler. His name Is Carl Baggesen. He may be a juggler but he mercifully refrains from juggling. He just acts. The juggler we have always with us, but the real actor is a rare bird. Hence this paean to Carl Baggesen. Baggesen can act standing still. Without moving a muscle of his own he can set all yours shaking with laughter. And the best authorities will tell you that to communicate mirth without motion of speech is the greatest manifestation of the actor’s art. He wanders onto tho stage while the other Baggesen is doing her childish juggling stunt. You behold a shambling red-nosed man in an impossible music hall disguise. He is shabbily genteel and quietly, unobtrusively soused. His is the kind of jag which knows it is but thinks itself so well behaved that nobody else is wise. You expect him to start some funny “business,” but he doesn’t. In a quiet way he is conscious of the audience and resolved to maintain a nice, “respectable” appearance. He is furtively anxious about his white cotton gloves. They dangle on his hands as hopelessly as though they, too, had been too oft to the wash. With feeble alacrity Baggesen steers respectfully clear of the large juggling lady, and after one or two experiments strikes a modest, demure pose with eyes timidly fixed on the gallery. And though there is not a trace of the grotesque or exaggerated in that pose the house explodes with glee. Why? It’s character. Character sticks out all over the great Baggesen. You behold a feeble-minded wreck whose clouded consciousness is wrapped up in the small vanity of not doing the wrong thing and earning the displeasure of his wife. All this he conveys to you without a movement or a gesture or a grimace. It is the acme of the ludicrous. Baggesen does much more as the act progresses, but he never smiles nor loses a particle of the original quiet simplicity of his creation. He gets into difficulty with a fly paper and is deeply ashamed before the audience as he plucks it furtively from one hand, only to find it a moment later adhering to the other. In that and many other hopeless difficulties he brings laughter to a climax by the sudden resolution with which he ambles off the stage to find a solution of his troubles. The fun becomes more active and complicated toward the end. The stage is strewn with broken crockery— but not a word is spoken. In one of his extremities the solemn Baggesen proves himself to be a bit of a contortionist. But you don’t want him to controt-you just want him to act, because it is only once in a lifetime you see such acting as his. The Herald artist has caught Baggesen in a characteristic attitude. If you have seen him this picture will draw tears of joy to your eyes. Everyone who has seen the Baggesen act will cut out this sketch and pin it on the wall as a cure for the blues.”

The Berlin variety and circus agent Robert Wilschke wrote about the famous couple, giving us insight into how the act came about. “Who has not laughed at the Baggesens yet? Their scene played in the kitchen, they handled plates and mountains of dishes that were always in danger of slipping out of their hands and then falling into ruins. If Baggesen was carrying the mountain of plates in his old, far too wide tail coat, when the mountain of plates was sinking and Baggesen tried to regain his balance through dislocations of his body, then a screaming laugh passed through the house. The housewives, who knew from their own budget, shouted what the plates cost, the children screamed, the men laughed at the top of their lungs – one can say that the Baggesens were the number with the most shouting laughter in all the houses of the continents broke out. The tragicomedy of breaking crockery was something everyone had somehow once experienced in themselves, that was the secret of the success of this number. Then there was the cheerful episode with the fly paper. If Baggesen had messed up his plates again, then the mischief of fly paper that stuck to his fingers came. If he scraped it from one hand, it stuck to the other again. If he had freed his hands from it, it would stick to his coat or pants or face, and finally the fly paper was to blame for the whole kitchen going to pieces… Chance had invented Baggesen’s number. Originally he was rubber man. Once, when he dined in an artisan restaurant, he witnessed a waiter walking through the bar slip a whole pile of plates off his arms. The sight gave Baggesen the idea of ​​building a number out of it. This is how a world success came about.”

Today, the Baggesens are largely forgotten, which is unfortunate given the immense success and lasting influence of their act. Despite modest technical juggling compared with later virtuosos, Carl Baggesen’s originality and commitment helped shape the tradition of the eccentric juggler and left a legacy that deserves remembrance. A film of Carl and Sapphira’s act was made, but it appears to have been lost to time. Let’s hope that a future historian is able to locate a copy.

Boy Foy

John Campwell—later known professionally as Boy Foy—was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1919. His parents, Jack and Ann Campwell, performed as the British juggling team the Melvilles. Footage of the Melvilles can be seen below.

Adopting the stage name Boy Foy, John stepped into the spotlight at just seven years old. He devoted himself intensely to practice, often training between five and eight hours daily, and by the mid-1930s he had established himself as a unicycling juggler with a fully developed act.

A major early milestone came in 1935, when he appeared in King George V’s final Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium. Advertised as “England’s Youngest Juggler,” he earned the distinction of being the youngest artist ever to appear at a Command Performance. Throughout the latter half of the 1930s, he worked steadily in both the United Kingdom and the United States, including engagements at Radio City Music Hall and a 1938 return to the London Palladium, performing with the Oxford Circus.

Boy Foy presented his entire juggling repertoire atop unicycles of differing heights. His program featured three and four-club sequences, manipulation of three top hats, ball spinning and mouth-stick balancing, along with a range of combination feats. At the height of his powers, he incorporated a cups-and-saucers routine in the style of Rudy Horn, executing it on a tall unicycle. He was also known to juggle five clubs during his career. Photographs from the period document various elements of this act.

 

Although he traveled extensively—appearing in cities such as Berlin, Paris, locations in Switzerland, and Singapore—Boy Foy spent the majority of his roughly fifty-year performing career based in the United States. He returned multiple times to Radio City Music Hall, notably for runs in 1947 and 1950, and he participated in additional Royal Command Performances, becoming a favored entertainer of Queen Elizabeth.

Boy’s reviews were almost always very favorable.

The Daily Express, London, England. October 31st, 1935

On January 18th, 1936, Billboard Magazine said the following: “Boy Foy, 17 -year -old juggling sensation from Europe, accomplished difficult juggling tricks mounted at all times on a ‘unicycle, starting with a small one and closing with a high one. He juggled Indian clubs, spun several plates at the same time, did marvelous ball and stick work and manipulated several hoops. The kid is great and he took a heavy hand. A hit.”

Variety Magazine – March 1937

Variety, May 15th, 1954

He toured with the Harlem Globetrotters as a featured halftime performer and appeared frequently on television, including spots on The Ed Wynn Show in 1950 and The Mickey Mouse Club in 1957. He found substantial employment in roller-skating and ice-skating revues and filled gaps between those contracts with circus engagements. His final documented performance occurred in 1975 with a circus in San Francisco. Fellow juggler John McPeak, who appeared on the same bill, recalled that Boy Foy received enthusiastic applause.

We are fortunate to have some good videos of Boy Foy performing. First is a video showing clips from three performances by Boy Foy in the 1940s, filmed by Bobby Jule. Thanks, Bobby, for sharing this video with us.

Next, we have a video of Boy Foy performing in an ice skating show that was shown on the television show You Asked For It.

While the Museum of Juggling History doesn’t have any props from Boy Foy, its archives do contain a great piece of history. Below you can see a letter written by legendary prop maker Harry Lind to Boy regarding the cost of various juggling props. The letter was written in 1948. Sixteen years later, Lind became Boy Foy’s stepfather when Harry Lind married Boy’s mother, Ann Melville.

In the late 1970s, Boy Foy retired from performing and began teaching juggling and unicycle, which he had begun earlier while still performing. One of his students was Peter Davison, who went on to become an IJA champion both as a solo performer and as part of the famed team Airjazz. Peter had the following to say about Boy Foy.

*****

“Boy Foy and his partner Fay (who I assume was also his wife) taught a circus arts class through Santa Monica Community College, I believe during the years of 1973-74. I was around 13 years old when I started his class, after having learned to juggle a year earlier. Foy and Fay, as they were known then, were a matched pair of compact people, not much over 5 ft. tall if memory serves, in their sixties. Foy had a marvelous kind of English accent similar to Charlie Chaplin’s in the movie
“Limelight.”

The class included juggling with balls, clubs (Harry Lind, fiberglass, or his homemade fabric over cardboard & wood structure on a turned-wood handle) and rings (quarter inch thick wood), various balancing and spinning tricks, unicycle, and walking globe. Foy and Fay could juggle all of the props well, and they passed clubs with him on a unicycle and she on a globe. I believe in those days they were occasionally performing small gigs in schools and such, or had only recently retired from doing so. They also brought a wonderful collection of memorabilia, with glossy photos of their friends and colleagues, including Francis Brunn.

One day Foy announced that the Mickey Mouse Club TV show was re-broadcasting his appearance on that show from the 1950’s. My heart was pounding as I watched his act performed entirely on unicycle. Some tricks I remember were a 3 club routine, 3 top hats, and ball & mouth stick on a short unicycle. Then, on 8-ft. Giraffe, 4 clubs; spinning rings on arms, leg & mouth stick; and combo trick with true balance on head; juggling four rings; and holding 3 balls in joints of one leg. (I know another trick from his youth not performed on TV was the cup & saucer trick on giraffe.)

It was Foy and Fay’s class, the memorabilia, and his TV appearance that opened my eyes to professional juggling and got me excited about becoming a juggler myself.”

*****

Boy Foy stands as one of the leading variety performers of his era and a significant influence within the field. As one newsletter of the Unicycling Society of America observed, his impact was such that “all the jugglers took to unicycles and all the unicyclists took to juggling.”