Jango Edwards, Clown Who Challenged His Artwork Type, Dies at 73
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Jango Edwards could have been probably the most well-known clown by no means to don a purple nostril. Actually he was as removed from the family-friendly Bozo as one can think about: impolite, scatological, raunchy. He carried out in drag, in fats fits and generally in nothing in any respect.
In one in every of his stage bits, by which he performed a nearsighted, manic magician, he would ask an viewers member, often a lady, to assist him carry out a card trick by which the deck had been changed with sizzling canines — a gag that was as absurd, and lewd, as one can think about.
“For sheer theatrical power, for schmutz in addition to chutzpah, he makes John Belushi appear to be Charlie Brown,” The New York Instances wrote in 1981.
Some might need referred to as him unhinged. However to his followers, largely in Europe, Mr. Edwards was a genius.
Beginning within the early Seventies, he helped lead a back-to-basics revival of clowning, embracing a thread of transgressive traditions working from medieval court docket jesters by means of renaissance commedia dell’arte and Weimar burlesque to Jerry Lewis, whose zany antics, a mannequin for Mr. Edwards, additionally gained nice acclaim in Europe.
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