Frank Edward Clark

From about age four or five onward, native Chicagoan Frank Edward Clark vividly remembered his parents taking him each summer to see Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on the Chicago lakefront. Once he was old enough to continue those annual pilgrimages on his own, he did so by bicycle—rarely, if ever, missing a performance year after year. Those youthful encounters with show business would form the nucleus of Frank’s future ambitions. Frank graduated from St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, and went on to attend the University of Illinois, where he studied technical engineering for approximately three semesters. “But it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” he later explained. After serving as a Staff Sergeant during the Korean War for thirteen months in 1950–51, Clark returned stateside determined to pursue his true aspirations. “I always wanted to be a circus performer,” he would often admit. Inspired by a hand-balancing duo he saw on The Ed Sullivan Show in the early to mid-1950s, Frank became obsessed with the idea of becoming a circus artist. He began practicing handstands, one-arm stands, and eventually head-balancing techniques, which would later become his specialty. At the same time, he was studying dance—tap, eccentric, adagio, and acrobatic—at a studio on Chicago’s South Side owned and operated by former vaudevillian Sylvester G. Smith. While training at the Smith school, Frank auditioned for a dance troupe that worked fair grandstands and showroom engagements for Chicago-based theatrical agent Ernie Young. Before long, he found himself surrounded by variety entertainers, vaudevillians, and fellow dancers, working summer dates throughout the Midwest. In short order, Frank became a member of a parallel-bar acrobatic act known as The Noble Trio, working with them on circus, fair, and nightclub bookings for several consecutive years. On the sidelines, he continued refining his head-balancing skills, now balancing himself upside down on a swaying trapeze bar. By the early 1960s, when his partners decided it was time to retire, “The Great Francarro” was ready to debut his solo trapeze routine high above the circus ring. He began playing scattered engagements here and there, including the Shrine Circus in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago television’s popular Bozo’s Circus; and a variety of fair dates. It was on one of those fair bookings, somewhere in Illinois, that Frank met another acrobat working in her family’s act—the attractive Ruthie Engford. Despite their hectic and far-flung performance schedules, the couple began dating and soon became engaged. Around this time, Frank had sent out several 8mm films of his act to various agencies in search of work. To his surprise, he was contacted almost immediately by one of England’s largest traveling tent shows, Billy Smart’s Circus. Soon thereafter, he was off to Europe—leaving his new fiancée behind—to spend the 1964 and 1965 seasons with Smart. Ruthie remained stateside, continuing to perform with her family’s troupe, the Engfords. Frank then moved on to France, appearing at Paris’s famed Cirque Medrano and the iconic Cirque d’Hiver. He returned to America in February 1966, reunited with his fiancée, and began planning their future together. The couple married in London, Ontario, in September of 1966—during a circus performance—hanging from an aerial rigging suspended beneath a helicopter, several hundred feet above the open-air fairgrounds. Billed as “The Great Francarro,” alongside his lovely bride “Estreleta,” the couple upheld the highest standards as stellar aerialists for more than forty years, appearing on countless circuses around the world. When they retired from their lofty pursuits in the early 1990s, they remained active in show business. Frank introduced a top-notch foot-juggling act and an innovative comedy cannon routine, both performed with Ruthie’s assistance. Eventually, the couple stepped away from the circus spotlight altogether, yet remained deeply involved in the performing arts. Frank became Property Master/Rigger for twelve years at the Sarasota Opera Company, while Ruthie took the helm as the opera’s Head of Wardrobe—a position which she held for thirty-plus years. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Sarasota Opera, 61 N. Pineapple Ave, Sarasota, FL 34236.

Tributes

Frank Edward Clark

October 15, 1929 - January 6, 2026