Circus aerialist Lillian Leitzel's biography on the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey website gives short shrift to the circumstances of her birth in Breslau in 1892, saying only that her parents "separated when she was very young" and that she was raised by her grandparents.
The reality, as it unfolds in Dean Jensen's riveting "Queen of the Air: A True Story of Love and Tragedy at the Circus," is that Leitzel was the product of rape. Her mother, essentially sold into traveling circus servitude by her father near the end of the 19th century, was assaulted by a Scotsman whose small circus roamed Eastern Europe. Leitzel was born when her mother was just 12 years old.
Raised by her grandparents while her mother returned to the life of an itinerant circus acrobat — giving birth to a second child a couple of years later, never mind the presence of the Scotsman's wife on the tour — it wasn't long before Leitzel showed the same acrobatic prowess. She eventually became known for an aerial routine in which, hanging by one wrist, she'd flip her body over and over in circles. (You can imagine how that worked out over a couple of decades of daily and sometimes twice-daily performances.)
At the peak of her career in the 1920s, she was commanding $1,200 a week from circus impresario John Ringling, and, in Jensen's estimation, was responsible for a portion of the fabulous wealth that led to Ringling's art purchases that today are The Ringling museum.
The "love and tragedy" of Leitzel's tale takes up the bulk of this fascinating look into the lives of circus performers. Early in her career, Leitzel fell in love with a trapeze flyer named Alfredo Codona, who mastered the death-defying triple somersault, and although they were separated by their careers for many years (and marriages to other people), they both wound up with the Ringling circus and married. Ironically, although Jensen's telling of their relationship focuses on how deeply in love they were, Leitzel was serially unfaithful and the longed-for marriage was not a happy one.
Jensen has done deep research for "Queen of the Air," which goes into tremendous detail about the lives of the performers and the business of the circus, both European and American.
It's remarkable enough to consider the physical beating circus performers take on a daily basis, but combined with the incessant traveling, it's a wonder people lived through touring seasons. Rank-and-file performers slept in 64-bed train cars; only the top echelon, such as Leitzel, were able to negotiate cushier accommodations.
Leitzel was a true diva. Tiny — under 5 feet tall and 95 pounds — she had a maid who looked after her every need and desire, including following her into the circus ring, just beyond the reach of the spotlight, carrying Leitzel's tulle train. At the peak of her career, she collected huge diamonds, furs and custom-made cars.
But she also collected injuries, including a chronically dislocated shoulder and a rope burn around her wrist so severe that her doctors feared blood poisoning would cost her the arm. And she was haunted by whispering ghosts that urged her to turn loose of the Roman rings and plummet to her death. It's not much of a spoiler, given the book's subtitle, to say that the circus life did in fact kill Lillian Leitzel.
Emma Bering's narration is excellent, working her way through European, Latin American and American accents to create vivid portraits of a cast of characters as big as, well, a circus.
AUDIO BOOK REVIEW
QUEEN OF THE AIR: A TRUE STORY OF LOVE AND TRAGEDY AT THE CIRCUS. By Dean Jensen. Books on Tape. Unabridged, 12 hours. Narrated by Emma Bering.