Oscar Lowande

Oscar Lowande (January 8, 1877 – May 19, 1956) was an American bareback rider, circus proprietor, clown, and Broadway performer born in Pennsylvania. His family's circus lineage stretched back to his great-great-great-grandfather Alexander Lowande, a premier rider at the Royal Court circus of St. Petersburg in 1790, and the family emigrated to the United States in the early 1830s, traveling with circuses from town to town. His father, Martinho Lowande, was himself a circus rider and show owner who introduced Oscar to bareback riding at the age of five.

Lowande's professional circus career began in earnest with the McMahon Bros. Circus in 1896, where he earned eight dollars per week. The following year he performed with the Great Wallace Shows, and in 1899 he joined the Forepaugh-Sells Brothers' Circus alongside his wife, Mary Louise "Mamie" Gavin, an equestrian. By 1903, as a principal rider with Forepaugh-Sells, Lowande commanded a weekly salary of $150 and became the first performer to execute a backward somersault from one running horse to another. That same year, the feat was captured in a short film titled Bareback Riding.

In February 1907, Lowande staged Oscar Lowande's Indoor Circus, presenting himself as the "world-famous somersaulting bareback rider" and his wife as the "Queen of all Equestriennes," with a program encompassing bareback riding, clowning, juggling, acrobatics, and traditional circus thrillers. He subsequently launched Oscar Lowande's Old-Style One-Ring Circus in 1908, which became Oscar Lowande's Bay State Show for the 1909 season, with winter quarters established in Reading, Massachusetts, where he resided at 11 Beach Street. Following spring appearances with Keith's Hippodrome, his act joined the Forepaugh-Sells Brothers Circus, then managed by John Ringling, during the summer of 1910.

That fall, circus proprietor Sig Sautelle acquired a half share in Lowande's one-ring circus, with equipment transferred from Reading to Homer, New York. Lowande, Sautelle, and George Rollins collaborated on the resulting venture from 1911 to 1913, and Lowande held equal ownership in Sig. Sautelle's Nine Big Shows until Sautelle bought him out partway through the 1914 season. From 1915 to 1917, Lowande performed with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus alongside his family, during which time he was regarded as the leading and most accomplished bareback rider in the circus profession. He reunited briefly with Sautelle in May 1917 for a 25-cent show.

In 1918, Lowande and his wife Mamie performed a two-horse standing act at the Pantages Theatre in Calgary, Canada. He subsequently assembled an attraction called Oscar Lowande's Famous Equestrians, comprising eight separate acts, and his circus appeared in Andover, Massachusetts on June 8, 1919. His Broadway appearances, which spanned from 1908 to 1927, included credits in The Circus Princess and The Battle of the Skies.

As age curtailed his riding career in the 1940s, Lowande transitioned to clowning. He joined the Hunt Bros. Circus as a clown in June 1942, spent 1945 and 1946 with the Clyde Beatty Circus, and became a member of Clown Alley at that same circus in the summer of 1948. Near the end of 1949, he was hired as a clown with the Orrin Davenport shows. He retired around 1953 to New York City, where he died on May 19, 1956, at the age of 79. He was survived by a son, Oscar Lowande Jr.

Lowande was posthumously inducted into the Circus Hall of Fame in the Equestrian category in 1965. As the last of the Lowande line, he brought to a close a multigenerational circus legacy spanning more than 150 years.