Jim Gerald

James Gerald (1 January 1891 – 1971) was an Australia comedian, circus clown, acrobat, writer, director and troupe leader and filmmaker. He is generally regarded as one of the four leading post-World War I comedians to work the Australasian variety circuits, the others being Nat Phillips, Roy Rene, and George Wallace.

Born at Darlington, Sydney, Gerald was the seventh son of Stephen Australia Fitzgerald, a tailor turned actor, and his wife Mary Ann, née Ingram. In his youth Jim played truant from school to watch acrobats practising on the sandhills behind Centennial Park, learned to tumble and haunted his uncles' circus. Three of his brothers also went on the stage using the names 'Max Clifton', 'Lance Vane' and 'Cliff Stevens'. In 1898 his father apprenticed him to Oscar Pagel's Circus. He subsequently travelled the world, including South Africa, Africa, the Far East and North America for around ten years.

Back in Australia by 1908, Gerald found employment with several circuses; and as 'Diabolo' was billed as the first man to loop the loop on a motorcycle. In 1910 he and two of his brothers, Lance Vane and Max Clifton, appeared in The Life and Adventures of John Vane, the Notorious Australian Bushranger. That film, also directed by his father, is now viewed as a significant landmark in Australian cinema history, being the first recorded involvement in narrative film production by Charles Cozens Spencer (a leading figure in the early Australian film industry).

Gerald's "move into variety entertainment began in 1912 when he toured with his father's All Stars drama and vaudeville company as both comedian and acrobat. Although he soon afterwards signed with the Fullers' Theatres vaudeville circuit Gerald was immediately leased to Stanley McKay for his touring pantomime company, and over the next five to six years appeared throughout Australia and New Zealand as a specialist pantomime dame Within a year of joining McKay's company Gerald married Esther Patience Futcher, a 27-year-old actress known as 'Essie Jennings'. The ceremony took place on 21 July 1913 at St Peter's Anglican Church, Wellington, New Zealand,\. The two latter formed a highly popular knockabout comedy sketch act, appearing in sketches such as the "The Actress and the Paperhanger" and "The new Recruit."

Fitzgerald enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 5 May 1916 and served in Mesopotamia as a driver with the 1st Australian and New Zealand Wireless Signal Squadron. Discharged on 12 October 1918, he returned to the Fullers' circuit and was soon asked by (Sir) Benjamin Fuller to write and produce his own revue sketches. He had seen the funny side of soldiering in Mesopotamia and his act, 'The New Recruit', remained popular for years. Unlike his contemporaries Roy Rene and George Wallace, Gerald was 'unashamedly international' in his work. Almost every Christmas he played the dame in pantomimes. He made some thirty silent films in the United States of America in 1928, and was influenced by Charlie Chaplin whom he greatly admired.

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