>> male narrator: They wernarrat visionary founders of America's first entertainment empire. >> Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages! >> narrator: Five brothers, the sons of immigrants, whose hard work and dedication were surpassed only by their ability to imagine the impossible. >> They created, in 25 years, this mammoth institution. >> narrator: Their high-flying, sword-swallowing, three-ring extravaganza has dazzled both children and adults for more than a century. >> Grandparents, the parents, and the grandkids all come to the circus. >> narrator: But behind the clown cars, the lion tamers, and the tightrope walkers, the story of August Ringling's intrepid sons is one of both endless labor and bitter sibling rivalry, deadly accidents and daring takeovers, fortunes built and fortunes squandered, and jumbo-sized American dreams. >> The one, the only, the greatest show on earth! em bge t y b on Rt liChs' >> narrator: TV, radio, movies--today we take this entertainment for granted. But back before the dawn of the 20th century, the only form of mass entertainment was live performance, and no performance was more lively or more entertaining than the circus. >> Circus. What you see is what you get. What's happening right then. The immediacy of the live moment is incredibly powerful. >> Shops close. Classes were closed for the schools. All of a sudden, this huge, mammoth institution would come barreling into town, showing small-town America the diversity, the wonder, the exoticness of the world outside their doorstep. >> narrator: When the circus came to town, small-town America suddenly changed into an exotic place. Amazing animals from far-off lands paraded in the dusty streets, acrobats performed impossible feats, and clowns charmed the crowd. Nothing else equaled the circus. >> The doors of that train open, and all these wonders come out, and you don't know exactly what it's gonna be. You don't know what to expect, but you know it's gonna be wondrous and magical. >> narrator: And it was all the more exciting for its rarity. The circus stayed only for one day and then disappeared until the next visit. In 1919, the biggest circus of them all belonged to the Ringling Brothers, a family outfit from tiny Baraboo, Wisconsin. >> Robert Ringling, Charles' son, when asked, "How did they do it? How did these boys from Baraboo put together this mammoth entertainment institution?" He said, "I don't think that they were that smart, but there were so [bleep]-damn many of them." >> narrator: The Ringling Brothers' rise to the top is even more stunning when you consider just how far they had to climb. Like many 19th-century immigrants, German-born August Ringling arrived in America with hopes of a better life. A harness maker by trade, Ringling drifted through the northeast and Canada before settling in Milwaukee. There, he met and married a French immigrant by the name of Salome Juliar. In 1860, the Ringlings moved to the Mississippi river town of McGregor Island, Iowa, where August set up a harness shop and wife, Salome, stayed in a state of near-perpetual pregnancy. >> Every couple years, another son came along. Al was the oldest. And Gus and Otto and Alf T., and there was Charlie and John and Henry. There was also a daughter named Ida. >> narrator: By 1872, the Ringling brood stood at a whopping eight count. With so many mouths to feed, Papa Ringling ran a tight ship. All the children were expected to pitch in around the house, and the moral compass in the Ringling house was a rigid one. >> Under the tutelage of their parents, they had a tremendous upbringing. They had a very sound background. They--it was a very moral family--if you think of, in the Midwest, morality during that time, and so the two parents set a very strong example. >> narrator: And it was assumed that the Ringling sons would follow in their father's footsteps and join him in the harness-making trade, but that all changed in the spring of 1870 when the circus came to town. >> Mr. Ringling was asked to do some repairs for the show, and as a result of these repairs, he was given comp tickets to go to the show. >> narrator: August gave the free tickets to his eldest son, Al, and told him to take the rest of his brothers to the show with him. The brothers were hooked. >> It was just a small, one-ring show, but to the brothers, it was the most glorious show that they ever had seen. >> The circuses during that time presented animal acts, aerial acts, ground acts. There was a strongman with that particular show. >> narrator: Eldest son, Al, was especially captivated. Now 18 years old, Al was all set to join his father in the harness-making business. But this circus show gave Al another idea. He would become a circus man. All he needed was some manpower. He didn't have to look far. >> He tried to convince his brothers they didn't have to be harness makers. They could do something different, and that something different was to be a circus performer. >> narrator: Three of Al's brothers took the bait. In 1882, Alf T., Otto, and Charles joined Al in putting on a backyard circus. >> They had a draft horse, and they'd take it out behind the barn and try to ride standing up like they saw the circus equestrian riders do. They tried to juggle. They made costumes out of old long underwear that their mother would dye red to simulate the acrobatic tights. >> narrator: A few weeks later in the town hall of nearby Mazomanie, Wisconsin, the brothers performed in front of their first audience. >> The brothers all tried to perform for the meager crowd of people that had gathered in that hall on a cold winter night, and they, the audience, didn't think too much of these boys standing up there, trying to perform. >> I think if we could be transported back and saw their first show, we would wonder how in the world would this small show ever go anyplace at all? >> narrator: The Ringling show might have seemed like small potatoes back then, but big dreams, a unique business model, and the addition of a fifth brother to the fold would catapult them to the big-time. >> narrator: The circus of today is a mammoth undertaking, but the Ringling Brothers' first circus was a very simple amateur affair: some juggling, some simple acrobatics, and a few comedy routines. Despite a lack of talent and experience, big brother Al decided it was time for the brothers to take their show on the road. Al dubbed the traveling show the Ringling Brothers Classic and Comic Concert Company. >> They were a very small show that would play local beer halls or saloons. They didn't play under canvas tents. It wasn't a formalized circus. It was more like a vaudeville show, what we would think of today. And so they traveled overland by horseback or in farm carts or farm wagons to the various halls that they would perform in. >> By all accounts, it was not a very good presentation, but they were successful because they had established a reputation that they were an honest group, and they were the hometown boys trying to make good. >> narrator: While on the road, Otto, Charles, and Alf T. learned to play a variety of musical instruments and managed to learn a few real circus tricks as well. >> Al learned to juggle, and my great grandmother was known to say that she was surprised she had a plate left in the house every time Al came to visit. >> narrator: But all the broken plates eventually paid off. Al Ringling became an excellent juggler, and by 1882, he had come up with a show-stopping new balancing trick. >> He learned to balance a plow on his chin, and I always thought that was a wonderful thing that sounded really like something fabulous. >> People would come from miles around to see Al Ringling juggle, a plow on his chin, a never-before-seen feat. Well, I think lots of farm boys were trying it when they got home. >> narrator: Now that they could draw a crowd, the brothers returned to their old hometown of Baraboo, Wisconsin. >> They got a tent. They cut the tent poles in the woods outside of Baraboo. They talked the sheriff into letting them use the vacant lot next to the jail. >> When the Ringling Brothers opened their circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in May of 1884, they had hired an extra juggler, an extra acrobat, and Mrs. Al Ringling was now a bareback rider. >> narrator: Al and the brothers were able to hit up the local bank in Baraboo for a $1,000 loan. They used the cash to invest in all the necessary ingredients for a true traveling circus. >> They had several wagons. They had gotten a lot of farm horses to pull the wagons. They had a company together, and they started out after their performance in Baraboo across the hills. >> They went from town to town and set up their tents. They didn't even have an elephant, not one elephant, in the early years, and everyone knows that a circus without an elephant really isn't a circus. But they did attract people, lots of people, because there was a great thirst here in those days for entertainment, and the Ringling Brothers were providing this entertainment. >> narrator: The Ringling Brothers had picked up one other addition, teenage brother John. Feisty, outgoing, and ambitious, John was so eager to join his brothers that he ran off to join the circus before he started high school. >> The five brothers had a wonderful and almost uncanny sense of management ability. Al Ringling became the person in charge of performance, selecting all of the acts. Charles Ringling, he was in charge of what went on on site. He managed behind the scenes. Alf T. was in charge of all the promotional stuff. John was in charge of making sure they had a place to play. And let's not forget Otto, because Otto was the financial genius. He kept track of every nickel, every nickel they earned, every nickel they spent. >> narrator: But perhaps the most difficult part of all fell to Alf T. Ringling. Alf T. was in charge of advertising and promotions. >> It's said that he said, "I've never met an adjective or an adverb that I didn't like." >> narrator: And with a multitude of small-time circuses fighting for the same entertainment dollar, it was quite literally a cutthroat endeavor. >> Without television and radio, how do you advertise a show? Well, you've got to have big, gorgeous posters. To accomplish this, you not only needed good-looking posters, you needed some big beefy guys who could put them up and then could stand their ground when somebody tried to tear them down, because the Ringling Brothers were not the only boys traveling the countryside. The circus wars over the billboards were notable, and occasionally people got killed. >> narrator: As tough as Alf T.'s job was, and as diverse as the brothers' personalities were, their egalitarian sense of sharing the workload kept them close. >> They trusted each other. They never had a written agreement between the brothers. They always worked together, and they split the profits of the show equally. So when the banker would receive the big bag of cash from the show, he would divide it equally into the brothers' accounts. >> narrator: But most important of all, anytime a big decision had to be made, the brothers made it together. >> They would gather at their little office, and as the stories go, you could almost hear the walls rattling with their arguments, but when their arguments were over, they never faltered whatever decision was made. They all stood by it, though at the moment, they may have been in opposition to it. >> There were some knock-down drag-out fights among the five of them over whether to do one thing or another, and eventually, they would come to a decision, and once the decision was made, the decision stood. This kind of tightness is seldom seen, but it worked for them. >> narrator: The brothers relied on their family values in every aspect of the show, even refusing to cater to the baser elements of circus life. >> Men and women, but especially men, went to the circus for sex and violence. It was one of the few places you could see women's legs, because they were wearing tights. It was, for the day, incredibly scandalous. But the Ringlings made a major effort to let everybody know "We're a clean circus." >> They promised their parents and they promised each other that there would never be anything in their show that their mother and their sister could not see. >> narrator: Not only were the shows fit for women and children, but the midway was free of crime and extortion. And in the circus world, this was an exception to the rule. >> Many of the circuses made part of their money illegally. The Ringling Brothers made sure, to the best of their ability, that there was no graft, no corruption, no rigged games on the sideshow. There were no pickpockets, sponsored or otherwise. >> narrator: And as behind-the-scenes manager, Charles enforced the Ringlings' strict moral code with performers and crew as well. >> The showgirls that came on the show were absolutely forbidden to speak to the men performers. And it was so severe in regulation that there was not even accidental meeting. >> narrator: All the rules and regulations earned the Ringlings a few unflattering nicknames. >> The Ding Dong brothers from Bugaboo, Wisconsin. >> They were called the Sunday School Circus, and they were called a number of less pleasant names. But they weren't pantywaists. They were tough men. They were very tough. They simply had standards. >> narrator: Despite the ridicule that their clean-cut image brought them, the Ringling Brothers Circus was determined to become the most successful horse-and-buggy circus in the Upper Midwest. And once they switched to traveling by train, their territory would expand into an empire. [circus music] ♪ ♪ >> narrator: Horses have been a part of the circus since the very beginning. Today they're strictly entertainment, but in the early days, when the Ringlings were building their empire, horses also hauled the circus from town to town. Even that, though, was a grand performance. >> Starting off was the circus parade. Down the small streets would lumber these absolutely incredible carved, gilded wagons, and the one behind us, the Five Graces, would have a 40-horse hitch that would be attached to it. If you can imagine the feeling of these horses coming down the street, this wagon just gilt and shimmering in the sunlight, it was an incredible experience. >> narrator: John Ringling wanted their show to be even more incredible and more mobile. He knew that travel by railroad would be faster and cheaper. And it would give the brothers an opportunity to expand their show beyond the Midwest. >> Now for the first time, the Ringling Brothers could take their show from coast to coast, from California to New York. They could take it from Canada to Mexico. They could go to Florida and Texas, as well as North Dakota and Montana, and they did. >> narrator: Once on the rails, the Ringling Brothers Circus grew by leaps and bounds. In less than a year, the show doubled in size. There were now 22 railcars transporting 130 horses, five camels, four elephants, three lions, and one hippo. There was also a museum, an aquarium, and even an elevated stage. >> When Ringling Brothers comes to town on this railroad train, the doors of that train open, and all these wonders come out, and you don't know exactly what it's going to be. You don't know what to expect, but you know it's going to be wondrous and magical. >> narrator: Behind the scenes, the Ringling family was growing. The brothers had all married. And big brother Al's new bride, Louise, loved the circus almost as much as her husband did. >> Al and Lou were married in the very early 1890s. And Lou was his right-hand person from the word go. She was not only a dressmaker, a partner, an encourager, she learned to charm snakes, which is going above and beyond the call of duty of any wife in this world. >> narrator: Al himself was at the center of each and every Ringling show. Even though he was now approaching middle age, Al loved being in the middle of all the high-flying action. >> Al was the man that would, "Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages." Al was the person who would do that. >> Al loved the show business part of it. A pure show business genius, really. >> narrator: Two other Ringling brothers, Gus and Henry, were now part of the caravan as well. That brought the total number of brothers working with the circus to seven. >> When the other two brothers, Gus and Henry, joined, Gus took care of the advance out ahead of the show with the advance cars, and Henry was the superintendent of the-- of the front door. >> narrator: Between the seven brothers, the cast, crew, cooks, barbers, and orderlies-- and of course, exotic animals-- the Ringling Brothers' Circus had become a veritable city on rails. The brothers even gave their traveling city a name. >> They had their own post office, and it had a sign that said "Ringlingville," and one of the clowns would go into the post office and pick up the mail and distribute it to the performers and in fact to everyone. There was a barbershop where the people had their hair cut. There was a dining hall that fed 1,200 people three meals a day. It took up 14 acres of tents, and it was put on the train. And each day, six days a week, Ringlingville moved. >> narrator: Then on May 17, 1892, tragedy struck. >> In the dead of night, the Ringling train is rumbling along, and it crashes through a railroad bridge that had washed out. And if you can see now the tangle of horses with broken limbs, with men with broken arms, with blood in the river, it was a gory mess as they tried through the night to find out what could be saved and what couldn't and yet always mindful that the next day they had to put on, if possible, some kind of performance. >> narrator: Fortunately, only four people were killed. Within a few days, the Ringlings and their battered circus troupe were once again in operation. In fact, within a few months, the Ringlings not only replaced their losses--they expanded. >> The Ringling Brothers' mission always was to offer more, to bring more, to have more performers, more tents. They added a side show. They added a larger tent, and at one point in time, they seated under the big top 12,000 people at one performance. That is amazing considering many major arenas today don't seat that many with fixed seating. >> narrator: As the circus continued to grow, John Ringling continued to set himself apart as the family's most ambitious businessman. John wasn't satisfied with being the biggest circus in the Midwest. He wanted Ringling to conquer the East Coast too. There was just one problem with John's idea--the Barnum and Bailey Circus controlled the biggest cities in the East. >> Many a time, where Ringling would get close to the Barnum and Bailey, they would accuse them of not being a good circus, 'cause they hadn't played the major cities of Philadelphia or New Jersey or New York or Washington. >> narrator: Barnum and Bailey's taunting only strengthened John Ringling's determination to conquer the East. Ever the advance man, John even moved to the East Coast, setting up homes in both Manhattan and Connecticut. >> He was an entrepreneur from the beginning. John had very big dreams. He liked the bright lights. He loved the city, and that's where he took himself as soon as he could. >> narrator: Finally, in the fall of 1897, John Ringling found the opening he was looking for. >> James A. Bailey wanted to go to Europe, and he took a five-year tour of Europe from 1896 to 1902. What happened? It left America free and clear for this emerging circus. >> narrator: With the major competition out of the way, the Ringlings ventured into the big cities back East and established themselves as the country's major circus. >> When Jim Bailey got back to this country, he was absolutely amazed, because now by 1905, the Ringling Brothers were the giants of the circus world. They clearly had outdistanced everyone. >> narrator: And when James Bailey passed away in 1906, John Ringling, who was fast becoming one of America's most famous businessmen, felt the time was right for yet another bold move. The Ringling Brothers should buy out the Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was a financial gamble, but if successful, it would give John and his brothers sole control of both the East Coast and the Midwest. But if it failed, they would lose everything. >> narrator: Nothing says circus quite like a clown. It was especially true in the early 1900s, when clowns were hard to find. >> In those days, a clown was very rare, very unusual. It was a mystique. Nobody knew how they made up. Nobody knew that. That was all, you couldn't go to the drugstore and buy clown makeup like today. Most of the clowning in those days, these people came from vaudeville. They had been acrobats, because if you notice your pictures of your old clowns, they rarely, rarely ever see big shoes because they worked in tennis shoes because they had to turn over and do acrobats on the track and jump over the elephants and all that sort of thing. >> narrator: John Ringling started out as a clown, but by 1906, he had become something even more unusual: he was a key businessman in one of the world's greatest circuses. He had become accustomed to thinking big, and he thought it was time for the Ringlings to think even bigger. He wanted his brothers to purchase their rival, the Barnum and Bailey circus. His cautious brothers weren't so sure. First, John won over financial whiz Otto. Then after days of arguing, they managed to persuade Al, Alf T., and finally Charles that buying Barnum and Bailey would clear the way for the Ringling Brothers Circus to become the undisputed king of American entertainment. >> That was an interesting decision. The other three brothers had been against that purchase, but John and Otto made such a good case for it that they were able to carry it off. >> narrator: Even though they finally agreed, the decision sowed conflict between John and Charles that would last for the rest of their lives. >> I think that that was the most disagreement they had, and it took them the longest to make the decision that, yes, they would go forward and do it. And so in 1907, in October, the holders of the Barnum and Bailey Show in London sold it to the Ringlings at $410,000, a tremendous amount of money for five boys who in 1884 did their first circus. >> narrator: In less than 30 years, the Ringling Brothers had gone from teenage boys with no money, little talent, and even less experience to being the owners of the two largest circuses in America. >> They ran two circuses. They ran Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers as separate circuses. To the circus-going public, they--the public saw no difference. It was still two circuses, but Ringling owned them all. >> narrator: John Q. Public had no idea what was going on, but financial bigwigs and Washington powerbrokers knew exactly who the Ringling Brothers were: America's newest millionaires. >> The Ringling Brothers had become the circus kings of the United States. They were entertained by the nicest people in the towns where they played. They met with the governor. They met the President of the United States when the show played in Washington. >> narrator: And little brother John, the mastermind of the Barnum and Bailey buyout, was now being mentioned in the same breath as tycoons like railroad baron Henry Flagler and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. >><i> Fortune</i> magazine dubbed John Ringling as the greatest millionaire alive. >> narrator: The Ringlings were now rich and pushing retirement age. But they still worked as hard as ever. To these self-made men, retirement was not an option. >> The word in their minds had never been coined. Each one of them worked to the day that he died. >> narrator: The first to go was Gus, who had risked life and limb to help Alf T. run the dangerous advertising arm of the family business. Next was financial whiz Otto, who worked quite literally until the day he died: March 31, 1911. >> Otto Ringling wrote a note that he left in his will which said, "We have labored successfully for a long time. Good-bye." >> narrator: The passing of Otto Ringling signaled a significant change in the day-to-day operation of the business. Although the Ringlings had run both their own circus and Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth for the better part of a decade, the loss of their chief financial guru left them floundering. >> Otto was the comptroller. That called for some real revisioning. >> narrator: Furthermore, the world was changing, putting still more pressure on the business. A major war was brewing in Europe, and resources and railcars were becoming scarce. The brothers considered merging their two circuses into one. But thoughts of a merger were moved to the back burner on New Year's Day, 1916, when ringmaster Al passed away. His was the dream that had started it all. In a ceremony that resembled a circus itself, acrobats, sword-swallowers, horsemen, and clowns attended Al's funeral. Just a few months later, ad man Alf T. Ringling followed big brother Al to the grave. By 1919, only two of the five founding brothers remained, John and Charles. >> If you read the books and you talk to people, you understand that there was a bit of tension between the boys. >> The only rifts that were known to exist in the family were between John and Charles. >> narrator: Soon, they would divide the world's greatest circus family in a bitter dispute. >> narrator: As brilliant as today's circus is, its real heyday was early in the 1900s. Back then, most of the circus industry was owned by the Ringling Brothers, who bought out Barnum and Bailey in 1907. But by 1919, there were only two Ringling Brothers left to enjoy that success: John and Charles, who rarely saw eye-to-eye. But with war now raging across Europe and most of their normal manpower and resources tied up in the cause of Allied Victory, securing the future of their circus was foremost in the brothers' minds. Putting aside their differences for the moment, John and Charles agreed the best thing they could do was to combine their two shows, the Ringling Brothers and the Barnum and Bailey, into one. >> There were fewer trains, because trains were needed for the war effort. So they combined as the name we know now, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. >> narrator: More than just conserving railcars, the combined show fused the best elements of both circuses. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus truly was the greatest show on earth. >> When they merged together, it became a bigger and better all-inclusive circus. They took the best elements from the two shows. >> Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, the one, the only, the greatest show on earth. >> narrator: On March 29, 1919, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey combined shows debuted to a packed house at Madison Square Garden. >> The circus comes to town. Big circus, big town. With New York greeting the opening performance of the Ringling Brothers Circus under the big top at Madison Square Garden. >> narrator: It was a mammoth production, employing nearly 2,000 people, including carloads of clowns, fleets of bareback riders, and squadrons of high-flying aerial performers. There were 400 horses, 25 elephants, and 30 camels. It was a show unlike any other. People came to see the greatest show on earth. And because it was live, there was no telling what might happen. >> One of the big cats suddenly defied the trainer, crashed through the cage wall. Before he could be stopped, the lion is in the outer lobby, headed for the city streets. >> Circus, what you see is what you get. If you're genuinely scared, it's scary period. If the clown is funny, you've got it right there. The immediacy of the live moment is incredibly powerful, and the circus is one of the few places left where you get that every time. >> narrator: The show was also extremely profitable. Playing to the same size crowds, but with half the overhead, Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus raked in millions over the next seven years. John and Charles became two of the richest men in America. For the first time, the Ringlings began to invest their time and money in things other than the circus. John purchased a swanky Manhattan apartment, and for a while, he owned the controlling interest in Madison Square Garden. Both brothers began to speculate in real estate, specifically Florida real estate. >> Eventually they came to Sarasota, and when the Ringling Brothers came, they fell in love with the area, and John started buying up property and eventually owned all of the offshore islands and was probably the largest landholder of Sarasota County. >> narrator: Not that Charles was going to be outdone by his high-profile little brother. >> They both built these magnificent homes. They both started banks in Sarasota. They both were into land development. John was into oil wells. John was into railroads. They were very competitive. >> Charles builds a house. John builds a house. One has a yacht. One has a bigger yacht. >> narrator: But in the battle of bigger houses, John Ringling definitely won. He and wife, Mable, designed a quasi-Venetian style manor, dubbed Cà d'Zan, French for <i> house of John.</i> Cà d'Zan was wall-to-wall opulence. >> The Cà d'Zan is one of the most magnificent works of imaginative American architecture that there is. It's--it's a spectacular setting on Sarasota Bay and intended to replicate the Doge's Palace in Venice, but there were so many variations that one would never confuse this with that. It's American Venetian if ever there was such an architectural style. >> narrator: But John Ringling did more than just build a luxurious mansion on his beautiful Sarasota Bay property. He also built a brand-new winter quarters for the circus. >> In 1927, he moved the winter quarters for the Barnum and Bailey show to Sarasota, Florida, and forever the West Coast of Florida was changed. >> narrator: Always on the lookout for another way to increase his fortune, John decided that the new Florida winter quarters would be open to the public. Visitors could go behind the scenes and see all their favorite circus performers practicing their routines, for a fee, of course. >> John Ringling sat back one day, and John Ringling said, "What I see is an attraction that will draw people all over United States to the South, to Sarasota." >> narrator: Before Busch Gardens or even Disney World, the Florida winter quarters for Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus was the sunshine state's number one tourist attraction. >> In my mind, it was every bit as famous in the world of entertainment as Disneyland is today. The kids could look at the animals. They could see the performers practicing all day long. There was always people rehearsing and practicing. And then on Sunday, they had what they called a Little Madison Square Garden. They had grandstands on both sides. It was outdoors, and it was exactly the same dimensions of the Madison Square Garden between 49th and 50th Street in New York City. They'd have popcorn, peanuts, and lemonade, and they would go through a full performance. >> narrator: Unfortunately, by the time the new winter quarters was in full swing, John and Charles Ringling were engaged in full-on sibling warfare that would last the rest of their lives. And their game of real estate one-upmanship would eventually leave one brother's fortune in shambles. [lively jazz] ♪ ♪ >> narrator: The Roaring '20s: to many, the decade is known as the Jazz Age. But it could just as well be known as the golden age of the circus. Traversing the country with their massive entourage of performers, crewmembers, and exotic animals, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus was the undisputed powerhouse of American entertainment. But behind the scenes, trouble was brewing. The last two living brothers, John and Charles, were squabbling over real estate control of Sarasota Bay. By 1926, the squabbling had escalated into war. And the brothers' relationship had turned so bitter that John and Charles were no longer speaking to one another. In fact, things had become so bad that when Charles Ringling was on his deathbed, his wife, Edith, refused to let John speak to his own brother. >> John went over when he heard that Charlie was dying, and Edith would not let him see his brother, and this is--this is a sad thing to have happened. >> narrator: But the acrimonious way in which he and his brother parted was just the beginning of John Ringling's troubles. Less than three years after his sprawling mansion, Cà d'Zan, was completed, John's wife, Mable, passed away. >> Mable died in 1929 and so had only been able to enjoy the Cà d'Zan for three years. After that, John really spent relatively little time in Sarasota. >> narrator: But John lost more than his wife. In October of 1929, he also lost his fortune. Black Monday swallowed up millions of his personal assets. >> The final blow that brought down John Ringling was the stock market crash, and John Ringling now was no longer able to move his money from one account to another or to borrow to pay off, use interest from this, and he was over a million dollars in debt. >> narrator: Since he was so deeply in debt, John Ringling turned over his circus to the next generation of Ringlings in 1931. And in 1936, the last original Ringling Brother passed away. The circus he left behind was losing much of its luster. As it became too expensive to transport--particularly during World War II--little carnivals sprang up to seize the small-town business. By the 1950s, Americans were so mobile that they didn't need the circus to bring the world to their doorstep. And with the advent of television, Americans could now be entertained without ever leaving the house. >> There was a great deal of competition. They also had the problem of free time disappearing with all other different activities in people's lives and also that upstart, commercial programs of the TV. >> narrator: By the 1960s, the Ringling descendants were tired of fighting a losing battle. In 1967, in a historic ceremony at the Coliseum in Rome, the Ringling family signed over full ownership of their world-famous circus to rock and roll promoter Irvin Feld and his family. The signing also marked a new beginning for one of the longest and most successful runs in American show business history. >> The Ringling Brothers' legacy to the circus was role model, I guess you'd call it. They set a standard that all other circuses tried to meet. They were the ones who were innovative. They were the ones who took the chances. They were the ones who led the circus into a path of greatness. >> The Ringlings ought to be remembered for their honesty, for their straightforwardness, for their interest always in the public. >> narrator: The Ringling Brothers also live on through several museums. There's a circus museum in their original winter quarters of Baraboo, Wisconsin, and a circus museum as well as an art museum in Sarasota, Florida. The Wisconsin farm boys came a long way indeed. Even though they no longer own the circus that bears their name, the Greatest Show on Earth is still called the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. And the movable city of animals, performers, and behind-the-scenes crew known as Ringlingville still travels by train, making pit stops not just in America but all around the world. >> We call it The Greatest Show on Earth for a very good reason. The performers come from all over the world, and the tradition at Ringing Brothers Barnum and Bailey has always been to bring new and different and unique people, animals, and performances from all over the world for the American audiences to see. >> ♪ Right, here, right now, ♪ ♪ death-defying action, ♪ ♪ thrill you, chill you, ♪ ♪ won't believe your eyes. ♪ ♪ >> narrator: Although there's a little more Vegas-style glitz and glamour to the show these days, John, Al, and the rest of the Ringling Brothers would still recognize the circus as their own. No doubt about it, the sons of August Ringling would be proud to see just how far their little tent show from Baraboo, Wisconsin, has come. >> I think the five original Ringling brothers, if they were to go to any circus today, I think they would be sitting in the front row, and they would be smiling from ear to ear. I think they would just have a ball.
