Annie Fratellini (1932-1997)

They removed the video from youtube but you can see it here:
https://fresques.ina.fr/en-scenes/fiche-media/Scenes00566/duo-clownesque-annie-fratellini-et-pierre-etaix.html

Annie Fratellini is often called the first female august clown, which is ironic because Annie tried everything to downplay the importance of gender. Annies life time and clown partner was Pierre Etaix who was the first to recognise that Annie was more of a clown than of a woman. Annie was born in 1932 in Alger, during a tourney of the Fratellini family.  Annie grandfather was Paul Fratellini, one of the three of the legendary clown trio The Fratellini brothers. They were the first clown trio and played in such an inventive manner that even the intellectuals got interested enough to come and watch their acts. They got in short before the clown number began and left directly after. Their numbers grew bigger and bigger. Somebody needed to carry on the tradition. Annie would become the one who did it.

Actually it should have been Annie's brother Paul, who probably did not get that name for no reason. He would have been just the person to follow his grandfather in his footsteps. Sadly for him it was like his father said: “you are clown or you are not a clown, but you are born a clown”, and he was not. No matter how much his father invested in his future, what nature had not put in was impossible to get out. To Annie, who was taken to the Medrano (circus) every Thursday evening, he used to say: “It’s such a pity that you’re a girl, you could have been clown.” Which is again, ironic for someone who says to have always identified more as a clown than as a woman, but needed Pierre to find that out.

Annie seemed to start proving him wrong already when debuting in the circus as a teenager. But then, as an act of rebellion, decided to take another track. Annie started playing in music halls as a singer and a musician and as stared in divers movies. One of those movies was Pierre Etaix’ Le grand amour in 1969, the year they married in real life as well. Pierre was the first to see Annie's real, clown, identity and the two of them started performing together, him playing the white clown, although his own clown, Yoyo, was actually also the august type.

Annie didn't like the emphasize made on being a 'female' clown. A clown is just a clown, Annie said, as a female clown you have to hide your femininity, as a male clown your masculinity. You have to become anonymous. Don’t break the mystery. While both male and female clowns may experience and express this differently it is a valid and interesing position that tells us more about Annie than about clowning in general. Some feminists may critisize this position as 'hiding' or 'betraying'  feminity, but that is very essentialist and binary and leaves no space for people who genuinely identiy as 'other' who should have the right to say and perform that without being accused of anything at all.

Annie considered the face paint to be an essential part of clowning. “It can be only a red nose but somebody who enters the circus ring and causes people to laugh but wears no face paint is not a clown.” But three months before Annie died of cancer the red nose would not stick to her face anymore due to the effects of chemotherapy. Then Annie went in to the ring without the red nose anyway. The audience didn’t notice the difference, the costume, the wig and the typical way of moving around was already iconic enough not to need the nose anymore. Annie passed away young, at the age of 64, way earlier than did Etaix, who has left us only recently, in 2016.

Annies' spirit remains with us through the circus school she established together with Piere and Valerie in Paris and which is run nowadays by Valerie. One of their motivations to create the school was to enable everyone who would want it to become a circus artist instead of just the people who where born in the circus. One of the things that made it possible for them to establish the school was having the name Fratellini.
 

And what about the students in the school who had the ambition to become a clown as well? Annie told them to learn some acrobatics first; a clown needs to know how to fall on their feet, and on their ass.