Virginia Austin Curtis, 83, Dies; Created Clippo Clown Puppet

Virginia Austin Curtis, a veteran puppeteer whose Clippo the Clown for years was one of the best-selling puppets in the United States, has died in an Anaheim convalescent home, it was learned this week.

She was 83 and died Oct. 7, but the death of one of the old Olvera Marionette Theater members went unreported for several weeks.

Mrs. Curtis was running a tearoom on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles when the 1933 earthquake hit. A falloff in tourism prompted the Olvera Street Marionettes to go on tour and they invited Mrs. Curtis to go along. (She had an untrained but attractive singing voice that the puppeteers had used on occasion as a substitute for one of their regulars.)

For the next three years, Mrs. Curtis learned how to design, make and costume puppets and then how to handle them on a stage. When she returned to Los Angeles in 1936, it was to design her own contribution to the world of the marionette--Clippo.

She made several of the Clippo dolls and sold them to the toy departments of Bullock’s and J. W. Robinson’s where they proved a best-seller. She then landed a large order from Marshall Field in Chicago but was unable to keep up with the increased manufacturing demand and turned over Clippo’s rights to the Effanbee Doll Co.

In 1938, she and her puppets toured on the old RKO and Paramount vaudeville and theater circuits with many of the big bands, and when she next came home, it was to establish a puppet shop on Olvera Street, which in the 1930s was home to many marionette theater groups.

Edgar Bergen dropped in one day and had her sculpt the first head of Elmer Snerd, who underwent a name metamorphosis to Mortimer and became Charlie McCarthy’s prime foil.

After World War II, she took back the manufacturing rights to Clippo, which remains in limited production today.

A widow, she is survived by several nieces and nephews.