For Pros, Clowning Around Is Serious Work

Arthritis and other aches from half-a-century ago during his days as an acrobat make clowning around difficult these days for Duff the Clown, but then someone will shine a smile in his direction and for a while, at least, things are better.

“You put on your face in the morning and ask yourself: ‘Why am I doing this? What am I going to get out of this?’ And then you get your first smile of the day and you get a lift from that,” said Duff, a.k.a. Frank Rehak, 72.

Rehak and his wife, Buff the Clown (Violet, 72), joined about 200 other clowns at Seaport Village Saturday, performing and creating a giant balloon animal for the visitors there. Buff and Duff, both Chicago natives now semi-retired and living in Hawaii, were in San Diego to attend the World Clown Assn. convention over the weekend.

Duff’s love of clowning began with his first professional performance at 18. He was a clown-acrobat in those days. He got his first break at the age of 10, however, when a friend of his father painted his face and took him with a group of real clowns who performed at dedication ceremonies for a children’s hospital in Chicago.

Although he has performed as a clown for 53 years, Duff said that clowning alone was never did not put food on the table and that had to take real jobs after he married Buff in 1939 and began raising a family.

“There’s only a few people I know who went into clowning as a sole source of income,” said Duff. “When I wasn’t clowning, I was a jack-of-all trades. I’ve worked as a blacksmith, metalsmith, in a paper mill. You name it, I’ve probably done it.”

Buff and Duff are character clowns, rubes in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin and Emmett Kelly. Rather than wearing the multicolored costumes favored by most circus clowns, Buff and Duff entertain in the dark, patched-up costumes of tramps and wear battered bowlers. The commedia dell’arte that the couple has practiced over the years has inspired the Rehaks’ son, Tom, a psychologist in Tucson, to continue the family tradition in his spare time.

And Rehak clowns are likely to amuse at least one more generation. Buff and Duff’s teen-age granddaughter has also taken to clowning around. Duff proudly showed a visitor a picture of the couple with their son, granddaughter and daughter-in-law dressed in clown costumes.

“Tom got our daughter-in-law interested in clowning,” Duff said. “After the convention, we’re going to Tucson. Our granddaughter wants us to perform at her school. How can you turn her down?”

As Duff sat discussing his life as a clown, he was approached by dozens of children, each displaying a look of fascination mixed with intuitiveness. The more inquisitive ones laughed and asked him about his tricks and costume; others kept a careful distance and watched him perform.

‘Make-Believe,’ Not ‘Fake’

One precocious youngster, however, was unimpressed by the imaginary dog at the end of a trick leash, much like those found in magic shops.

“Fake! Fake!” yelled the boy while his red-faced mother tried to stop him from kicking the invisible dog.

“No, it’s not fake, son,” said a stoic Duff. “It’s make-believe.”

As Duff got up to go look for Buff, the boy’s mother offered a meek apology for her son’s behavior and told Duff to “take care.”

“My father had two Jewish friends who used to play checkers with him at the park,” Duff said. “When he would leave them, my father would say, ‘Take care.’ And they would answer, ‘Stay warm,’ meaning, ‘Enjoy living; stay alive.’ Well, I enjoy my life, and clowning keeps me warm. I stay warm because of it.”