Graduation Comes for Clowning’s Senior Class

Beneath the white makeup, wigs and painted-on smiles, they are retired teachers, executives, even merchant marines.

But for one day each week, these 21 residents of Laguna Woods Leisure World are clowns. Their gray hair is red, yellow or lime green, they wear nursing shoes painted bright orange, and under the costumes, the years disappear.

“I feel like I’m 10,” says Gladys “Happy” Davis, 77, a recent graduate of the new clown class at Leisure World, where seniors dress in costume and call each other by their stage names. The class is taught by Charles “Chuckles” Ryan, 78, a retired clown who recently moved in to the community.

The class, which met for nine weeks, has turned into a club: the “Laguna Woods Senior Clown Alley.” The members soon will head to local hospitals, battered women’s shelters and elsewhere.

The seniors are studying the art of clowning for different reasons: to fill time, to make their grandchildren laugh, to fill a need they’ve felt themselves.

“I was in the hospital myself just a few months ago,” says Flo “Goofy” Vega, 83, a retired counselor. “There was nobody to pat your arm or tell you you’ll be fine. . . . I’m delighted that I’m going to go to the hospital and make lives a little brighter.”

Already the class has given the clowns some therapy of their own.

Gerald Scott, 75, who will perform as “Scotty,” says clowning has helped him recover from panic attacks.

“If you’re older, you have to have some sort of goal,” he says. “We have to will ourselves to live.”

Making balloon animals and learning magic tricks is also helping Sylvia “Mendy” Medintz, who says working with her hands is great physical therapy.

Davis says just donning her Raggedy Ann costume changes her entire attitude. “I become her--very happy, very light, very joyful, what I was born to feel: full of zest.”

It takes a special person to be a clown, says Ryan. Before moving to Leisure World, he was a professional clown for 18 years, doing guest performances with Ringling Brothers.

“You have to have it in your heart,” Ryan says. His new clowns “aren’t experts, but they feel it.”

You have to love kids too, says Roy Piazza, known as “Mr. Pizza.” “That’s the only way you can do it.”

Because they come to class dressed as clowns, they also look younger. Wrinkles fade behind the heavy makeup, and dignified clothes are replaced by suspenders and striped socks. The only clues to their ages are the thick spectacles some wear over their makeup and their limited physical activity.

“It makes me wish that I could do somersaults and cartwheels,” says Ann “Princess Pipsqueak” Guenther, 59, an executive assistant on medical leave.

One by one, the clowns come to the front of the room to show off, performing classic circus skits that Ryan has taught them. They hypnotize brooms, making them stand up straight without support. They balance one-legged on Styrofoam cups.

There are chuckles as they try to sing “Happy Birthday” backward. They giggle as Ryan tries to teach them the magic of making a tiny ball disappear in their hands.

“This is so simple,” he says.

Apparently not, because the balls are landing in laps and on the floor while the clowns burst into laughter and beg Ryan to slow down.

“I think the greatest part of it is the laughter,” says “Nana,” otherwise known as Marilyn Tilton.