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A Bavarian juggling fairy tale

Rudy Horn lives happily ever after a fabulous career

Once upon a time in a German kingdom, a family lived amidst the raging tumult of a great war. They lost everything and barely had enough food to eat. One Christmas Eve, father placed three apples from a kitchen bowl into his young son's hands and encouraged him to try juggling them.

Perhaps he could train his son, and....

His plan worked! Before long the boy was performing. He traveled the world over. He appeared with famous artists, and gave private shows to rich heads-of-state. He retired, still young, in beautiful Bavaria, and lived happily ever after as a TENNIS TEACHER!

by Sandy Brown

Photographs by Mack McCormick

Sound like an eventful, rich life? Well it's the TRUE LIFE STORY of juggler-extraordinaire Rudy Horn. It was 1940 during World War II, in Nuremberg , Germany , when Horn began to juggle at the age of seven. Persuaded family members who were circus artists, pint-sized Horn gave his first performance two years later in the Nuremberg Wintergarten.

With a bit of tap-dancing, acrobatics, juggling, and tossing a saucer and tea-cup onto his head from his foot, he stole the show. During the five years following the war, he was employed to entertain the U.S. troops still in Germany . Payment was mostly cigarettes and chocolate - valuable commodities he traded for food since the Reichmark was worthless. But he was already on the path to fame and riches.

In 1949, with the achievement of 8 teacups and saucers kicked from his foot to his head, (adding 2 more a year later) Horn began a three year stay with Circus Krone. The other circus performers became family to the 17 -year-old, satin-breeched juggler. He managed to find a unicycle, owned by the high-wire act (unicycles were not easily available in post war Germany !) and within a week he could ride it.

By combining his unicycle with the tea cups, he became very well known, very quickly. Krone was the springboard from which his career catapulted internationally, but he always made return engagements to the famous circus in Munich .

Horn was booked by the Bertram Mills Circus in England , and subsequently appeared in such nightclubs as London 's Olympia Hall , Savoy and Palladium. One breakthrough led to another as he was offered an entire year at the Lido in Paris .

Then as word traveled across the ocean, he once again found himself performing for Americans - this time on their own soil. He was a smash on the Ed Sullivan Show for 80 million people, not once, but four times.

There was also the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas , Reno , Chicago and San Francisco . He returned to Europe in 1955, having worked for five years without a holiday.

During the next decade he had consistently lucrative bookings all over the world. He even worked with the Russian Circus in England . He traveled from continent to continent by ship because he had a fear of flying. He shared the bill with Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Ray, Mae West and Marlene Dietrich.