JW: What's it like to be up there on the big stage in Las Vegas?

 

NF: There's pressure working in Las Vegas. And you're alone on stage. When you screw up it's you. There's always somebody big in the show and you want to do well. Mike Tison was in one night, Siegfried and Roy, Liza Minelli with 25 people in a front booth... It's a lot of pressure because a lot of people want to work here. Las Vegas has something special about it. These hotels are great and the money's good. If you imagine all the jugglers there are in this world and only three or four of them working in Las Vegas. If you are there you want to stay there.  But l like the pressure. I'm a very nervous person and I like the tension.

 

 I did the St.Jude charity show for Frank Sinatra and a lot of top stars there - Diana Ross, Paul Anka, Bing Crosby, Sinatra, George Bums, Dionne Warwick, Charleton Heston. You rehearse with all these people and you're mixing with them and it's building up and it's building up... and then you go on for your seven minutes. It's something very filling. I get anxieties but l love it. 

 

JW: Describe your show for us. 

 

NF: OK.It's a 14 minute act. Most times I do two shows a day with a day off every week. So that's 48 shows a month. And I don't take any vacation time off!   I open with a three ball routine - very, very fast - it's about 20 basic tricks in 30 sec­onds, but very visual. I use that opener to state the fact I'm a juggler. I come with bang, bang, bang, and the audience says, "OK, this guy's a juggler." 

 

The three soccer ball routine is the same way. I could do much more work with it, but I just do the visual tricks - head rolls, arm rolls, stop one ball on my foot and spin one on each finger. Then I kick up the one on my foot and bounce it on my head. I also do one with three balls bouncing them off my head from one hand to the other continually in a sort of shower pattern. Next is a soccer exhibition, hitting the balls with my knees, foot, the side of the foot, and stop it on my head for head rolls, Again I bounce a ball on my foot while I spin two balls, then do a kickup to a double spin on one hand and single spin on the other for the finale of that part.

 

JW: How did you come by your claim to be the "world's fastest juggler?"

 

NF: In about 1972 they invited me to the world juggling competition in Bergamo for the Rastelli Prize. I couldn't go because I was going to Japan, but they showed a clip of my act and gave me a special prize for being the fastest club juggler.

 

There was also a six-part TV show in England that they named, "You'll Never Believe It - The Nino Frediani Show." It was all about reflexes, and they used me in three episodes and the introductory segment for all episodes. It was all very scientific. They put a casque on our heads to measure reflexes - me, the Formula 1 driver Nicky Laude, a lady knitting, a boxer and a bunch of other people. They selected 30 people in all and I came out in the top three in reflex speed.

 

And that's the style I use in my club routine. I only use the tricks that can be done fast. All my tricks are close to my body - under the arm, between the legs all three ways, behind the back, the shower, things like that. But I do all this with one spin only. That means you have to do it fast to make it look good. I also do doubles very fast. It's about 2-1/2 minutes non-stop. At the end of the club routine I cross the stage with kickups.

 

The speed is the only real gift I have. Everybody can juggle, but at that speed my peers agree that I'm the fastest juggler today.

 

JW: What's next in the routine?

 

NF: Next and last is rings, and we come to a routine that I have created. Kris and Bela Kremo and Schweitzer all do the three hat routine where they take them on and off their head constantly. Well, I do it with rings, which is more difficult because the rings go over the neck while a hat rests on the head. It's now known as the Nino Frediani ring trick.

 

There's another one that I got from watching people catch a ball from the audience on a mouthstick. Firmin Bouglione taught me this one when I was at Cirque D'Hiver in Paris practicing in 1958. They had a big thick carpet and I would kick up my ring drops and catch them on my neck. Firmin said, "Why don't you do this trick in your act?"