He closed the door of the screen, and waited for the audience to stop laughing. And while he was waiting, he realized that he had a line he could use for the rest of his life. It is the sort of lesson that only performance can teach, he said. Ever since then he feigned missing his 'finale' trick. Then he called Johnny, and Johnny always came back!

 

Bramson realizes that his hoops have been children's toys since the Middle Ages, and tries to present his act as play. But he notes that working as a hoop performer presents difficulties that straight toss-juggling acts need not consider. Drafts and low ceilings aside, the air in most performance venues is equal and does not provide major impediments to flying props. Hoop rollers, however, are vulnerable to the challenges presented by giant, often tilted or rough stages.

 

He recalled his Royal Command performance in London's Victoria Theater, when he realized at the dress rehearsal that the stage was built with such a sharp tilt that all his hoops might roll into the orchestra. Realizing that he would need a lot of practice, he talked the management into letting him practice from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. the morning before the show. After his three hours of practice, he felt confident that he could compensate for the sharp rake of the stage.

 

That night, he waited anxiously in the wings with the rest of the performers while the Royal Family arrived. Once they had been seated, the host of the show, whom he only refers to as "a very famous Australian comedian," walked onto the stage and opened his monologue with, "Your highness, lords, ladies, and gentlemen, we are all so nervous, and the juggler is dropping everything!"

 

Bramson did not consider this line as a confidence booster, but nonetheless made no mistakes in his act!

 

Very large stages also pose difficulties to Bramson, who must try to roll his hoops 30 yards at times to fill the space. Performing in New York City's Radio City Music hall in the '60s, he was dismayed to learn - in performance - that the hall used an aging air-conditioning system which caused a massive draft off the stage and into the audience. He began his act and missed his first trick two times before the stage manager realized the problem and shut down the system.

 

His favorite performance memory occurred when he missed a hoop while performing in the Moulin Rouge in Paris. It caromed off stage and into the audience, where it hit an unsuspecting patron in the mouth. Bramson ran off the stage, shocked and embarrassed, and apologized profusely to the man, who brushed it off, handed him back his hoop, and sat happily through the rest of the show ­ smiling through his outrageously swollen lips!

 

The only non-hoop item he ever performed with was a large inflated ball, which he bounces on his head while spinning a hoop on each leg and juggling four. "There are three tempos, and to get that is very difficult," he said.

 

The trick first occurred to him while he was working in Sweden, but it was some. time before he could coordinate the rhythms well enough to perform it.

 

Tempo is very important to Bramson, to the point that he has had two pieces of music composed especially for the acts he did in the '70s and '80s. Some of his worst memories involve performing with band leaders who sped mercilessly through his pieces, or who dragged so slowly that every trick became in exercise in controlled deceleration.

 

While most of Bramson's performing life was spent in music halls and hotels - the gypsy life kept him continuously away from home from 1969 to 1973 - he has had the luxury of working full-year contracts on 20 occasions. This has allowed him to devote time to work that would otherwise often have been spent traveling.

 

When he was performing at Las Vegas's Tropicana in 1970, he returned to the study of ballet and tap dance to develop a new act with his wife, Elizabeth. They called it "Renner & Renner, Tap-Dance Jugglers." The Renner name was one that his family had used when performing in Nazi Germany, when Swedish names were not a prized commodity among entertainers. While the act was never performed, developing it was symbolic of his dedication to the art.

 

The dedication is also reflected in his strict personal regimen. He has never smoked or drank, and has always found a way to get nine hours of sleep per night - even when performing in Spain when he didn't get home from shows until 3 a.m. Fitting nine hours of sleep, seven to eight hours of rehearsal (every day except Sunday), and often two shows into his schedule has often proved a challenge, .bur Bramson realized it was necessary.

 

Even performing less in the past seven years, he has maintained a practice schedule. If he has spent the entire day relaxing around the house, he said, he will still pick up his hoops at 5 p.m. and practice for an hour and a half. "You always have to be ready for the performance opportunities that arise!" he said.

 

Bramson has done 63 television performances during his career, and the high point was his appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show exactly one week after The Beatles' famous American television debut.

 

"Everything was so professionally done, it was a great atmosphere," he recalled.

 

Despite his positive memories of television performances, Bramson is disappointed by its effect on the variety world, and has mixed feelings about the future of live entertainment. From a positive point of view, however, he said people who have become used to seeing everything on television often seem surprised at how exciting live performances are, and said his act. has received strong responses on college campuses.

 

Unfortunately, he does not think that live variety entertainment can be resurrected on a large scale anytime soon, and the thought saddens him. "There simply aren't enough acts anymore to support a large revival, he said, so even if people tried to open music halls, they would be hard-pressed to find enough entertainers to draw audiences. "What is life if you don't go out from your four walls?" he asked.

 

The facts of the matter have ended the line of Bramson entertainers - his daughter, Peggy, is studying psychology.

 

After more than half a century, Bramson said, he looks forward to retirement. His mother died in 1980 and, shortly after, his wife retired from performing to open a ballet school in Germany. He looks forward to returning home, and being near the hot springs which have attracted visitors to Bad Pyrmont since the Middle Ages.

 

He said that he is grateful to have worked in a time when a performer could still make a living while seeing the world. He is also pleased to have known many of the world's great jugglers, from the Kremos to Francis Brun to Sergei Ignatov.

 

He concluded by urging amateur jugglers to approach the art as he did - by trying to develop new and unique ideas. "I always wanted to be a good artist," he said. "Not necessarily the best, but a good one."