Diana Page Jordan | Book Reviews and Inspiration

The Man Behind the Nose: Assassins, Astronauts, Cannibals, and Other Stupendous Tales

By Larry “Bozo” Harmon with writer Thomas Scott McKenzie

Published August 17, 2010 (Hardcover) It Books/Igniter

My writing friends tell me to read other memoirs while writing my own.  So I read Bozo’s, The Man Behind the Nose.  At 83AAA, those are big shoes to fill!

Larry Harmon didn’t have anything holding him back.  Except maybe for growing up in Cleveland.  His life is a blueprint for how to create your dreams.  His story begins with him convincing the school to let him try out to be the drum major – before he even became a freshman, and when only seniors were allowed to audition.  He talked his way into a part-time job at a cleaners, to earn enough money for band school, to get skilled enough to audition.  The kid who would become Bozo had brass balls.  He knew what he wanted, figured out how to get it, and knocked it out of the park every time.

So, yes, he became the school’s youngest drum major. Yes,  he became the world’s most popular clown.  Yes, he made cannibals smile in New Guinea.  And, he leaped from burning buildings, bobbed in weightless chambers, and had a twelve-foot snake nearly squeeze the life out of him.  To entertain and educate kids. To show them love.  And, they showered him with love.

As a little kid, he sneaked into the theatre to watch Al Jolson on screen.  As a young man, Al Jolson caught his act, and said to forget about going for his medical degree – that Harmon should be a doctor of laughter, not medicine.  The kid who would become Bozo was driven, inspired, and let nothing get in his way, and boy did he work hard at it, even putting his own life in jeopardy if kids could benefit.

Brilliantly, Harmon created a franchise, so there were trained Bozo the clowns around the world – all looking and acting the same.  Willard Scott, of Today Show fame, was one of the first – and best – Bozo’s.

As a little girl, I don’t remember Bozo so much as the inflatable Bozo figure, nearly my height, with sand at the base.  If we pushed the Bozo, it would reel around, maybe even brush against the floor, but Bozo always, always popped back up smiling.

And, that – was Bozo’s big lesson to me as a little kid.  You get pushed down, you pop back up, smiling.