THE CIRCUS CANNON AND ME

I know three people who've been shot out of a circus cannon.

Elvin "The Human Rocket" Bale, his protégé Sean "The Human Cannonball" Thomas and me, Don "The Dribble Out" Gentile.

Okay, I only went about 25 feet (thus the dribble-out nickname) for a National ENQUIRER story.

The other two guys, who helped me, are the real deal and their story is a helluva lot more interesting.

Elvin and Sean are among the biggest names in cannonballing. Their breed gets famous, in part, by surviving just long enough for circus fans to recognize them.

They are safety-conscious professionals who understand the dangerous appeal of the stunt, but aren't willing to sacrifice their lives to the glory of the big gun.

That's not exactly true. Thirty or more circus performers have died getting shot out of a cannon. And today only about a dozen still fly through the air.

David K. Smith Jr. is the current Cannonball master, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest cannonball distance (195 feet) and the highest distance (89 feet).

(Take my word. It's fucking dangerous. I was an idiot to take that assignment.)

But I did learn that London-born Elvin Bale, who actually designed and built the cannon I used, was a big deal in the circus world, a really big deal.

It was an honor to get to know him.

He's a fourth-generation circus performer, who toured Europe incessantly with his family. Big names.

Dad Trevor Bale was a tiger trainer (with a whip and all) and a longtime Ringling Bros. ringmaster. Elvin's sister  Gloria was swinging from a trapeze at 5. Elvin's twin, Dawnita, did handstands on his shoulders in a trick cycling act when they were 12. Bonnie, the youngest, was an aerialist. And Elvin's mother, a former vaudeville dancer, was carried around the circus ring on an elephant's trunk.

They were all circus legends. One of their great grandfathers had even worked with Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley.

But Elvin was a cut above the rest.

He did these impossible, death-defying acts BEFORE he even added the damn cannon to his repertoire.

In the 1960s, Elvin began working on what would become his signature act, the single trapeze with a “heel catch” finish. That means, he let go, with no net below mind you, and caught himself on the bar, head looking straight down, by his Achilles heels.

Elvin told me he was also looking for something else from the trapeze bar. Now 77, Elvin said he'd search for beautiful girls in the audience as he swung back and forth. He'd find a pretty face and lock on it, silently dedicating his performance to her.

At intermission, he'd send the concession guy over with popcorn and a coke, compliments of Elvin Bale, along with an invitation to come backstage after the show.

"Sometimes it worked and I'd get some dates," he said. "And once it got somewhat romantic. They used to call me the Robert Redford of the circus."

Elvin was also known as "The Phantom of Balance" for his work on the so-called "Wheel of Death." On that, he  mounted an 8-foot steel-mesh wheel on the end of a 38-foot steel arm suspended from the ceiling.

As the arm spun around its axis, Elvin would run around the outside of the wheel, sometimes blindfolded, sometimes with someone else standing on his shoulders.

He also rode a motorcycle on the high wire.

This guy performed his “heel catch” act at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II. To thank him the Pope, now a Saint, gave him his crucifix. Elvin, introduced by Telly Savalas and Lynda Carter, walked the “Wheel of Death” at one of the annual circus festivals in Monaco. Prince Rainier was a big circus promoter along with daughter Princess Stephanie. Elvin got to dance with the Princess or maybe, he said, it was her sister, Princess Caroline. Ringling Brothers gave him the best quarters on the circus train.

The whole Bale family was voted into the Circus Ring of Fire, an elite circus organization which honors the names of the circus greats, names like Emmett Kelly, Charles Ringling North, the Flying Wallendas, Clyde Beatty and Jumbo the Elephant.

Elvin himself was inducted into the International Circus Hall of Fame in Peru, Ind.

And in his book "American Circus," John Culhane calls Elvin Bale “the greatest circus daredevil of the second half of the twentieth century.”

He said his greatest compliment, however, came from daredevil Evel Knievel. The two got to know each other and once planned to make a movie together but it didn't work out.

"Evil told me I was crazy (for doing the stunts I did)," said Bale. "I say that was my biggest compliment."

But then came the accident. The night of January 8, 1987, was the last time Elvin would rocket across an arena as excited kids stared in awe and the crowd held its breath.

He was performing with the Chipperfield Circus in Hong Kong. Bale said he knew from the instant he left the barrel that he would not make it to the air bag this time.

"I could see where I was going, that it was too far, too fast."

At fault was a sandbag dummy he'd used before the show to test fire from the cannon in order to calculate distance and set up his air bag.

The dummy weighed the same as Elvin but it had been left outside in the rain for a time. The sand inside was wet but the outside had dried. The airbag was set at a distance based on the now-heavier dummy.

Bale remembers he thought he'd survive if only he could manage to land upright instead of on his back as he would when he landed on the airbag.

He did land upright, missing the air bag by not quite a yard but slamming feet first into a concrete floor. His ankles shattered along with a knee, a leg, and his spine. He was paralyzed from the waist down, and was told he'd never walk again. He was 41.

A few years later, a 21-year-old kid named Sean Clougherty from Venice, Fl., who was working for a company cleaning pools and installing hot tubs, arrived for a job at a local home and did a double take.

His customer was a crippled man in a wheelchair with a gigantic silver cannon sitting in his back yard, like some giant TinkerToy.

When the local paper ran a story about the man and the cannon, Sean called Bale. "I thought it'd be neat to try," he said in an interview.

Sean had always wanted to be a stunt man, and used to jump off the roof of his family's two story house onto boxes he'd arranged on the ground.

But at 5-foot-8 and 153 pounds, Sean Thomas figured he was too small for movie stunts and maybe the cannon would be a better fit.

Bale agreed. He'd come to grips with his handicap. His spirit was strong and he'd been approached to broker circus acts, which became his new career.

Sean (pictured below with Elvin) was one of his first clients.

"You have to be a little nuts to do this, " Sean said in an interview.

But Bale was the best teacher you could have. The two rebuilt the cannon and Bale taught Sean how to fly.

The cannon was attached to a truck that Sean drove to circus performances around the country. And for the next few years, most with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus, Sean was a star attraction.

He got married to pretty Jenny, a circus aerialist. He took the last name Thomas as his daredevil name, probably because Clougherty is a mouthful.

"I'm not very different," he told Dan Rather in an appearance on 48 Hours. "I just get shot out of a cannon twice a day and three times on Saturday."

I met him in 1993 when Bale arranged for a National ENQUIRER reporter to get shot out of his cannon. It was good publicity.

Sean was performing for the George Carden International Circus at the Mecca Arena in Milwaukee.

"It's dangerous. No doubt about it," Thomas said.

He was skeptical about the whole thing and proceeded to tell me about Bale and his accident, something my assignment editor failed to do.

I should have backed out but I went ahead and signed a no-liability promise not to hold Sean responsible for killing me.

The cannon is, of course, not a gun. The explosion is mere sound effect. In truth. it is all hydraulics, a gigantic piston.

The performer wiggles down the barrel into a capsule that comes up to his waist. The capsule is then sent rocketing up a track at 60-plus miles an hour, stopping at the edge of the barrel while the performer keeps on flying, landing on his back on a net or airbag in a tumblesalt movement.

Bales' machine, all 35 feet of her, is billed as the World's Largest Cannon.

It's been featured on Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, 60 Minutes, and on the Discovery Channel in a documentary called Human Cannonballs.

It can shoot a human projectile up to 200 feet.

The acceleration may subject performers to a force of 9Gs during launch and around 12Gs at impact -- that's nine and 12 times the force of gravity, respectively.

Without a good amount of body strength, G-forces can cause some people to lose consciousness, meaning there's no way for the ground-bound body to control its movements.

The only thing I remember was Sean telling me to tuck my chin tightly toward the chest.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you can break your neck," he warned.

Bottom line, I did it four times before I got it right so a photographer could capture me soaring out of a large sewer pipe into an air bag and landing on my back.

Sean said I did a good job but really, it was, as he put it, "just a dribble out."

I still have nightmares about it.

Bale is retired these days. Sean stopped flying and today works at City Hall in Sarasota, Fl. The city was the winter home of the Ringling Brothers Circus and is home to many circus performers.

A City Hall website highlighting employees says:

"Every morning, Sean starts his day by opening up City Hall: turning on lights, checking for any plumbing or electrical issues, and ensuring everything is ready for the many citizens and staff who come and go each day. Working in a team of 3, Sean is responsible for a wide variety of tasks, which can vary significantly from day to day - everything from providing EPA-certified preventative maintenance on over 130 air conditioners to replacing light bulbs and assembling office furniture."

It’s not the center ring but he says he likes the stability of a job with benefits, health insurance and a retirement plan.

But occasionally, Sean, now in his 50s, takes part in a tour of the City Hall lobby where there are museum-quality paintings and photos on display.

One shows an archival photo of Sean in action as the Human Cannonball and he talks to visitors about his days in the Big Top. That’s him pointing himself out.

Elvin Bale, Sean Thomas and Don "Dribble Out" Gentile. Boom! I am indeed in good company.