Coco - Revision history

Djando: /* Image Gallery */

2025-09-01T20:40:51Z

‎Image Gallery

Djando: /* From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco */

2025-09-01T20:30:04Z

‎From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco

Djando: /* From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco */

2025-09-01T20:23:28Z

‎From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco

Djando: /* Image Gallery */

2025-09-01T20:21:58Z

‎Image Gallery

Djando: /* From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco */

2024-06-21T20:42:02Z

‎From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco

Djando at 20:40, 21 June 2024

2024-06-21T20:40:34Z

Djando: /* Suggested Reading */

2023-06-15T19:45:16Z

‎Suggested Reading

Djando at 22:23, 17 October 2022

2022-10-17T22:23:22Z

Djando: /* From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco */

2019-11-18T20:59:44Z

‎From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco

Djando at 20:58, 18 November 2019

2019-11-18T20:58:50Z

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 File:Coco_(c.1960).jpg|Nicholai Polakovs (c.1960)
 File:Bertram_Mills_Circus_Tour_61.jpg|Bertram Mills Circus program featuring Coco (1961)
 File:Bertram_Mills_Circus_63.jpg|Bertram Mills Circus Program Featuring Coco (1963)
 File:Coco%27s_grave.jpg|Coco's grave

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 Nicholai’s father, Piotr, was a cobbler who supplemented his scanty income by working as a property master in a local theatre. The family lived in a state of constant poverty, which surely didn’t improve when Piotr was drafted in the Imperial army during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. To help perk up his family’s miserable condition, five-year-old Nicholai took to singing in cafés, begging for a few scraps of food. It was a debut of sorts in show business&mdash;and indeed, Nicholai liked the attention it gave him.
-[[File:Lazarenko_Poster.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Vitalt Lazarenko]]At eight years old, in 1908, he “ran away and joined the circus,” as the saying goes. He travelled 300 miles by train to Vitebsk, in Bielorussia (today Belarus), where he persuaded a circus owner to give him a job, telling him that he was an orphan with no one to look after him. The director bought his story and placed him under the charge of [[Vitaly Lazarenko]] (1890-1939), a clown and acrobat who would become a major circus star in the Soviet Union after the Communist revolution.
+[[File:Lazarenko_Poster.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Vitaly Lazarenko]]At eight years old, in 1908, he “ran away and joined the circus,” as the saying goes. He travelled 300 miles by train to Vitebsk, in Bielorussia (today Belarus), where he persuaded a circus owner to give him a job, telling him that he was an orphan with no one to look after him. The director bought his story and placed him under the charge of [[Vitaly Lazarenko]] (1890-1939), a clown and acrobat who would become a major circus star in the Soviet Union after the Communist revolution.
 Nicholai assisted Lazarenko in his clown act and pleased him so much that Lazarenko wanted to take him on permanently. He explained Nicholai that his son had died of a fever, and his wife had died in a trapeze accident. He was lonely and would like to adopt Nicholai as his son. However, when it came to drawing up the legal papers for adoption, Nicholai feared his true parentage would be revealed and he would be arrested. In desperation, he ran away from the circus and returned home.

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 Nicholai’s father, Piotr, was a cobbler who supplemented his scanty income by working as a property master in a local theatre. The family lived in a state of constant poverty, which surely didn’t improve when Piotr was drafted in the Imperial army during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. To help perk up his family’s miserable condition, five-year-old Nicholai took to singing in cafés, begging for a few scraps of food. It was a debut of sorts in show business&mdash;and indeed, Nicholai liked the attention it gave him.
-At eight years old, in 1908, he “ran away and joined the circus,” as the saying goes. He travelled 300 miles by train to Vitebsk, in Bielorussia (today Belarus), where he persuaded a circus owner to give him a job, telling him that he was an orphan with no one to look after him. The director bought his story and placed him under the charge of [[Vitaly Lazarenko]] (1890-1939), a clown and acrobat who would become a major circus star in the Soviet Union after the Communist revolution.
+[[File:Lazarenko_Poster.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Vitalt Lazarenko]]At eight years old, in 1908, he “ran away and joined the circus,” as the saying goes. He travelled 300 miles by train to Vitebsk, in Bielorussia (today Belarus), where he persuaded a circus owner to give him a job, telling him that he was an orphan with no one to look after him. The director bought his story and placed him under the charge of [[Vitaly Lazarenko]] (1890-1939), a clown and acrobat who would become a major circus star in the Soviet Union after the Communist revolution.
 Nicholai assisted Lazarenko in his clown act and pleased him so much that Lazarenko wanted to take him on permanently. He explained Nicholai that his son had died of a fever, and his wife had died in a trapeze accident. He was lonely and would like to adopt Nicholai as his son. However, when it came to drawing up the legal papers for adoption, Nicholai feared his true parentage would be revealed and he would be arrested. In desperation, he ran away from the circus and returned home.

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 <Gallery>
 File:Coco_in_Dressing_Room_(c.1935).jpg|Coco (1935)
 File:Coco-Nat%27l_Portrait_Gallery,_Photographs_Coll-Humphrey_Spender_1935.jpg|Coco (1935)

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 Nicholai was performing in Riga in 1919 when he met Valentina Novikova (1901–1983), a shopkeeper, whom he married in June of that year, and with whom he would have six children: Helen, [[Michael Coco|Michael]] (1923-2009), Nadia, Sascha, Olga, and [[Ali Hassani|Tamara]]. In the 1920’s, he worked for the newly created (in 1919) Soviet state circus organization, and travelled in the Soviet Union from one circus building to another. By 1926 he had his own circus collective, a small but lively troupe of twenty based in Lithuania. There he had the misfortune to sustain an injury during an act that involved balancing a samovar of boiling water on his forehead. Badly burned, he spent several months in hospital and his troupe broke up.
-Before WWII, Soviet performers were still allowed to work in Western Europe. In 1929, Nicholai performed at [[Circus Busch]] in Berlin (and took the time to do a cameo in Karl Grune’s film version of Carl Zuckmayer’s play, ''Katharina [[The Knie Dynasty|Knie]]''). There he was spotted by [[The Schumann Dynasty|Willy Schumann]], who served in the winter season as Equestrian Director (i.e. performance director) for the Bertram Mills Circus at London’s Olympia. Schumann suggested Nicholai to [[Bertram Mills|Bertram W. Mills]] for the Christmas circus Mills was to stage at Manchester City Hall&mdash;the one and only time the showman ever had a second Christmas show in addition to his London show.
+Before WWII, Soviet performers were still allowed to work in Western Europe. In 1929, Nicholai performed at [[Circus Busch]] in Berlin (and took the time to do a cameo in Karl Grune’s film version of Carl Zuckmayer’s play, ''Katharina [[The Knie Dynasty|Knie]]''). There he was spotted by [[The Schumann Dynasty|Willy Schumann]], who served in the winter season as Equestrian Director (i.e. performance director) for [[Bertram Mills Circus]] at London’s Olympia. Schumann suggested Nicholai to [[Bertram Mills|Bertram W. Mills]] for the Christmas circus Mills was to stage at Manchester City Hall&mdash;the one and only time the showman ever had a second Christmas show in addition to his London show.
 ===Coco At Bertram Mills Circus===

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:40, 21 June 2024
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−	[[File:Coco_and_egg.jpg\|thum\|right\|~~400px~~]]	+	[[File:Coco_and_egg.jpg\|thum\|right\|450px]]
	==Clown==		==Clown==

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 * Nicolai Poliakoff, ''Behind My Greasepaint'' (London, Hutchinson & Co., 1950)
 * David Jamieson, ''Bertram Mills, The Circus That Travelled By Train'' (Buntingford, Aardvark Publishing, 1998) &mdash; ISBN 1-872904-11-4
 ==Image Gallery==

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 ===From Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov To Coco===
-His legal English name was Nicholai Polakovs (sometimes rendered as Poliakoff or Poliakov), but his original Russian name was in all probability Nikolai Polyakov&mdash;or Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov, to be complete, adding his father’s name in a patronymic form according to Russian practice. He was born on 5th October 1900 in a poor Jewish family in Dvinsk (today Daugavpils), in southwestern Latvia, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He had seven brothers and sisters.
+His legal English name was Nicholai Polakovs (sometimes rendered as Poliakoff or Poliakov), but his original Russian name was in all probability Nikolai Poliyakov&mdash;or Nikolai Petrovich Poliyakov, to be complete, adding his father’s name in a patronymic form according to Russian practice. He was born on 5th October 1900 in a poor Jewish family in Dvinsk (today Daugavpils), in southwestern Latvia, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He had seven brothers and sisters.
 Nicholai’s father, Piotr, was a cobbler who supplemented his scanty income by working as a property master in a local theatre. The family lived in a state of constant poverty, which surely didn’t improve when Piotr was drafted in the Imperial army during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. To help perk up his family’s miserable condition, five-year-old Nicholai took to singing in cafés, begging for a few scraps of food. It was a debut of sorts in show business&mdash;and indeed, Nicholai liked the attention it gave him.

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:58, 18 November 2019
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−	[[File:Coco_and_egg.jpg\|thum\|right\|~~300px~~]]	+	[[File:Coco_and_egg.jpg\|thum\|right\|400px]]
	==Clown==		==Clown==