Grimaldi, Joseph

1778

1837

This ‘Great King of Clowns’ – known as Joe or Joey, was born on 18 December 1778 in Stanhope Street, Clare Market, London. His father was Giuseppe Grimaldi (d. 1788), a dancer and ballet master at Drury Lane Theatre, who had a reputation as a libertine, and his mother was Rebecca Brooker, a utility dancer at Drury Lane and the daughter of Zachariah Brooker, a butcher of Holborn. The family dynasty dated back at least to John Baptist Grimaldi (d. 1760?), a dancer and dentist in London who was the father of another John Baptist Grimaldi (fl. 1740-1741); that latter Grimaldi was also a dancer and acrobat who was called ‘Iron Legs.’ They were Joey’s great grandfather and grandfather, respectively. Joey spent the first ten years of his life around the streets of Clare Market. Having been schooled by his father in the skills of pantomime, Joey made his first stage appearance at the age of 23 months, in November 1781 at Drury Lane, as the Clown in “Robinson Crusoe”. From that time, until he retired in May 1823, Grimaldi performed regularly in pantomimes in London – at Drury Lane, Covent Garden and Vauxhall Gardens, but mainly at Sadler’s Wells. He was hailed as ‘the most wonderful creature of his day, and far more unapproachable in his excellence than Kean or Kemble in theirs.’ His great portrayals in such pieces as “Harlequin and Mother Goose; or, the Golden Egg” (G0272), “Harlequin in his Element”, “Harlequin and Blue Beard”, “Aladdin”, “The Wild Man” and “Harlequin and Friar Bacon” were unequalled and his rapport with his audiences magical. The critic in the “Monthly Mirror” wrote of his performance in “Mother Goose”: ‘of all the whimsical beings that, by their contortions and vulgarities in pantomime, set the young, ay, and old folks too, in a roar, the clown of Grimaldi is the most surprising, diverting and effective. We can in no way describe what he does … He must be seen.’ Grimaldi’s body was racked by the physical abuse it had suffered over the years, and by 1828 he could not go on. He made a round of farewell appearances, barely able to walk. On 17 March 1828 he made his final appearance before a packed house at Sadler’s Wells. His last years were spent in agony at his house, No 33, Pentonville Road; George Cooke, the publican of the nearby Marquis of Cornwall, carried him back and forth to the pub on his back. The great clown died on 31 May 1837 in Southampton Street and was buried in the graveyard of St James on Pentonville Hill. His first wife Maria, whom he had married in 1799, was the daughter of the Sadler’s Wells manager Richard Hughes. She died in childbirth in October 1800. Joey mourned her passing for many years, even long after his marriage in December 1801 to the actress Mary Bristow, the daughter of provincial actors. Mary suffered a paralytic stroke in 1832; Grimaldi nursed her constantly until her death in 1834. Their son, Joseph Samuel Grimaldi (q.v.), had an undistinguished career on the stage. Grimaldi’s reminisences, which he had completed writing in 1836, were published after his death, in February 1838, as “The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi”, edited by ‘Boz’ (Charles Dickens). Richard Findlater’s biography, “Grimaldi King of Clowns”, was published in 1955. Many of Grimaldi’s pantomimes are treated by David Mayer in “Harlequin in his Element” (1969). The BDA lists some 95 pictures and caricatures of Grimaldi.. (BDA)