Gertrude “Mickey” Comeau King
Mickey King was known as the “Queen of the Air.” This little dynamo rocked the circus world with her aerialistic achievements. She was born in 1905 in Sutton, Quebec, Canada to Toussaint and Jane Comeau. She was one of six children born to the couple. When she was young, the family moved to the United States and bounced around many small towns in Vermont and New Hampshire.
She joined the circus in 1923. Her first act was singing while playing a small drum and dancing. According to Mickey, in between her shows, she would sneak over to the Big Top, crawl up the ladder, and swing on the trapeze. One day, the owner of the rigging caught her. That was none other than Eddie Ward, Sr. (world renowned aerialist and trainer). Eddie was impressed by her strength and fearlessness, so much so that he asked her to come back to his home in Bloomington and train to join his act, The Flying Wards. Of course she accepted and went back to Bloomington with Eddie. She trained and lived at the Ward Family home at 1201 East Emerson Street (the training barn later became the Grand Hotel).
She was married twice: first to Allen King in 1924 (who was a wild animal trainer with the Sells-Floto Circus) and later Jimmy McLeod (who was a cowboy circus star).
After Eddie Ward, Sr. died unexpectedly in 1929, she left the Flying Wards. In addition to her own solo act, she performed with several other acts including the Flying Valentinos, the Flying DuWards, and the Flying Kings.
In addition to her performances as an aerialist on the trapeze, she also did her own act on the web and rings, walked on the high wire, rode horseback bareback, and performed hanging from her teeth.
But what she became most well known for was performing the one-arm plange, or muscle grind. She added that skill to her repertoire in 1932. It was perhaps the most arduous trick that took special skill and strength to complete. Placed high above the ground, with her arm in a loop and her hand holding tight, Mickey would put her feet together and flip her body up and around in circles, while holding on with just one hand. On each revolution, her shoulder would nearly pop out of its joint. The difficulty in the trick was the number of times she could hoist herself around to make a complete revolution. Her record was 276 revolutions at one time.
Her skills and artistry took her around the world. To recognize her talent, she was featured on the cover of Billboard Magazine on November 2, 1935. In 1939, she was the first recipient of the Aerial Women’s Lillian Leitzel Memorial Medal.
She performed in several circuses including Lee Brothers, Sells-Floto, Hagenbeck-Wallace, Robbins Brothers, Shrines, and King circuses.
According to Mickey, “in our day, we had to learn everything. We could go in and take a chance and do anything and everything that the other guy did because if somebody got sick we went in and helped. If we were strong enough to do one thing, we were strong enough to do everything.”
Mickey thrilled audiences for many years until her retirement in the mid-1960s. She is considered by many to have been one of the greatest aerialists to perform under the Big Top!
Mickey was inducted into the International Circus Hall of Fame in 1987 and spent the remaining years of her life living in Peru, Indiana until her death in 2004.