Juggling - its history and greatest performers by Francisco Alvarez

Meet the Author


Francisco Alvarez has been juggling for over fifty years. As a young man, he studied art at the Arts and Crafts Club in New Orleans, where he discovered that it was as much fun to juggle the erasers as it was to draw pictures. During the height of the Great Depression, he struggled with a variety of unsteady jobs, working as busboy, commercial artist, and door-to-door photographer.

But his juggling career finally prevailed. And despite his introverted belief that he was more comfortable behind a drawing board than in front of an audience, he had a successful juggling career in theaters and nightclubs that took him to seven foreign countries. He was a favorite novelty act at the Catskill resorts in upstate New York, where he repeatedly played Grossinger's, the Concord, and the Nevele Country Club.

Among his television appearances are: the Steve Allen Show, the Robert Q. Lewis Show, the Chevy Show with Andy Williams and Ethel Merman, and three times on Sealtest's Big Top. In his retirement he moved from New York City to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he has taught juggling at the Mime Experiment and at the University of New Mexico. He is member of the Disabled American Veterans and the International Jugglers' Association.


This book was first published by Francisco Alvarez in hardcopy in 1984. The text in this book was composed on a Xerox 820 computer using WordStar. It was then printed on an IBM Electronic 50 typewriter. Computer to typewriter interface was achieved through the ETI2 made by Applied Creative Technology of Arlington, Texas.

The illustrations, by the author, have been carefully scaled from prints and photographs in order to preserve authenticity.

The Web edition was prepared in 1997. It was scanned on an HP ScanJet scanner, converted to text using Presto Page Manager on a Power Macintosh 7500, and corrected using Microsoft Word. It was edited by Andrew Conway with the assistance of Fran Favorini, Steve Salberg, Eric Bagai and Wolfgang Schebeczek.


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Text and illustrations © 1984 Francisco Alvarez
HTML © 1997 Juggling Information Service. All Rights Reserved.