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Juggling Is More Than A Pastime For This Beecher Man

Juggling has taken Ken Benge all over the U.S. and even paid his way through college.

Lynn Dill  /  June 30, 2011  /  Views: 741  /   No Comments

Some kids love to play sports. Others choose reading, acting or other equally diverse hobbies.

For Ken Benge, his passion as a young boy was magic and, later, juggling, interests that eventually grew into a full-time job, touring the country as a master juggler, and even paying for his college education.

"It started with me reading a book I'd gotten from the library one summer on simple magic tricks," said the Beecher man.

Although he was just a young boy, he decided that he'd hold a magic show in the garage of his San Diego, California, home. His mother, a teacher, was always very encouraging and thought it was a great idea. She made lemonade for the occasion.

Chuckling, he recalls: "We had a loft and even sold balcony seats."

He made about $15 from this first show, and his mother took him to a magic shop - where he spent his earnings on more magic material.

"I started doing magic shows in my garage every four or five months and then church groups, the Cub Scouts and other places started inviting me to do shows," said Benge.

Later, a boy in junior high taught him to juggle, though he says it wasn't the correct way.

His mother then bought a unicycle, and he joined the San Diego unicycle club, riding in parades with the club and even learning to juggle while he rode his unicycle.

By the time he was 15, Benge had joined the International Jugglers Association, where he learned even more about juggling and was performing at 100 to 200 shows a year, a schedule he'd keep until he was about 25.

Through the jugglers association, he said, he met people who had spent their entire lives juggling. Since vaudeville had begun to die, he says, many of the jugglers congregated in the Los Angeles area - hoping for the opportunity to perform in movies.

"It helped me learn from guys who were really good," said Benge.

Soon, he was performing for a variety of venues, including an appearance on the "Wild Wild West" television series; parties for the Marines and Navy; circus, carnival and fair appearances; and a stint on the Siempre en domingo, a television show that aired from the 1969 to 1998 from Mexico City and featured singers, dancer and performers from all over the world.

The Globe Theater in San Diego decided that it would like to have a juggler dressed as a court jester, juggling as the audience waited to enter a performance of "The Taming of the Shrew." Benge was hired and became the symbol used in the theater's advertising materials during the 1960's, a juggler on a unicycle.

He said May Company, a department store chain that merged with Macy's in 2005, was one of the first stores to offer breakfast with the Easter Bunny. He was invited to entertain during the San Diego store's breakfast.

Another highlight of his juggling career was his appearance on "The Bozo Show," where he performed his juggling act 23 times and later performed during George Burn's televised 100th birthday celebration.

He also will never forget the day he met Arthur Godfrey during an appearance on "College Talent," in the 1960s. Godfrey invited Benge to appear on his New York radio show to talk about juggling.

The radio show resulted in a call from Universal Studios, asking him to perform during the studio's first year of tours. It was much different, said Benge, from the tours given today by Universal Studios. During this first year, he said, Universal Studios set up a big tent outside the studio where visitors would stop and celebrities would talk about their latest movie. Benge was one of three variety acts that included a famous magician and a flamingo dancer who performed between shows with the stars.

Another "chance meeting" would lead to Benge's performing at locations around the country and even pay for his college education at San Diego State College, where he majored in communication and minored in business.

Magician Mark Wilson had been hired by Honeywell for a series of shopping mall tours and asked Benge to join the tour. Benge met Wilson's sales manager/promoter at Creative Presentations, based in Chicago. Benge was still in high school when the man told him that he'd pay his way through college if he agreed to work for him. He agreed and spent six years doing shows all over the country, primarily at holiday breaks or in the summer.

Later, when he graduated from college, he'd move to Chicago and go to work for the company, first as a truck driver and performer. He traveled around as part of a group known as "Annie and the Air Pollution Gang," performing about 500 shows a year. He stayed with Creative Presentations five years, becoming vice-president before he left to start his own company.

He started his own company, The Idea Machine, Inc., in 1975. Initially, he rented space, first in Lynwood and then in South Holland, before buying a building and moving to a permanent location in 1980 on Ridgeland Avenue in Monee.

"It's difficult to describe exactly what we did, because we did so many different things," said Benge.

For instance, the company wrote scripts and provided lighting and sound for Second City in Chicago; wrote and performed a script and provided lighting sound and a stage designed like a locker room for a sales meeting for Rolex Siding when they were releasing a new product; designed tree puppets and produced an ecology cassette tape on pollution for Hammond, Indiana, schools, which won two national awards and provided lighting and sound for the Homewood-Flossmoor Ice Skating Arena.

"Those are just four descriptions of about 400 possibilities," said Benge.

Occasionally, he'd also still perform his juggling act. A friend in Indiana would invite Benge and his wife, Ann, who he married in 1981, to perform at several shows he'd book over a weekend. Benge said he'd get paid for the shows, and his friend would take him and his wife out to dinner.

"It was almost like a mini-vacation," he says.

Not only did Benge perform as a juggler, but he also wrote several books on the subject, "3 Ball Juggling," a book that is no longer in print, and "The Art of Juggling," a book still in print. A company in England even bought the rights to a thousand copies of the second book and included it in a kit they sold, entitled "More Balls Than Most: presents the art of juggling." The boxed kit included the book and three balls.

He also wrote articles for sports magazines and the International Jugglers Association newsletter, discussing his belief that juggling had moved from a performing art to a sport.

At various times he's served as president, vice-president and editor for the International Jugglers Association. When he first joined the association, he said about 400 people showed up for conventions. Today, he says, the numbers have grown to 2,000-3,000 people at the conventions.

Although he retired from his business in 2001 and doesn't perform as a juggler anymore, Benge still keeps in contact with other master jugglers. He said many of the old vaudeville performers are aging and would like a permanent place to preserve their collections of autographs, props, photos, juggling books, posters and juggling history.

At one time, Benge had one of the largest collections in the U.S., but he gave it to fellow juggling enthusiast, Paul Bachman, a long-time Chicago resident who now lives in Palos Hills. Bachman has continued to build the collection over the past 30 years. Now, at 76, Bachman has begun to think about the future of his collection.

And, he's not alone. According to Benge, he's talked to other collectors that feel the same as Bachman. These conversations with other jugglers inspired Benge, along with his daughter, Kim Coleman, to pursue a home for a historical museum of juggling.

Although plans are just in the initial phases, Benge and his daughter, who will serve as the director of the museum, have already spoken to potential board members in the juggling industry and completed all of the necessary paperwork.

The next step will be fundraising and finding a building for the museum.

"I've talked to many of the older jugglers and they don't want a collection that they've accumulated over a lifetime split up," he said.

"They'd like to have a permanent home," he said, adding that the museum would be the only one of its kind in the entire world.

For more information on the juggling museum, contact Coleman at: 815-557-7968.

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