Bruno Stutz, Swiss clown, died at 77

  Dead Famous

Bruno Stutz, born in Geneva on August 21, 1938 and died September 11, 2015.

He was a Swiss white-faced clown known for his performances with the Chickys, an act established by his cousin Eugen Altenburger.

Elegant, white-faced and resplendent in a sequin-studded costume, over a career spanning half a century he played, for many years, the dignified foil to his cousin’s loveable and bumbling “Auguste” clown (typically with battered bowler hat, baggy trousers and red nose), whose horseplay mainly involved puncturing Bruno’s composure.

It was to be a lifetime partnership in which they enjoyed a relationship so close that both understood and reacted to each other’s personalities, performing a wide variety of traditional clown routines and becoming renowned for their interpretation of the Broken Mirror sketch, as well as a number of other acts.

Bruno and Altenburger initially worked as a trio with Roland Brunisholz, but when, in 1962, Bruno met the Belgian tightrope walker Patricia de Jonghe (he later married her), she replaced the second Auguste of the team, and for the next 47 years the three of them toured the world as the Chickys.

Bruno Stutz died at age 77.