Jules Léotard was blessed in his name. It might have been quite different had he been called, say, Jules Droupé. As it was, his family name was lithe, elongated, taut. It was a name with stretch.
Léotard was born in Toulouse in 1838, the son of a gymnastics teacher. The young Jules might have become a lawyer. He passed his legal exams, but twisting words wasn’t enough. He wanted to be twisting, turning, falling, flying. At 18, he began to practise with trapeze bars, ropes and rings over a swimming pool. He joined the Cirque Napoléon, and on 12 November 1859 performed its first flying trapeze routine.
He became the subject of a popular song of 1867, ‘The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’, by the British lyricist and singer George Leybourne. ‘He’d fly thro’ the air with the greatest of ease/ A daring young man on the flying trapeze…’ I’d always thought that it was a joyful song, light, weightless, winging over the airwaves.
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