Elimar, the 'juggling genius'

Juggler and tightrope walker Elimar Clemens Buschmann performs his famous tennis-racket trick, hat tricks and juggling routines with clubs, balls and rings.

Buschmann was a genius juggler as well as a tightrope walker. He was born in Germany and arrived in Australia c.1939, escaping the Nazi regime, where he was interned as an enemy alien.

He spent some of the late 1940s in the US and even toured with the Harlem Globetrotters as the half-time entertainment. Around this time he also married his first wife, a Tivoli ballet performer named Dawn Butler.

In the mid-1950s Elimar began a partnership with Louise Matheson, who was then in the chorus of several JC Williamson's productions. She assisted him with his juggling acts and they formed a double act after some work in local vaudeville musicals, and toured all over Asia and Europe.

Elimar was billed as the King of Jugglers and she was 'Louise, the Queen of Song'. He juggled, she sang, and then he performed on the slack wire. 

This film was shot in a Melbourne park, c.1950 by Frank 'Tex' Glanville. Glanville was a renowned Australian vaudeville performer who specialised in rope spinning and juggling between approximately 1928 and 1965.

He made a range of home movies on 8mm film featuring his vaudeville friends. These are preserved as part of the home movie collection at the NFSA.