OAKLAND, Calif. -- Popo the Clown, an international figure honored in the Circus Hall of Fame of the P.T. Barnum Museum, died of a heart attack Wednesday night at his Oakland home. He was 81.
Popo, whose real name was Count de Bathe, was born in 1900 in St. Louis to a mother who abandoned the infant in a shoe box. He was adopted, but the adoptive parents gave the infant to neighbors with the name De Bathe.
When he was 42, Popo was told he was an orphan, but he said, 'I knew it anyway. I was the ugly duckling. I didn't belong, and they showed it. You can feel those things. I left when I was 14.'
Eventually he appeared as a circus clown in dozens of countries and learned to speak six languages. In 1973 his portable dressing room was set up in the Barnum Museum and later a life-size replica of him was constructed in Circus Hall of Fame.
Popo's last overseas trip, involving 26 nations, occurred in 1965. Until a few years ago, he continued to perform at Children's Fairyland in Oakland 'because I get a lot of pleasure out of entertaining kids.'
Once, when presented with a UNICEF award for his work, he said only fate and luck had kept him from being a bum 'on the street corner of Mexico City, Bangkok or Manila.'
'I am a waif myself -- I know how they feel.'