Reborn as a clown
A Wesley Chapel woman emerges as Patty Cake and studies to be zany.
By ERIN SULLIVAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 24, 2007
WESLEY CHAPEL - It was 1997 and, Donna Feltner says, her husband of 27 years took off with his new girlfriend and cruised around town on a red Harley-Davidson.
Feltner had just creeped over the edge of 50 and wasn't exactly sure how to go on. Her three sons were grown and starting families of their own. She still ached from the death of a daughter decades earlier.
Feltner had a house in Wesley Chapel. She had a job doing data processing for a technical school in Tampa. But she was sad and lonely.
How do you begin to start over, after a half-century of life, with all that pain and baggage?
Then a guidance counselor at work asked her to go to a clown meeting. It was a group of professional clowns who met, without the makeup, just to hang out.
And a whole new world opened up.
Feltner met kind, funny and quirky people. They asked her to sign up for a clown school at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater. It was a 10-week course that met on Thursday nights. Feltner left work early and drove an hour to get there and didn't get home till close to midnight. But she loved it and didn't mind the drive.
She felt giddy again, like a little girl. Somehow, this fit. She always liked clowns and grew up watching comedian Red Skelton on television. She found paint-by-numbers portraits of clowns she did in high school in Illinois and hung them on her walls. She started collecting clown figurines and prints and paintings and lamps. At class, she learned how to apply makeup and set it with baby powder and that it comes off easiest with olive oil. She learned where to find costumes and gags.
She picked her new name - Patty Cake the Clown - because it sounded good to her.
"Who doesn't know Patty Cake?" Feltner said.
Out of all the clown types, Feltner chose to be an Auguste Clown, which she says means "fool." She said this fit her perfectly. According to clown-ministry.com, the Auguste Clown is in a "class by himself."
"The least intelligent although that's not saying much : of the clowns, he is also perhaps the most beloved," the Web site says. "With the most exaggerated make-up and movements, this is the zaniest of the clowns."
Feltner found outrageous costumes with bold colors, crazy prints, purple wigs and makeup that would stay on, even in the hottest weather. She splurged on $200 clown shoes - her only pair. ("They're actually very comfortable," she says. "But I can't drive in them.")
She bought face painting kits - her entertainment of choice, since she heard that kids can choke on balloons and she doesn't want to risk it. She learned how to do simple magic tricks (pulling scarves out of a bag and so on) and how to do jokes.
Thursday night, she greeted a visitor at her house. She showed off her clown photo album, edged in rainbow hologram lace and covered in plaid fabric.
"It's great. And this is just a little grater," she said, opening her hand to reveal a tiny cheese grater.
"Isn't it a beautiful day?" she asks. "It's gorgeous. Just like a pair-a-dice."
Yes, you know the rest.
When she graduated from clown school, her three sons came to the ceremony.
She started going to clown conventions.
"Every hour you can pick from different classes," she said.
"It's amazing to go and soak it all in. I've met famous clowns, Hall of Fame clowns, clowns from all over the world."
She has their photos in her album, with their names written on the back. The clowning world is just like any other, where there are superstars, their names whispered in hallways by beginners, "Is that Hambone?"
In Feltner's new world, her friends and idols have names like Odie, Buttons-n-Bows, Twinkles, Mama Clown, Tiger Lily, Strawberry, Shorty, Frosty Little, Freckles, Otto, Bubba Sikes, Jackie LeClaire. Some are uber-famous, marketing themselves constantly, selling dolls in their likeness and coming out with their own lines of makeup, clothes and props.
Feltner never wanted any of that. She loves clowning so much, she never wants to feel like it's just a job, that she has to do it for a paycheck.
She's done all kinds of gigs - corporate picnics, grand openings, festivals. Her regular job is kids' night at Beef O'Brady's in Dade City. She's there from 6 to 8 p.m. every Tuesday, in a corner by the bar, painting faces and cracking jokes.
She starts crying when she talks about how much this means to her. "I'm so blessed," she says. She gets to dress up and be someone else and make other people feel good and she actually gets paid for it. When she's in costume, she's not a 61-year-old single divorcee with acid reflux and arthritis. She's Patty Cake. And who doesn't love her?
Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@sptimes.com or (813) 909-4609.