Certain names are synonymous with the circus: P.T. Barnum, James Anthony Bailey, the Ringling Brothers, Irvin Feld.

But Arthur “Art” Concello? His wife, Antoinette Concello?

Most people have likely never heard of them, yet these two people played a crucial role in bringing the circus as we still know it today to the masses.

Their fascinating story of tenacity, ambition and perseverance is told in the recently published book

“In the Shadow of the Big Top: The Life of Ringling’s Unlikely Circus Savior”

by Mayville native and circus historian Maureen Brunsdale. She’s the head of special collections at Milner Library at Illinois State University who oversees the extensive Circus & Allied Arts Collection. It contains more than 9,000 books — the oldest of which is about training horses for an audience that was published in the 1500s.

Interestingly,

a sizeable portion of the collection

came from another Mayville native: Sverre Braathen. Back in 2008, Brunsdale had just taken the job overseeing special collections and was perusing items when by “happy accident” she stumbled on a older black scrapbook and began thumbing through it.

“I sat down and realized I was looking at a photo taken in Mayville, North Dakota, and Sverre’s wife Faye was standing in front of the Brunsdale gravemarker in the Mayville cemetery,” Brunsdale said. She soon learned the couple had donated their enormous collection of circus photographs, slides and more to Illinois State in the 1970s, and many of the photos show Art and Antoinette Concello as the famed trapeze aerialists they became in the 20th century.

Born in 1911, Art Concello moved with his family to Bloomington, Illinois, as a baby. His high-energy personality and lack of interest in school led him to one of the most daring opportunities of the time: the flying trapeze.

Circuses have been entertaining audiences since 1793, and the main acts of the 1800s featured horses and talking clowns, Brunsdale writes. The first trapeze routine was featured in Paris in 1859, and circuses quickly began including them.

By the time Concello noticed the well-paid celebrity stars of the circus, Bloomington was known as the Trapeze Capital of the World thanks to two training schools. An 11-year-old Concello soon found himself training with

“The Flying Wards” trapeze act founder Eddie Ward

.

That’s how he met Antoinette Comeau, a petite dark-haired beauty who’d been abandoned by her parents but followed her older sister into circus life. Art and Antoinette became a dynamic duo both in the air and in love, marrying in May 1929 and forming their own act as the Aerial Concellos by the 1930 season.

As their fame rose, they became The Flying Concellos and Art sought more lucrative opportunities. He began contracting with the major circus companies to have his aerial acts appear and by 1942, Art was managing “The Greatest Show on Earth” for the Ringling Bros. Circus.

The next decades of Art and Antoinette Concello’s lives and careers were a tumultuous journey as Art changed management gigs, bought a circus himself, both worked as crucial stunt trainers on the set of

Cecil B. Demille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth”,

welcomed their only child in 1945,

Art had an affair and his mistress ended up with a bullet in her abdomen before the couple divorced in 1956.

That same year, the Ringling circus closed abruptly after the main tent blew down in one of many weather-related incidents, and president John Ringling North declared that “the tented circus as it now exists is in my opinion a thing of the past”, Brunsdale writes. Art Concello, back in the management chair, found the challenge invigorating and saw an opportunity to move the circus indoors, which meant reduced transportation costs, consistent schedules, and less dependence on favorable weather.

“Art saved the circus,” Brunsdale said. “After the Hartford fire in 1944 and another in 1956 and Ringling closing in 1956, everyone thought the circus was dead. But Art said he could run it in buildings. He wasn’t the only person putting a circus in a building, but he put the biggest show into one.”

Meanwhile, Mayville native Sverre Braathen’s love of the circus blossomed as a young boy, possibly thanks to a

Ringling show in Fargo in July 1902.

His passion for the circus was sidelined as he went off to World War I. He returned to North Dakota where he fell in love with Faye and enrolled in law school at the University of North Dakota. The couple ended up in Madison, Wisconsin, and Braathen began practicing law, but his love of the circus only grew.

He combined

his profession with his hobby by aiding performers, managers and musicians with legal or immigration matters,

and he developed an extensive network of contacts within the circus industry. He became friends with longtime bandleader Merle Evans, who also happened to be close friends with the Concellos.

“Sverre and Faye met Art and Antoinette Concello because they were the superstars of the circus,” Brunsdale said. “Before there were movie stars and rock stars, there were circus stars…Sverre wrote many letters to the Concellos, but most often it was Antoinette writing back to him.”

And even though Sverre Braathen was a prolific photographer, he was never able to pin down the Concellos for a group photograph. “Art didn’t love having his photo taken,” Brunsdale said, noting that he preferred to stay in the background, making deals and managing shows.

Plus, the Braathens’ collection offered a good starting point for telling the story. “There were letters and contracts for lots of performers which gave me a sense of how important circuses were in America at the time the Concellos were trouping,” she said.

Brunsdale’s book took several years to research and write, and she’s been pleased by the reaction circus historians and descendants of circus performers have had to the tale.

“I just got an email the other day from a child of a trapeze performer who worked for Art, and they said they could feel their father’s presence through Art’s story,” Brunsdale said. “It was very humbling.”

She’s also delighted that various circus societies and groups have been astounded by the research she uncovered and are happy Art and Antoinette’s story is being brought to life.

“Back when TV wasn’t a thing, people like Art and Antoinette were doing incredible things,” she said, noting that a newspaper reporter once asked Antoinette why she would want to do such dangerous tricks. “She said, “I figured if a man could do them, why couldn’t I?'”

Both Art and Antoinette came from humble beginnings but persevered through hardships, physical injuries, professional setbacks, personal turmoil and more to remain relevant in the industry they loved so much. Antoinette worked for years as the aerial director for Ringling, often filling in when other flyers were injured when she was in her 50s; she didn’t resign her position until 1983 at the age of 70. She died of lung cancer in 1984.

Art never really left the circus industry and went into business several times with various circus colleagues. He finally married his longtime girlfriend after Antoinette died and lived another 17 years, dying of pneumonia in 2001.

“For someone who entered life as a nobody, he sure turned into a somebody. He first used his muscles and then his brains, both of which he had in abundance, to make the transformation,” Brunsdale writes.

“In the Shadow of the Big Top” is available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Brunsdale also co-authored the book

“The Bloomington-Normal Circus Legacy,”

which published in 2013.