Nicolai Poliakoff

This article is about the circus performer who created Coco the Clown. For his son, who performed under that name in the US, see Michael Polakovs. For the cartoon character, see Koko the Clown.

Nicolai Poliakoff OBE (2 October 1900 – 25 September 1974) (Latvian: Nikolajs Poļakovs) (Russian: Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov) was the creator of Coco the Clown, arguably the most famous clown in the UK during the middle decades of the 20th century. Technically, Coco is not a clown but an auguste, the foolish character who is always on the receiving end of buckets of water and custard pies. The auguste often works with the more clever white-faced clown, who always gets the better of him.

Nicolai Poliakoff
Born Russian: Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov
October 2, 1900
Dvinsk, Russian Empire
Died September 25, 1974 (aged 73)
Northamptonshire, England
Nationality Jewish
Citizenship  Russia Empire Soviet Union United Kingdom
Known for Coco the clown
Awards Order of the British Empire

Biography

Poliakoff was born in 1900 to a Jewish family in Dvinsk (today Daugavpils ), Latvia which was then part of the Russian Empire. His parents worked in the theatre when Nicolai was born, but both lost their jobs a few years later, and to survive, Nicolai started busking from the age of five.

Stone carving of Coco the clown on his gravestone at Woodnewton.

Poliakoff died in Peterborough Hospital on 25 September 1974, after a short illness, and was buried in Woodnewton, in Northamptonshire, England.[2] His eldest son, Michael, a longtime circus "Producing Clown", creator of a much imitated "soap gag" entree, and the Clown who designed the post 1960's Ronald McDonald, was by then already using the "Coco" moniker. Michael had made his debut in the ring at 17, as "Coconut" and his sister Helen as "Cocotina" ('cocos' being the Spanish word for grinning face and applied to the coconut because of the three marks on its shell).[3] Michael's Coco the Clown was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1991.

As well as Michael, Poliakoff had five other children with wife Valentina: Helen, Nadia, Sascha, Olga, and Tamara. Tamara was the founder, along with her husband Ali Hassani, of the first circus in the UK not to use performing animals.

In popular culture

Coco is mentioned in the 2010 film 44 Inch Chest by Archie (Tom Wilkinson).

Coco is mentioned in an episode of the BBC television serial "As Time Goes By".

References

Books

External links