Billy Smart, Jr was widely known in Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 as a circus performer and impresario

Impresario

An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...

.

Smart, whose real name was Stanley, was the tenth child and third son of Billy Smart, Sr. His father was a showman

Showman

Showman can have a variety of meanings, usually by context and depending on the country.- Australia :Travelling showmen are people who run amusement and side show equipment at regional shows, state capital shows, events and festivals throughout Australia...

 and fairground

Funfair

A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...

 proprietor, who bought a circus in 1946. The first appearance of the Billy Smart circus was on 5 April at Southall Park in Middlesex. The circus toured alongside Smart's funfair; the tents blow down and the circus did 2 days in the open air. Smart made his circus debut with "Billy Smart’s New World Circus" as assistant ringmaster aged 12. He was soon performing with ponies

Pony

A pony is a small horse . Depending on context, a pony may be a horse that is under an approximate or exact height at the withers, or a small horse with a specific conformation and temperament. There are many different breeds...

 and horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s, but became best known later for his elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

 acts. In one famous incident, he tamed a herd of performing elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

s when they stampede

Stampede

A stampede is an act of mass impulse among herd animals or a crowd of people in which the herd collectively begins running with no clear direction or purpose....

d in the ring. At its peak, in the days before animal rights

Animal rights

Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...

 were a popular issue, Billy Smart's four-masted Big Top

Big Top

Big Top may refer to:* Big top , the biggest tent in early-20th century circuses, where the circus itself took place* Big Top , a Transformers character* Big Top , a children's television series in the 1950s...

 could hold over 6,000 people, with a show including hundreds of animals and performers.

Smart, together with his brothers, Ronald Smart and David Smart, took over management of the circus when their father died in 1966 at Ipswich

Ipswich

Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...

. The circus ceased touring in 1971, but televised performances continued until 1983, drawing audiences of up to 22 million at its height. The Smart Brothers also developed Guernsey

Guernsey

Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.The Bailiwick, as a governing entity, embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, Burhou, and Lihou and their islet...

 Zoo

Zoo

A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....

, selling it in 1972, and opened Windsor Safari Park

Windsor Safari Park

Windsor Safari Park was a popular family attraction built on St. Leonards Hill on the outskirts of the English town of Windsor in Berkshire; it has since been converted into the site of Legoland Windsor...

 in 1969 before selling it in 1977 (it is now the site of Legoland Windsor

Legoland Windsor

Legoland Windsor is a child-oriented theme park in Windsor, Berkshire in England, themed around the Lego toy system. The park opened in 1996 on the former Windsor Safari Park as the second Legoland after Legoland Billund in Denmark. The park is located within close distance of Windsor Castle and...

). He lost the sight in his right eye in 1978 after cosmetic surgery severed the optic nerve

Optic nerve

The optic nerve, also called cranial nerve 2, transmits visual information from the retina to the brain. Derived from the embryonic retinal ganglion cell, a diverticulum located in the diencephalon, the optic nerve doesn't regenerate after transection.-Anatomy:The optic nerve is the second of...

, ending his career as an animal trainer.

The "Billy Smart's" touring circus was revived by his brother Ronald and nephew Gary in 1993, but Smart concentrated on a second career as a property developer, based in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.

Smart was a familiar figure in the gossip columns of the 1950s and 1960s as a well-known performer and eligible bachelor: his publicised liaisons included celebrities

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

 such as Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...

, Diana Dors

Diana Dors

Diana Dors was an English actress, born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, Wiltshire. Considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood, Dors described herself as: "The only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva."-Early life:Diana Mary Fluck was born in ­Swindon,...

, and Shirley Bassey

Shirley Bassey

Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...

. Smart married Hanna Magol, a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Pan Am air stewardess in 1973, five weeks after they met en route from London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. He was diagnosed with lung cancer

Lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 in April 2004 and died the following year. He was survived by his wife and their son and daughter.

In popular culture

In the Netherlands, Billy Smart was famous for the annual "Billy Smart's Kinderkerstcircus" ("Billy Smart's Children Christmas Circus") TV broadcast. Dutch singer Fay Lovsky listed Billy Smart in her 1981 hit "Christmas Was A Friend of Mine" as one of her favourite Christmas traditions.

Obituaries

• Obituary (The Guardian
  The Guardian
  The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
  
  , 24 May 2005)
• Obituary (The Telegraph
  The Daily Telegraph
  The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
  
  , 24 May 2005)
• Obituary (The Times
  The Times
  The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
  
  , 24 May 2005)