Extreme balance - Renald and Rudy

Photograph by Douglas of Detroit.

"The Adonises of Balance", Renald and Rudy were perhaps the premier handbalancing act of the Forties and Fifties. In vaudeville and burlesque, they performed their novelty act for twenty-five years - eventually at venues as prominent as Billy Rose’s famous Diamond Horseshoe and the London Hippodrome - and even appeared a few times on television. Sadly, I've been able to find next to nothing about the two men, when and where they were born - and possibly/probably died - or even Rudy's last name.

Photograph by James Kollár of Radio City.

Photograph by Progress of New York. (Two images.)

The only real information I did get was from the book, "Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America", by Leslie Zemeckis. The author interviewed a now nearly blind Renny von Muchow - Renald - who lived with his wife - a former performer herself - at their home in Yonkers. He said that he and Rudy had met when he was fourteen and Rudy was thirteen: "They had a contest in school to see who the strongest boy in school was. And sure enough, Rudy and I came out on top. And we liked it so much, and we gained such a reputation for our strength in school. So we became hand balancers. Burlesque shows at the time showed novelty acts. And some of them were acrobatic and we said, 'Oh, we can do that. Why don't we do an act that nobody else can do because they're not strong enough to do it?' And we developed the act called Renald and Rudy, which kept us together for twenty-five years." They usually wore no more than tight shorts on stage, and tried to make their bodies look as much alike as possible; in photographs and on stage it was often difficult to tell them apart. Their act was usually seven to eight and a half minutes long. From working with strippers in Burlesque, they learned that lavender light "made the skin glow", and they traveled with their own lavender gels. "It wasn't work, it was play - and we were paid for it, well paid and traveled."

When their career ended, Rudy apparently had a hard time coping with the loss of the partnership. At the time of the interview, Renny told the author, "Rudy lives a solitary life in California in a trailer park. Unfortunately, he never got interested in anything else to get into, to make a living when he got out of show business. He did think he would like to become a hairdresser. He tried it, didn't care for it. Then decided he would become a dog groomer, took over a store on Hollywood Boulevard. And he was very, very busy - doing well - but he says, 'I kept looking out and seeing the sunshine and I'm in here working', and he walked away from it. 'Gee, Rudy you can't do that.' A lot of show people can't bring themselves down to earth enough to take a job that's 9 to 5. I'm afraid Rudy's one of those. Eventually he had to take something. He became a school bus driver. He enjoyed it. He didn't have to apply himself too hard."

 Photograph by Lon of New York.

The two would see each other only occasionally over the intervening years. "We never liked to write letters. Years go by without writing, but when we get out to California, we meet and it's just like old times. Rudy's like a brother to me. He's more than a best friend. We know each other so well. One thing that held us together, we did this thing together so well, it was as if we were born to do it."

Renny photographed by Tony Lanza. (Three images.)

Rudy photographed by Tony Lanza.

Photograph by Marvin of NYC.

Photograph by Marvin of NYC.

In rehearsal.

In performance. They often worked on a glass stage lit from below, surrounded by scantily clad ladies.

Cover photograph by Earle Forbes, 1945.