Verbatim excerpts from Death Notices, 3-30-03, Times-Picayune. By Gordon Russell, staff writer.
Perry "Perri the Hobo" Rlickman, perhaps the French Quarter's best-known street clown and certainly one of its singular characters, died March 22 in his apartment in Boston, friends said. He was believed to be 51. The cause of his death was unknown Saturday.
He was known as a consummate professional, always in full clown makeup and dress, who rose early and worked Jackson Square as hard as any performer in the past two decades. He was beloved by children.
But Mr. Rlickman also was loud, often inebriated and sometimes belligerent. He was frequently in trouble with the law and spent a good part of the past decade in various state prisons after being convicted on drug charges.
Mr. Rlickman was born in Bluefield, W.Va., the son of Jews who fled Germany in the late 1930s. Hoping to escape a life of mining coal, he joined the Marines in the late 1960s and served in the Vietnam War. After the war, he attended college at Wayne State University in Michigan, got married and began working as an engineer.
During a family vacation to New Orleans in 1979, Mr. Rlickman tried his hand at performing in Jackson Square and was quickly hooked. A year later, he divorced his wife, quit his job and moved to the Quarter, where he hustled tips for more than twenty years.
David Fry, a close friend, said there was a tender side to Mr. Rlickman that some missed. The clown had a special relationship with Fry's autistic son, he said, and he connected similarly with children everywhere he went.
Mr. Rlickman also struggled with alcohol and drug problems during much of his Jackson Square career. He told [filmaker Rick] Delaup that New Orleans police arrested him in 1991 after they found 17 pounds of marijuana in his clown box.
About a year ago, friends said, Mr Rlickman decided to remain in the Boston area. [He worked the Cape Cod town of Provincetown, Mass. during the hot New Orleans summers]
According to Delaup, friends in Boston visited his apartment after noticing that he hadn't shown up on the street for several days and discovered his body.
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Perry "Perri the Hobo" Rlickman, perhaps the French Quarter's best-known street clown and certainly one of its singular characters, died March 22 in his apartment in Boston, friends said. He was believed to be 51. The cause of his death was unknown Saturday.
He was known as a consummate professional, always in full clown makeup and dress, who rose early and worked Jackson Square as hard as any performer in the past two decades. He was beloved by children.
But Mr. Rlickman also was loud, often inebriated and sometimes belligerent. He was frequently in trouble with the law and spent a good part of the past decade in various state prisons after being convicted on drug charges.
Mr. Rlickman was born in Bluefield, W.Va., the son of Jews who fled Germany in the late 1930s. Hoping to escape a life of mining coal, he joined the Marines in the late 1960s and served in the Vietnam War. After the war, he attended college at Wayne State University in Michigan, got married and began working as an engineer.
During a family vacation to New Orleans in 1979, Mr. Rlickman tried his hand at performing in Jackson Square and was quickly hooked. A year later, he divorced his wife, quit his job and moved to the Quarter, where he hustled tips for more than twenty years.
David Fry, a close friend, said there was a tender side to Mr. Rlickman that some missed. The clown had a special relationship with Fry's autistic son, he said, and he connected similarly with children everywhere he went.
Mr. Rlickman also struggled with alcohol and drug problems during much of his Jackson Square career. He told [filmaker Rick] Delaup that New Orleans police arrested him in 1991 after they found 17 pounds of marijuana in his clown box.
About a year ago, friends said, Mr Rlickman decided to remain in the Boston area. [He worked the Cape Cod town of Provincetown, Mass. during the hot New Orleans summers]
According to Delaup, friends in Boston visited his apartment after noticing that he hadn't shown up on the street for several days and discovered his body.
- jimlouis 3-30-2003 7:38 pm