Norbert Kreisch, longtime circus performer, dies at 89

Norbert Kreisch was so connected with his circus-act alter ego that the Sarasota and Longboat Key man identified himself as Norbu on the telephone answering machine he shared with his wife, Arden.

Norbert became Norbu, the almost-human gorilla, when he put on the horse hair suit he and his wife Arden fashioned and joined her in an often-hilarious act they performed around the world from 1954 until 1984. Their daughter, Noby, filled in for Arden for two more years after that.

In the act, Arden held a whip to corral the ferocious Norbu, who was known to go into the audience, teasing them and occasionally stealing hats and swinging from the balcony of arenas or theaters. 

Norbert died on May 26 at the age of 89. Arden said so many more people knew her husband as Norbu, so the name just became second nature.

 “The gorilla act was all done by hand,” Arden said, adding it was so compact and easy to travel with they could perform virtually anywhere. “We worked all over the world with it.” 

He was born in Germany in 1930 and broke into showbiz as a Charlie Chaplin lookalike. His act came to America in 1949, where Norbert worked without pay for two seasons. When he asked for a raise, his employer fired him and handed him a ticket back home.

On his way home, he traveled to New York and happened to run into legendary high-wire artist Karl Wallenda and landed in the circus world for good. 

The Kreisches’ Longboat Key home is like a museum of circus history since the 1950s, when the couple met. Arden has dozens of photos, and every one has a story or a memory of a show — like the photo of the tired-looking couple and daughter Noby, newly arrived in Hawaii for performing, after their travel was extended by a bomb threat at Los Angeles International Airport or the one showing Norbert and some fellow performers up on the high wire the day after a accident killed two of their fellow performers.

Even on their wedding day in 1954, the Kreisches performed in the circus. 

They had both been circus performers when they crossed paths in Sarasota. Norbert had been traveling with the Wallendas and Arden, a third-generation circus woman, had been performing with members of her family. He’d already been in the circus life for years, learning stunts, wire walking and how to fly on a trapeze. 

“He was fabulous, not because he was my husband but because nobody did all he did,” Arden said. “Norbert does not walk the wire, he runs the wire.” 

Eventually, Arden passed the baton (which was really a whip) of Norbu’s wrangler to Noby, who was indeed named after her father, after they thought she’d be a boy. They found out she’d be a girl, but they thought “Norby” still sounded nice. The nurses kept calling her “Noby,” though, and it stuck. Officially, she’s Noby-Arden. 

Noby performed with her father for years after her mother stepped off the stage, wrangling Norbu and performing in a golf act involving balancing and the father-daughter duo hitting plastic golf balls into the audience.