Who is that Juggler in the Mural ?

Gus Sun

The mural being painted on the back of the old Regent Theater on Limestone street on the south side of Downtown Springfield with the acrobats and the prominent juggler memorializes Vaudeville promoter Gus Sun who had his offices adjacent to the theater.
Sun worked with the likes of Bpb Hope, the Marx Brothers, the Ritz Brothers, W.C. Fields, Al Jolson, Will Rogers, George Burns, Bert Lahr, Sophie Tucker and Edgar Bergen. He booked entertainers touring through 273 theaters across the country in the 20s and 30s. Inthe 40s and 50s, with the end of Vaudeville (and the rise of movies and later TV) he managed bookings in county and state fairs. His home base was in the Champion City, Springfield, Ohio where he opened the city's first theater in 1904.
The faces at the lower part of the mural are of the Chakeres Bros who operated the old movie theaters of Springfield til 1992 and whose family still maintains a chain of theaters.

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