R.I.P. “PERRI THE HOBO” 1951 – 2003
French Quarter clown found dead in Boston apartment

RLICKMAN, PERRY 'PERRI THE HOBO'

Perry Rlickman, French Quarter clown

Sunday March 30, 2003

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.

"He was really good at what he did," said documentary filmmaker Rick Delaup, who maintains a Web site, www.eccentricneworleans.com, that chronicles Quarter oddballs, among them Perri the Hobo. "But he was a clown that always got in trouble and was controversial.

"The street performers you see nowadays, they kind of come and go. They try to figure out how to make a few bucks by painting themselves gold or something. There are a few characters left, but not many as interesting or talented in my opinion as Perri and Ruthie the Duck Lady, who kind of made a whole lifestyle out of it."

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 quickly was hooked. A year later, he divorced his wife, quit his job and moved to the Quarter, where he hustled tips for more than 20 years.

Mr. Rlickman staked out a spot at the corner of Chartres and St. Peter streets, which he jealously guarded. There, he honed an act that was mostly comic interaction with passers-by, but included making balloon animals for children and adults, whistling shrilly and performing an occasional magic trick.

Lisa Hix, a longtime friend, said Mr. Rlickman was able to operate on several levels, performing his act while scanning the crowd to dream up one-liners. He could entertain children with G-rated humor while sneaking in sly, bawdy asides to their parents.

"He knew how to hold it together," Hix said. "He said, 'This is Bourbon Street, it's not Sesame Street. What are you afraid of?' But he could entertain the kids and the adults all at the same time. He was just a great clown, man."

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.

"No matter how many pretty girls or tourists he talked to, he would never let a child walk away before taking care of them," Fry said. "He was 'the' clown. He was wonderful at what he did."

Mr. Rlickman also struggled with alcohol and drug problems during much of his Jackson Square career. He told Delaup that New Orleans police arrested him in 1991 after they found 17 pounds of marijuana in his clown box. That bust, and another several years later, led to prison sentences lasting seven years in total, Delaup said.

Mr. Rlickman also was known for drinking on and off the job: He was a regular at numerous establishments, and bartenders frequently had to put him out after he drank too much.

In New Orleans, such exploits led to occasional run-ins with police. But in Provincetown, Mass., -- a Cape Cod town where Rlickman worked during New Orleans' torrid summers -- the town fathers were sufficiently unimpressed with Mr. Rlickman's act that they tried to deny him a street performer's permit in 2001.

Officials there complained that as Mr. Rlickman stood in front of Town Hall making balloon animals for children, he also drank heavily and made lewd remarks to women and uttered slurs to homosexuals. Mr. Rlickman got his permit after the American Civil Liberties Union intervened on his behalf.

About a year ago, friends said, Mr. Rlickman decided to remain in the Boston area.

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. Officials with the Massachusetts medical examiner's office in Boston said they could not provide information to a reporter.

Delaup said plans for a memorial service are being discussed but are incomplete. Friends of Mr. Rlickman told him that the Veterans Affairs Administration is in charge of funeral arrangements in Boston.

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Gordon Russell can be reached at grussell@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3347.

The Cape Cod Times Obituary

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