Colleano Heart, The (2025)

[bunniefuu]

WOMAN: When the Colleanos came on,

they were magnificent.

It was just watching

some kind of magical thing happen.

I had six aunties and four uncles.

Uncle Con

became the highest-paid performer

in the Ringling Brothers Circus.

ANNOUNCER: Now watch how Con

Colleano, the famous wire balancer,

became one of the cleverest

in the world.

Little Winnie was a great

solo trapeze performer

and her act was unique.

Maurice was probably

the greatest acrobat of his time.

Katie Colleano,

along with my mother, Coral,

were partners

in the Triple Ladder act.

Bonar was an acrobat,

manager and spotter.

May somersaults from one horse

to the other.

Joyce loved doing rumbas

and contortionist work.

Victoria,

who was always called Babe.

Lindsay and Cousin George.

I started to feel the power

of my grandmother Julia

that kept all of that together...

..to somehow not just survive,

but have a vision.

I am Molly Colleano O'Donnell,

connected to the Colleano family

in my heart and in my soul.

When I was seven,

I spent a year in a hospital bed.

My parents visited every week,

and to give me courage,

Mum told me about a distant corner

of our family.

Daring, glamorous shapeshifters

who defied the colonial system.

This story never let me go.

But I hit a snag.

They say history is written

by the victors.

But the story

of this famous Aboriginal family

has never been told.

They are part of a hidden generation

of our country.

Luckily, Mum had also told me

to read between the lines,

to follow the back roads and listen.

I knew these stories

were still alive,

passed down and remembered.

And it turns out

I wasn't the only one searching.

Around about eight years ago,

I started to hear

some little rumours and secrets

that piqued my curiosity

to want to know more

about where I'm from.

I had a discussion with an auntie

and unearthed a fairly big secret

in our family.

Once I did some DNA testing,

I found out that my pop

was not my biological grandfather

and, in fact,

was part of the Colleano family.

We have a very strong line of women

in the Colleano family,

right back to Great-Grandma Julia.

And I think that's what I resonate

mostly with is that matriarch line.

Four years ago, we teamed up.

Like a black Nancy Drew,

I brought a trove of records.

(PHONE RINGS)

Deb had traced the family tree across

the world, and in America was Molly.

(ON PHONE) Hello. Hello.

BOTH: Hi.

Where are we? Hey!

Hi.

(LAUGHS)

The family's custodian

of oral history.

Deb wants to take you out.

I want to show you.

I want to show you.

Take you to show you.

Okay. Okay.

It gets up to 40 degrees here, Molly.

Oh, wow.

Which is about 120-something.

Molly's grandmother, Julia,

was a Gamilaraay woman.

She was born in 1878

and grew up in the town of Narrabri.

She was one of seven children.

Her matrilineal line traces back

four generations to the Upper Gwydir.

Settlers came onto their country

in the 1820s.

(c*ck SCREECH)

I think it's hard

for us to understand how difficult

it would have been for First Nations

people around the 1850s to 1900.

Their way of living

for tens of thousands of years

had been disrupted.

And in the backdrop of having

to navigate a new way of survival

was always the threat of violence.

The national view

from non-Indigenous people

was that we were a dying race.

But without the government

regulation that was to follow,

you do have a larger ability

for Aboriginal people

to determine how they were going to

navigate this new environment,

and many of them did it really well.

Self-educated Aboriginal people

were writing petitions

to the state government,

asking for 30, 40, 50 acres of land

in their traditional country.

The government would then contact

the local police officer

to go out

and have a look at this land.

Letter comes back -

"It's heavily timbered,

worthless scrub. Give it to them."

Certainly from the 1880s,

something like

81% of Aboriginal people

in New South Wales

were self-sufficient.

Aboriginal people

went through a period of 50 years

of prospering

on their traditional land.

Welcome to Narrabri.

Here we are.

So I reckon your grandmother, Julia,

would have been a bub

when this was being built.

Like, when you think about it,

they lived just two streets back,

so, like, they're right

in the middle of it.

They're in the thick of it.

You know?

I found a few clues

about Julia's earlier life.

Her father, William Robinson,

was West Indian,

in official documents.

In fact, we knew him as Mum's

great-great-uncle, a Bundjalung man.

But as a West Indian,

he was able to claim

that he was a free man,

meaning he could own

prime real estate.

Narrabri was a very prime location.

Prospering in farming

and their ability

to transport that across the state.

He worked at the post office,

a respectable job for the time.

But as Julia reached her teens,

he passed away.

Narrabri was growing fast,

its population doubling,

and her mother,

fearing for her daughter's safety,

allowed them to marry young.

I'm just going to draw.

Julia met Con Sullivan,

and we'll call him Senior

because we know that there were

10 children under that

that also followed the same names.

Great-grandfather Con

was a tent boxer,

and at 16 Julia was married.

Con Sullivan was an Irish larrikin

with quick fists,

a bit of a gambler

with a knack for the hustle.

This beautiful woman, Julia,

became part of the travelling world

on the tent boxing circuit.

(BELL DINGS)

The boys, Uncle Bonar,

Uncle Con, and Maurice,

were following

in their father's footsteps.

There is a long history

of Aboriginal boxers.

This fits with an opportunity

for families to stay together

as part of those touring shows.

The reality is those jobs

are life threatening

and that's why there's not such a

barrier to Aboriginal participation.

They all love boxing.

They were great defenders.

They loved coming to the aid

of these beautiful sisters

of theirs.

They really did.

The tent boxing circuit

was run like a racket.

Not the best environment

to bring up kids.

Along the way,

they lived by their wits.

The boys used to hunt little rabbits

and things

and they would gather medicines,

herbs

my grandmother

was very knowledgeable about.

They became

completely self-contained.

The family shared this floating life

on the dusty roads with drovers,

travelling salesmen,

people moving out west for free land

and other entertainers

passing through towns.

The Sullivans

competed with sideshows and circuses

of all sizes and qualities.

The Sullivan family

kept having girls more than boys,

and in those days,

girls weren't boxers.

They had to think their way around

a new way of making a living.

Con Senior.

Their father, Con Sullivan,

was always coming up

with these ideas.

He had an old film machine,

one of the first.

He was trying to charge money for

people to come and see these films,

but the film camera kept breaking

down, so he'd send the kids out.

And we had to hop in and do a bit of

something while they mended the film.

INTERVIEWER:

But why do circus tricks?

I mean, why not just go up

and sing a song or something?

Well, I guess, no, we couldn't sing.

(LAUGHTER)

From tent boxing and understanding

how to do a travelling show,

it was a natural leap

to the circus world.

And it wasn't like the kids

were being punished.

The kids loved it.

They absolutely loved it and wanted

to train six and seven hours a day.

But just as the Sullivans

were finding their feet,

the state had other plans.

Federation unified the nation,

and with it came policies that

plunged our communities into a trauma

that we are still reckoning with

today.

Australia's 'Fair Go' only applied

if you had a fair complexion.

When Federation comes,

you actually see the increase

across every jurisdiction

in the country

of Aboriginal welfare

and protection boards

that fundamentally take away

the rights of Aboriginal people.

And, in fact,

you can look at that period

as another time of dispossession.

Expanding settlement.

There were white pressure groups

saying, "I want that land.

"I want them people moved off.

"They've got to go back

into the bush somewhere."

Aboriginal people begin to realise

where there were pockets of support

and that's where

they gravitated towards.

And that seems to be the case

with Lightning Ridge

for this particular family.

It's hard to believe

that they lived out here.

Mmm.

Rugged country.

Really rugged.

But also,

like, when you think about it,

it allows you to go straight down

the guts of the townships

that have been created

in New South Wales.

It's like right on the border

of Queensland.

And if you go diagonally,

you can get into South Australia.

So, in the old ways

it was an old Dreaming track area.

You know?

It would have been a songline...

Yeah.

..for trade.

And it's still Gamilaraay.

Lightning Ridge sprung up in 1906

after opals were discovered.

Unlike the Gold Rush,

families moved here together,

building makeshift towns

from scratch.

Entertainment was in high demand,

and the town sat just beyond

the reach of central authorities.

For the Sullivans, it was perfect.

With fortunes flush,

it was a chance to hone their skills

and build a business.

This is the historical society.

Well, this is where we found

the first records of the family.

I wonder if you can spot

who the referee is.

Wow. Great-grandfather Con Senior.

When he decided

to give up his boxing gloves,

he refereed a few of the matches

up this way.

Up here, if you put your fists up

like that, it's called the Sullivan.

So this is the application

for the establishment of a school.

J Sullivan.

Grandma Julia.

It's beautiful handwriting.

Mm.

She would have had to have been

educated,

because most Aboriginal people

marked with just an X.

Yes. Yeah.

She's trying to get four

of her children a school to go to.

There's James, Winnie, Con and Kate.

And we know that that happened

because they're in the photo

and they're listed.

Wow. And there they are.

So, Bonar, Con and Winnie

and Katherine went.

But this came back

from the New South Wales Government.

"I've received reliable information

"that four Sullivans

must not be considered,

"as they are children

of a half-caste,

"moving from station to station."

Makes you cringe at that term.

Yeah.

Doesn't it?

Yeah.

They knew that the government

was keeping an eye on them.

When the Aboriginal

Protection and Welfare boards

start to do their work,

particularly removing children,

putting Aboriginal people

on reserves

and highly regulating Aboriginal

life from where you could work,

who you could marry,

where you could move to...

..naturally, many people

didn't want to live that way.

2,000 generations of families raising

their children across 60,000 years.

And then we come to a point,

"We're coming for you.

"If your house isn't clean,

"if your children don't have shoes,

we're taking them."

People are hiding.

People are really living in fear.

When news of a fire at Julia's

childhood home reached them,

the whole family rushed to Narrabri.

Julia was so close to her family,

with her mum and with her sisters.

It'll be good to show you

some of the papers

of the day that changed the family.

"An old lady, a native of the state,

"was burnt to death

under distressing circumstances.

"The fire broke out

in a large weatherboard house."

So she was in the house

at the time that it happened?

Yeah.

I wonder if there was an undercurrent

of something more to this fire.

Newspapers across the country

reported this death,

even as far as Tasmania,

all noting that the family

were natives of the state.

The harrowing account in the papers

had some anomalies.

Julia's mum was nearly blind,

and I began to question

why would she be using a candle?

The fire was quick,

but the adjoining buildings

were contained.

It reported

that the whole town came to watch

the burning of the house,

and yet no-one rendered assistance

to the family.

The constable dropped the remains

at a relative's house,

almost like a warning.

The final note in most of the papers

was that the house was uninsured.

Five years before,

most Aboriginals in Narrabri

were forcibly removed

to Cuttabri and Pilliga reserves.

Conveniently, with this fire,

there were no more Aboriginal people

living in the town.

While still grieving for her mother,

Julia would have also realised

that the younger members of

the Narrabri family would be at risk

of being taken by the authorities.

With seven kids in tow

and one on the way,

she grabbed nephew George

and headed back to Lightning Ridge.

You know, our country

has a really dark history.

What happened back then.

What the government did.

There's so much trauma

for Aboriginal people.

I grew up white. I didn't know about

my Aboriginality.

To find out,

I was really, really proud.

But I was also mindful

that I had to listen,

I had to learn,

and I had to be respectful about it.

My grandmother

would have been very aware

that it could happen

to her children.

And that's when I started to feel

the power of my grandmother Julia.

She was not going

to lose her children.

They were not going

to be ever separated.

Any other kind of colour,

while not seen as white,

was not treated as badly

as Aboriginal people.

You could be Portuguese,

you could be Jewish.

You could be Maori,

you could be West Indian,

you could be African.

You could be anything else

but Aboriginal.

It might be a good idea

if we made it quite clear

that it's 'Colleano'.

It's pronounced

in the good Australian way.

Right?

MAN: That's quite true.

One way was to adopt this

pseudo-foreign name, 'Colleano'.

In actual fact, there had been

an American troupe of acrobats

that had visited Australia in 1897.

And I think that was the inspiration

for the name.

They were a step ahead of the posse,

so to speak,

in that opportunity at Colleanos,

with their changed identity,

covered that space

and the tracks are gone.

(LAUGHS)

The family,

that tight-knit family together,

working together, playing together,

travelling together,

constantly moving.

And this was a very masterful thing

to do

because what they were doing

was existing in spaces

where they normally wouldn't be able

to exist in,

in an era where we weren't

even allowed to be out past 6pm

or cross borders or travel.

It's quite therapeutic, really...

Yeah.

..doing this.

I'm going

to get another bunch out of this.

What's your word for 'em again?

Diniwan?

Diniwan. Yeah.

It feels like today

we are more ready to judge harshly

people who have had a history

in their family

where there's been an attempt

to live outside the system

and to not be identified

as Aboriginal

and then come back into it,

in a way that really doesn't

understand

how hard it was during that time.

The difference between

giving your children

a life outside of the mission

or being stuck on the reserve,

the difference between being

educated and not being educated.

Julia and Con Senior

decided that rather than fit

into the schools

that didn't want their children,

they would sidestep the system.

Their very first hire was a tutor

and he ended up travelling with them

for years.

In those days, a small circus

was very much of a hard struggle,

as the travelling was done by wagon,

horse and mules,

and putting a shoulder to the wheel

was something more

than just a saying.

As the years rolled by,

the family grew larger

and we learned more acts

until the time came

when our family could put on

the whole show.

Little Winnie was the one

who made all the costumes.

She made the headpieces and even

the shoes with the laces coming up.

Unique, beautiful costumes.

They were fashionistas.

They were so athletic

that they could take on almost any

kind of an act that they wanted to,

from trapeze, wire, acrobatics,

all kinds of unique things

that no-one had ever seen.

From July to October

they toured Queensland.

Moving almost daily and ending

the season in high regard.

Their success

carried on to New South Wales,

bringing rare entertainment

to remote towns.

They were so successful

they moved on to Victoria.

The Colleano Circus was praised

as a clean,

vibrant and attractive troupe.

The circus was probably the most

popular form of entertainment.

The circus had that pizzazz

of being a little bit foreign,

a little bit romantic.

But Australia had a population then

of about 5 million people.

Once you've gone around a few times,

the public easily tires

of what you have to offer.

When World w*r I started,

all international travel

for circuses stopped.

The family saw this

as an opportunity

to capitalise on their unique look.

This is like really early

and they actually name

all the different acts

that the Colleanos were.

Oh, great.

They're the Royal Hawaiian Troupe.

(HAWAIIAN MUSIC)

Because they had the beautiful,

beautiful, dark skin.

They've also got the Colleano Family,

which is six of them.

Air Queen, that's your Auntie Winnie.

Zeneto.

Yeah.

For a while they were Mexican,

I believe.

The Marsetta Sisters. Kate and Coral.

Senorita Sanchez.

Joyce.

Jojo, Bobo, Coco.

Mae and Katie.

I did wonder whether or not

Con Senior,

because...

Big ears?

..Sullivan ears.

(LAUGHS)

Shapeshifting allowed them

to create the illusion

of being

a bigger circus than they were.

Presenting as international acts

also gave them prestige.

They didn't just learn one trick

and that was it.

They had to be able to back each

other up should something happen.

Joyce.

And Joyce

Con Sullivan even brought

a wig and a dress

so Maurice could appear

as his sisters,

creating Lyla Colleano.

They became expert at living

a life in different skins, in a way.

By mid 1918,

the Colleano Allstar Circus

was travelling by special train.

They had 15 musicians,

30 extra star performers,

a menagerie of animals

and sideshow acts

to draw in the crowds.

But it was no walk in the park.

The circus was pretty much

of an up and down affair.

One day we would have

2,000 or 3,000,

and six or eight weeks bad run,

we would be broke.

So we all decided

we would concentrate

on whatever act

we could do individually the best.

Coming from a big family,

that little bit

of healthy competition exists.

In that moment, you get the little,

"Oh, someone's having a laugh,"

or you get this response

where I guess

it does become fuel

to push and then develop.

And next minute, "Oh, here we are."

So we had Aunt Katie

balancing three ladders

and my mother would climb

and do acrobatic things

up one ladder, over the second,

up to the third.

Joyce was a great contortionist.

She created a trick

doing an elbow stand,

and she would let the arrow go

to a target.

And she usually made it.

Little Winnie,

who was a trapeze performer

and did unbelievably magnificent

things that she created herself.

As the trapeze would go up,

she would dive toward the audience

and they would all scream,

"She's falling!"

and catch by her heels.

She would also do a back somersault

and catch by her toes.

There was no safety line

back in the days.

So to develop the confidence

and the athleticism

to master that is extraordinary.

I had the wire act singled out

as I was somewhat of a dreamer.

I dreamed of a time

when I'd travel the world,

and the wires seemed to be the thing

with which to do it.

You can walk on a tightrope,

and this long sort of aluminium,

or a long kind of bamboo pole

becomes a balance point.

But Con skipped that whole step

altogether.

I learned the wire

the hardest possible way.

That is a bounding tight wire

without any balancing devices.

Not only does this wire shake,

but it is also capable

of throwing one 20ft.

What Con achieved is the first ever

frontsault on a tight wire.

It's a pretty delicate little trick.

With the forward, your own body

obscures the view of the wire,

which makes it like impossible

to see the wire

until after you've actually landed

on there.

WOMAN: Oh.

They say it takes 12,000 hours

to perfect something.

Can you imagine how many times

Con Colleano fell off that wire?

I was about 15, I think,

when I actually started on it,

but it took me about two years

to get to where I could do it

in front of the public.

Oh, yes. I love this plate.

It's on my bookcase in my office.

I look at it often.

It's a, uh...

It's quite a wonderful memento

of a wonderful man,

Con Colleano.

Because this has been huge,

like, huge for me.

Because it could be my grandfather.

But for you...

It took a while to actually process.

I don't know how I actually reacted

when you told me.

I can't quite remember.

Yeah.

Um, it's a bit of a blur.

Yeah.

But the father who raised me

never let on.

Mm.

Having said that,

he was a good father.

You build your identity

around your parents...

..to then find out

you've got this whole other family.

Mm.

When I talk to you about

the Colleanos, like, you light up.

Just love of circus is one,

you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Similarities and connections,

I think.

Yeah, I certainly felt that.

And I'm still feeling it.

Mm.

Yeah.

So he made good, you know,

through pure hard work

and discipline,

the ability to adapt.

Mm.

They certainly did a lot of that,

and they had to do that

in order to be successful.

With their talent gaining attention,

Con and Little Winnie

were ready to dive into a new world.

Being cloaked as the Colleanos

gave them some protection.

But the new career

meant stepping into the system,

making them vulnerable again.

Circus started to be edged out

in the 1920s by vaudeville.

(BANG!)

In those days

there were two circuits.

They had theatres, Tivoli Circuit

and the Fuller Circuit.

Vaudeville was a big step up

for circus performers.

The pay was good and steady and life

in a tent swapped for hotel rooms.

That's where Con came across

this attractive young lady

with very rosy cheeks

who was named Winnie Trevail.

Now, Winnie Trevail

was what you'd call a soubrette.

In the line-up of chorus girls

on the stage,

the soubrette is the one

who comes forward

from the rest of them

to sing a song to the audience,

or tell a joke

or something like that.

Con became enamoured of Winnie.

Con Sullivan, the father,

did not want to break up the act.

So you had to pay your dues

if you wanted to marry a Colleano,

and had to be talented because

you would be part of the act.

They became a very good partnership,

dancing and styling and makeup,

stuff which would be useful

for refining the presentation

of his act.

The lure of vaudeville life

and the desire to keep the family

together was too much to resist.

The family decided

to close down the circus.

But not before a final audacious act

of shape shifting.

They did a farewell tour,

presenting as an American act

on their way home to the States.

They even dropped into Narrabri.

Using the word 'native' in press

was often just relating to being

native Aboriginal, you know.

Yeah.

But I'm sure

that they would have known.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

With the curtain closing

on the Colleano Circus,

the family reinvented once more.

The guy in charge of the Tivoli

circuit, Harry Musgrove, says,

"Well, we can't call you

the Colleano family

"because everybody knows

already everything about you.

"You had this famous circus,

so we'll have to reinvent you."

They were called the Akabah Arabs.

They had to become

the least favourite to the girls

because they hated the costumes.

(ARABIAN MUSIC)

In those days, it was common

for acrobats to present themselves

as Arabs or Bedouins.

The name 'Akabah' came up

because this is not so long

after Lawrence of Arabia had led

the Arabs to victory over the Turks

at Akabah,

so the name Akabah

was on everyone's lips still.

And my mother used to say,

"Everybody always said,

"now when you go into these towns,

don't talk a lot,

"because right now you're supposed

to be the Akabah Arabs."

The Akabah Arabs were a smash hit.

Vaudeville came with a whole

new publicity machine.

Photos of the family

were splashed across the newspapers.

As part of the promotion

of the Akabah Arabs,

Musgrove used to put them in

one of these great long limousines

that they had in those days

and drive them around

Adelaide and Melbourne and so on,

and they'd all be sitting

in the back in their Arab...

trying to look as Arab as possible

with the turbans on and everything,

and they'd attract

quite a crowd of people.

Unfortunately,

in one of those crowds,

there was a guy who knew them

and stepped up to the car

and recognised them.

No matter what you wore

or how good you were,

if recognised as Aboriginal,

the law could send you away

and take your children.

There was only one option left.

The hardest thing about this has been

how did they get out?

You know, one of the things

that we've found in the past

is whenever there was a fight

or a tussle,

you know, because the boys

were so protective of the girls,

as you know...

Yes. Very protective.

There was often benefit nights

to sort of,

kind of keep them clean

and out of the press.

Yeah.

And so it was weird

because when we did the search

for benefit nights for the Colleanos,

they sort of kind of happened

in Adelaide a lot around this time.

And it was all

for Lady Weigall funds.

Right. Yeah.

So in the research that we've done,

William Archibald Weigall

was an interesting cat,

as the governor of South Australia

at the time.

His wife, Lady Weigall,

was known for philanthropic work,

but they resigned

around December 1921

because the state was supposed

to pay for the servants.

A few of them were Aboriginal.

The state refused to pay them,

and the Weigalls

refused not to pay them.

And about three days afterwards

they met the Colleanos.

There's all these conversations

in the theatre about them

standing up and praising them,

so much so that we found the article

of the vice-regal party

within two days

at the Governor's House,

and the Colleanos performed for them,

and I think both Julia and Con

would have realised

what that potential could have been.

And I think that's where we realised

that there's obviously

a deal being struck.

No money sort of changed hands.

Someone that could give papers

to 11 children

that are Aboriginal

wards of the state could be...

Influence.

The Colleanos now had their papers,

which gave them an exit strategy.

The family left Australia

on a three-month voyage,

sailing into the great unknown

towards London.

They must have felt

a rush of excitement,

no longer looking over

their shoulders.

But even on a grand cruise,

cabin fever would have crept in.

I can't imagine them

being on the ship

where they were not allowed

to participate

in any of the games

of the children competing,

because they were winning

all the games.

All of a sudden magic,

and they're there.

They're ready.

They've trained for this.

They are ready to take on the world.

The Akabah Arabs

caused a storm in London,

but the family were keen

to shed that identity.

Con had become

an overnight sensation.

It was here he earned the title

Wizard of the Wire.

It was not until we left Australia

that I realised that I had

originated a style of wire walking

and feet upon it

that had never before been seen.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

One night, Mr Ringling was in the

audience scouting for fresh talent.

He told Con,

"If you make it to New York

and capture a major venue,

"you might just have a shot

at the Greatest Show on Earth."

The family left the Akabah Arabs

at the dock

and stepped into New York City

as the Colleanos once more.

When they hit New York, I think

the universe just exploded for them.

Brooklyn

became their Lightning Ridge,

strategically placed between

the circus precincts

and the bright lights of Manhattan.

Living in a rented walk-up

across two apartments,

all the women in one

and the men in the other...

..with Coney Island

as their backyard.

New York at the time

was 35% migrant.

And in Harlem

the Roaring 20s was erupting,

the cultural renaissance

born of the great migration

from the American South.

Racism still ran deep

beyond the city borders,

but here it was a melting pot

of diversity,

creativity and possibility.

Uncle Maurice and everybody,

they'd go up to Harlem,

to the speakeasies.

NEWSREEL VOICEOVER:

It's against the law to drink.

There's bootleg liquor

on every American lip.

They'd open up a little,

"What's the password?"

And you'd have to know it

for that day.

And then you could get in,

because they didn't want policemen

coming in to raid the place.

They would be doing their acts.

Uncle Maurice would be up on the bar

and do a back somersault,

stamp his footprints on the ceiling

and come down.

So that was a sign of you really

had it made as a speakeasy

if you had Maurice Colleano's

footprints on the ceiling.

In a sensational display of belief

and no shame,

Con booked himself into the biggest

venue in America for his audition.

The idea was,

if you made good the Hippodrome,

then your career was set.

Along with an audience

of around 5,000,

the whole family

turned up to barrack for him.

It was quite a dramatic scene

because he had an accident

the night he opened.

The theatre lights

in the Hippodrome were much,

much more powerful

than what he'd been used to.

They let off a lot of heat.

That loosened his wire.

And when he went

to do his forward somersault...

..he missed.

Cut himself across the chest.

Tried to do it again.

Again he failed.

The audience

was just going hysterical.

They were shouting,

"Don't do it! Don't do it!

"You're hurt. You're hurt."

But then he realised

what was going on.

He said, "Those lights,

they're too powerful. Dim them."

Tightened the wire.

Went ahead.

Beautiful forward somersault.

The people just went mad.

The agent for Ringling Brothers

Circus promptly signed him up.

The Ringling and Barnum

Greatest Show On Earth

demanded more than talent.

They wanted a well-rounded,

fully developed exotic persona.

And Uncle Con doing

the Spanish toreador wire act

helped to promote that.

(FLAMENCO MUSIC)

The whole family

now took on this persona,

digging deeper

into the Spanish identity.

Colleano was now Julia's maiden name,

and she was a famous flamenco dancer

from Madrid.

Con had learnt his act

as an 11-year-old

in the bullrings of Spain.

But in all the publicity,

there was one non-negotiable -

their country.

MAN: How did it all start, Maurice,

this legend of the Colleano family

in show business?

We're all Australians.

Yes.

I mean,

that is, we're Australian born.

I just thought

I was Irish and Spanish,

which is really funny

because I don't have a drop

of Spanish.

My father told me we were from,

you know,

the Portuguese islands

of the Azores,

the Spanish Azores,

and we just had no idea who we were.

We were always told we were Irish.

That's the O'Donnell and Sullivan.

And Spanish,

because it was always like,

well,

where did our dark skin come from?

So are you excited?

I'm very excited.

Deb and I have come to

the Australian Archives to gather

all of Con's home movies to share

with his American descendants.

I want to go over to America

because Molly is getting older,

and also for Dad in his 80s,

and I would love to be able to walk

in the footsteps of my ancestors.

I'd love that. I'd love that.

Right? 'Cause that's the...

That's gold.

That's the two brothers.

Yeah.

We still don't know specifically

who is my grandfather.

You know what I mean?

Dad's nose.

Yeah, I know.

That's all I can...

Yeah, because there's a few

that never had kids either,

and that makes it incredibly hard.

We may not get all of the answers

that we're looking for.

Having said that,

we know it's this family.

(LAUGHS)

I'm taking it in.

You know, this whole family

I didn't know I had.

It's just amazing

how it's all kind of

developed this stage in life for me.

Uh, Molly is my generation.

And, uh, as far as I know,

there's not too many of us left.

If there's one thing

that I do feel good about

is the fact that you guys

are a lot younger than I am.

So your journey is, as you know,

it's a longer journey than mine.

Uh, so that gives me a lot of

satisfaction to know that, you know.

At my age, I've only probably got

a few years left.

Oh. Gee.

Hopefully... Hopefully more.

But, I mean, you guys, you've got

a bit more time to explore.

Even though he hasn't been able

to come out and to actually meet

the cousins in America face to face,

everyone knows Norm.

We share everything with him.

This was Deb's first time

to New York,

and seeing her experience it

made me think about

how daunting and thrilling

the world must have seemed

to the Colleanos.

It's a long way

from Lightning Ridge.

PA: May I have your attention,

please?

Who would have thought that I'd go

all the way to America

to meet

some of my Aboriginal family?

I always felt like I was on a set

when coming to Coney Island.

Filming Deb walking around,

I kept hearing laughter.

A 24-hour circus

where Con Senior worked a sideshow.

But also a place

where you can run barefoot

and never feel closed in.

The Colleanos, they'd be walking

down the boardwalk,

and in their minds, they were kind

of counting up to 20 silently.

And all of a sudden at 20,

they'd all break into a tap dance.

Wild, wild tap dance.

And then just keep walking.

And the people,

they'd be getting applause

all the way down the boardwalk.

They'd line up along the beach

and they would have

a race to the water.

Flip flops.

Everybody had to do backhand springs

all the way down to see

who could do the fastest one

to get in the water first.

(SCREAMING)

Uncle Con went over

to the Ringling show,

then Little Winnie

went over with her trapeze act.

And of course, being Colleanos,

they had to stay together,

so all the rest of them went over

as a family act.

They were all

on the Ringling show together.

(SHIP'S HORN BLARES)

By the '20s,

this is the golden age

of the American circus.

Barnum and Ringling were the big

business of this era in many ways.

They employed tons of people,

aided in part in America

by the transcontinental railroad.

People from miles around

would know the circus was coming.

People wouldn't work that day

or schools might close.

Circus day would shut down life

in a town.

When the Colleanos came,

this was a very big deal.

My dad used to tell me

that everyone on the circus

was saying, "Oh, the Colleanos

can't be that great.

"Not as great

as everybody is saying."

So as they started

coming in to rehearse,

you know, they were walking down

kind of one by one,

and the performers were kind

of nudging each other and saying,

"Okay, that's what it is.

They're just beautiful."

And then

when they started to rehearse,

nobody was saying anything

after that.

(LAUGHTER)

I've never seen people take bows

the way that they did.

They would reach out almost like

to each person in the audience

all the way around the tent.

All of them looking

right at the people in the crowd.

It wasn't just a bow.

It was their energy

that they could reach out.

And it was actually

beautiful to see.

The idea was that this was

an immersive experience.

Before the big show itself,

there were these other

ancillary entertainments

to get people into this sense of

the biggest, the best, the grandest.

(WHISTLE BLOWS)

When he would come on the stage,

the ringmaster would blow the

whistle and everything would stop.

The band would stop,

the performers would leave,

everything got quiet.

And the ringmaster said to direct

your attention to the centre ring

where Con Colleano

would be performing.

RINGMASTER:

Presenting the coupling, dancing,

somersaulting artist

on the Silver Strand,

Con Colleano,

originator of the famous

forward somersault on the tightwire.

(APPLAUSE)

(AUDIENCE EXCLAIMS)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

Con became

the highest-paid performer

in the Ringling Brothers Circus.

$1,500 a week -

that's a great salary

more than a hundred years later.

That's, you know, incredible wealth

at that time.

Con had a camera, and not a lot

of people had cameras back then.

And the fact that he took

so much footage

so we could see it

actually as it was.

For somebody who had star billing,

there might be

a little more comfort.

Maybe you had a larger portion

of a train to call home.

I started travelling

when I was two months old

with them on the circus train.

We had a little compartment

and my bed flipped down,

but I had my own window.

So all the time in my little bed

and my little window

was my little world,

watching America go by.

Wondering what they were all doing

in those houses.

The Colleanos didn't have homes

made out of bricks and wood.

Their home was them.

And they passed that along to us

also.

My grandmother Julia,

she was this little beautiful lady

that controlled everybody.

She'd always build a little fire.

She always had some food

or some tea,

or suddenly you're sitting there

eating something lovely.

And a lot of the traditions

of the country that they came from

were presented,

uh, and were part of our family.

The girls would always sit

in circles

and be putting their makeup on

and their costumes on,

and being very silly and laughing,

and I think this came from

when they travelled around

in Australia when they were kids.

Nobody was ever overlooked.

Whether you were talented,

whether you were

the red-haired person

that somehow got mixed up with these

gorgeous dark beauties everywhere.

Even though they might

have been stars at the time,

everyone was welcome

on an equal basis.

Nobody was going off trying

to be more successful

than somebody else.

No-one was ever left out.

They kept each other together

that way.

How are you feeling?

Hello.

Hello!

(LAUGHS)

Too long.

Aw.

Oh. Come here.

You look fantastic.

Ah, look at you.

Oh, my God!

Mwah!

Oh!

So good to see you.

Your dad just texted me.

Oh. Did he?

"Is she there? Is she there?"

Your dad knew you were here

before we did.

(LAUGHS)

Cousin Deb and her father, Norm,

he's my first cousin.

Didn't know he was there.

Don't know how I lived without him.

I don't know.

So did you tell Dad? What did

you just say? "Yeah, she's..."

I feel like I'm a little bit

of a connector.

Going to share information

about our country,

our ancestors and our culture.

We want to be able to unpeel

some of those layers

and see the complexity

of the family.

(LAUGHTER)

Hi. I'm Deb.

I'm Angel. Pleasure to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

I love your accent.

Oh. (LAUGHS)

Hello.

Hi.

I'm Deb.

Deb is our cousin.

She was English.

Yeah.

English.

From royalty or something,

wasn't she?

There's... Oh, here you go. Watch.

Yeah.

Here you go.

Yep. There we go.

Bam!

Oh. She's happy.

There's Con and Con.

Wait, Con and...

I know Uncle Con's there. Who else?

Sullivan.

Oh!

Oh!

Okay.

(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

Okay, here's at the farm.

Yeah.

Uncle Maurice puts on

Auntie Joyce's Hawaiian outfit.

Was this at the farm?

Yes.

Uncle Maurice.

Not bad. Not bad for an Australian

doing a Hawaiian dance.

Mom! Here's my mom and Auntie Joyce.

Oh, Con!

That's when he had

the Rudolph Valentino look.

Mm-hm.

You know,

when Rudolph Valentino died...

Did you hear this story?

Uh-huh.

They wanted Uncle Con in his place.

Oh! Oh, really?

And Con said to the family,

"I can either go into movies..."

But he wanted to stay on the circus.

The circuses would roughly run

from spring to fall,

to capitalise on good weather

and crowds.

There would be shows

almost every day.

(BOOM!)

And then the Ringling Brothers

moved their winter quarters

to Sarasota.

It was cheaper to maintain

facilities in Sarasota

than in the city.

It was much more pleasant

in the off-season.

Performers might have time downtime.

So it kind of made sense within

the circus ecosystem of that time.

When they weren't performing

on the circus in America,

they would go over to England

and they would be doing

the music halls over there.

They were very much celebrated

all around Europe.

And they're getting invited

to these incredible events

across the globe.

They were living the life.

Like, that's rock star status.

Now citizens of the world,

they travelled and performed together

around the globe,

with Julia often acting as a

chaperone for the younger children.

During these incredible times,

I have to honestly say

everybody wanted Julia.

Everybody wanted their mother

to be with them.

VOICEOVER:

Now watch how Con Colleano,

the famous Mexican wire balancer,

became one of the cleverest

in the world.

Con was in Europe performing.

They were in Berlin.

Nationalism

and ideas about racial superiority

were sweeping across Germany.

The very forces the family had once

fled were closing around them.

(DONG!)

With the rise of fascism came

a celebration of the physical form.

And Con suddenly found himself

the poster boy for the n*zi Party.

It was a precarious

and dangerous situation.

The shapeshifting that had saved him

now spun out of his control.

Hitler loved...

This is just so bizarre.

He said that Con Colleano

was his favourite performer.

And we always joke around

if he knew...

..that he was a man of colour.

He was not from Spain.

He was from Australia.

Not to be outdone,

Mussolini awarded him a medal,

claiming him as Italian.

Reality hit...

..and on the night

Germany invaded Poland,

Con and Big Winnie escaped.

Even though Con

had a passport from Hitler,

he no longer trusted

that it would get him out.

He was once again the other.

Uncle Con had to leave

all of his rigging,

everything that made him

a performer.

They escaped in the middle

of the night, squashed into a car...

..to the border...

..through the snowy Swiss Alps...

..with only the clothes they wore,

cash and Con's camera.

Con and Big Winnie went back

to the States via Australia...

..where Con went bush.

Meanwhile, the Colleano family

acrobats hunkered down in London.

(AIR RAID SIREN WAILS)

(EXPLOSIONS)

In the underground,

the Colleanos would be telling jokes

and they would be doing their act.

Bombs would be going off on top.

And they'd just go right along

to the different platforms,

doing shows to keep the morale up

and to support the people.

The Colleanos gave over 2,000

performances to the Allied forces.

Auntie Joyce told me the Colleanos

got these gold identity bracelets

from British Intelligence...

..which allowed them

into the military bases

where the soldiers

were preparing for D-Day.

On the eve of one of World w*r II's

most decisive battles,

the Colleanos performed 11 concerts

from the afternoon until 4am.

They gave their final show on a ship,

giving some of the soldiers

their last hurrah.

(CLOCK TICKING)

(EXPLOSIONS)

(g*nf*re)

And all this at a time

when, back in Australia,

our people couldn't vote,

weren't trusted

to manage their own wages

or even raise their own children.

Yet the Colleanos were entrusted

with one of the greatest secrets

of the w*r.

Having worked on

Aboriginal military involvement,

you just shake your head

in disbelief

of where they were

at that particular time period.

Just two hours from New York,

in Pennsylvania,

they got back to country.

Not Gamilaraay...

..but it would do for now.

Here we go.

This one.

This is it.

Yes.

This is the farm.

We called it the farm,

where nobody farmed.

We have a parking lot

right in front of the house.

Yeah.

Okay, here we go.

Nobody really had houses,

and so Uncle Con bought a big farm

so that when they wanted to be

together, they had a place to go.

And then we had...

I could see every window, the porch.

I was just being flooded

with childhood memories.

She wrote a song.

♪ All aboard for Blanket Bay. ♪

(WHISTLES)

(DOG BARKS)

As kids growing up, we would run

around on the farm making up shows.

People would be telling stories,

doing dances.

Aunts, uncles, kids everywhere.

This was right here, where

the red... that red bush was...

Cons wire went across there.

It was sort of where the pool is.

Yeah.

Uncle Con would be on the wire

rehearsing.

The diving horses in the barn.

And all the kids

come in from being ragamuffins,

which is what she called us.

We can see that, can't we, Amy?

Yeah. Just a little bit.

Oh!

My grandmother would insist.

"Let's go wash up, clean up

and sit in the dining room."

And we had tea

and she would stand watching

that we were all using the napkin.

And we had to behave

for about 15, 20 minutes.

And then we always used to call it

"Fun in the kitch."

Everybody around the kitchen table

telling their stories.

They wanted us

to feel part of everything.

Uncle Con,

he would make this spaghetti sauce.

He would spend hours.

And I would always be trying

to sneak over to the pot, taste it.

Instead of saying,

"No, no, no, don't do that,"

he would quack.

Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.

That meant whatever you're doing,

you'd better stop.

Because then I started calling him

Uncle Duck.

So the great Con Colleano,

spaghetti maker extraordinaire,

became Uncle Duck for us.

We travelled afar.

But we love Katie's Bar.

A lot of people

were attracted to them.

New York performers coming in,

musicians.

People would write songs

and parties were really big and fun.

Everyone had to get up

and do something.

My mom and dad and I

used to do a soft shoe dance.

That was our thing.

My mother, Coral, always loved

Australia, always loved it.

And I think she was 15

when they left.

She would get up and do

a very sentimental version

of Waltzing Matilda.

She'd go around to each person.

And, I mean,

we almost felt like crying

because she was missing Australia,

really.

She did love Australia.

There's two sides of it.

You're generating this adrenaline

and dopamine as a performer.

You know,

you're constantly getting this...

You're getting refuelled in a way.

After being this incredible

athletic performer,

there does come a point

where 20 years, 30 years,

things start to change.

You kind of collect these injuries

and then you can't do it anymore,

because it hurts and things don't

move like they used to, you know.

Arthritis sets in.

You know, the imbalance starts to...

You know, your body just ages.

It becomes a game

of how much pain can you live with?

And then Uncle Con

got the cataracts.

He couldn't see the wire.

Joyce, her back was beyond repair.

I mean,

they couldn't do anything for her.

And it was just so crumbled up

from arthritis

and all that bending work

that she did.

Con was,

"We're all going to become

old, broken-down acrobats."

I remember the day when my mother

told me that her mother died.

It was unfathomable

that somebody that you loved

as much as she loved was gone.

And my mother...

..just, it was like

cutting off part of her body.

Conn sold the farm.

He paid it forward to another

circus family for a dollar...

..and returned to Australia

with Big Winnie.

They've been

on international stages...

..while the country

is going through this turmoil of

who gets to have

and who doesn't get to have a right,

whether it's to vote

or to be included

into the Constitution.

They're already ahead of that.

(MARCHING BAND

PLAYS WALTZING MATILDA)

Australia in the 1950s

was a really tough place

for anyone who wasn't white.

What do you think

of the White Australia Policy?

Well, I think it's good

and they should really have it

and keep out the coloured races.

I don't think we could have anything

else but a White Australia Policy.

People here don't live

with Aboriginals, do they?

But in New York

they live side by side with colours,

and I wouldn't care to have them

living in the same house as me.

They bought a pub in Forbes,

New South Wales,

hoping to retire in peace.

Maybe he wanted a place

as himself in his homeland.

He has his own business.

He's got a pub.

There's an Aboriginal man

who owns the pub.

We don't just want a seat

at the bar of the pub.

We're going to buy the pub.

But then realises...

..this is not a good place to be.

Picture theatres, swimming pools

and, of course, pubs

were segregated,

and it being seen as quite audacious

to think

you could cross those lines.

This country still wasn't ready

for the real Colleanos.

Within a year of coming home,

the business failed.

He left and never returned.

So we had in Florida

Auntie Joyce, Con, Big Winnie,

Little Winnie,

of course, my mom and dad,

and then some of us cousins.

Now they did love that warm weather,

though, I must say.

That was it.

They were going to go fishing

forever.

It ended up being the same

as it always was,

a big party and cooking and laughing

and drinking and talking

and challenging each other to things

that nobody could still do.

My grandmother Katie.

That one over there

is the Juggling Colleanos,

including my mother.

I feel that real connection

to the family.

My mom, Aunt Kitty,

her husband, Uncle Jack.

Auntie Joyce

doing this famous trick.

It's not a closure,

but it's something

that I've really needed to do

after all these years.

Pass the hoop to this...

up, up the top there.

They would do different tricks.

They would go forward,

they would pass them up and back.

Whoo!

I think entertainment blood is in us.

We need to have joy in our life,

right?

And that's something

that's really important.

(LAUGHS) Hi, Amy.

We are very proud of our ancestors,

the struggle they endured.

Yeah. There you go.

Alright.

Good choice.

Aw. Good.

I don't know

what it's like to not be free.

I think about Julia

and trying to get her kids

out of that situation.

Things were not fair.

And they went around the system

successfully,

and we're all here now.

And I've never known a day

where I haven't been free.

And that's because of what they did,

especially my grandmother.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Thank you.

Molly really keeps that legacy alive.

These were my people

that I played with.

When we hear stories about them,

I think we bring them to life.

And when we all get together,

we bring those ancestors with us

in our hearts.

This family feels so familiar to me,

the communal way that they looked out

for one another,

the traits,

that even with a foreign accent...

(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

..made you feel like you belong.

They're very alive inside of me.

They were so extraordinary.

It makes it hard

for me to not have them.

I didn't even realise

how much it was going to mean to me

until I got here.

All my life

I wanted to go to Australia.

My mom was from Australia.

I felt called to come back here.

Oh.

I hope

that everybody can understand that

there are a lot of people

that are in my situation...

..that are searching for family,

and we just want to find

where we're from.

My mother always used to talk about

Narrabri.

I couldn't believe I was there.

So, at last, country has released

the story of this family.

No longer hidden, we wait

for the rest of them to come home.

When I was in the circle

with the women around...

..it just became a magical event.

It was an opening of the heart.

It was an epiphany

that I wasn't even expecting.

I just wanted to see

where they were from.

And instead,

I found out where I was from.

♪ Not a drop in the ocean

♪ I'm the river

that flows like a great stampede

♪ I'm history unfolding

♪ I'm a moment in time

that will not repeat

♪ Can't you hear it? Hear it?

My soul inside the sound

♪ I'm taking higher ground

♪ I sing for better days

I sing for my people

♪ And my people breathe through me

♪ I sing to make a way

♪ I sing for my freedom

♪ And freedom is all I need

♪ Remember my name always

♪ I'm the daughter of the wave

♪ I'm brave, I'm not afraid

I'm here for a reason

♪ Eternity points to me

♪ Can't you hear it? Hear it?

My soul inside the sound

♪ I'm taking higher ground

♪ I sing for better days

I sing for my people

♪ And my people breathe through me

♪ I sing to make a way

I sing for my freedom

♪ And freedom is all I need

♪ Remember my name always

♪ I'm the daughter of the wave

♪ I'm brave, I'm not afraid

I'm here for a reason

♪ Eternity points to me

♪ Ah, yeah

Ah, yeah

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, oh

♪ Oh

♪ Oh, oh-ooh... ♪