Biography: See his 1981 Autobiography "Struggles And Triumphs Of A Modern Day Showman".

Shows & Performers Promoted: Hall & Leonard, Hall & Christ, Wondercade, World Of Wonders, etc.

Description: Ward is a modern-day P.T. Barnum, and the last of the real sideshow promoters. Ward has probably done more to contribute to the on-going traditional sideshow than any man alive. He's a national treasure who is loved and revered by showfolk, sideshow historians and fans the world over.

from James Taylor (excerpt of an unpublished essay, "How I Spent My Carny Vacation," 1998):

None of them cut 'em up or horse around better than Ward Hall, long-time Gibtown resident, one-time president of the showmen's association, and media proclaimed "King of the Sideshows." He's been working on shows since his mid-teens, and he's a leprechaunish mid-'60s old boy now. I caught up to him this year at the Florida State Fair in Tampa, just up the road from the trade show. He sat huddled in what appeared to be a lady's black wool coat, edged in rust-colored fur at collar and cuff, in front of his and partner Chris Christ's museum show. Their museum's a grab bag of stuffed, gaffed and pickled specimens intermixed with manikins of "great freaks of the past" and the only true freaks in the show, fat man Bruce Snowdon, who's billed as "Howard Huge," and Pete Terhurne, a dwarf they call "Poobah... the youngest munchkin from THE WIZARD OF OZ." Their show is set up this year in what I affectionately term sideshow alley, an easy-to-miss street just off one of the hardest-to-find parking lots. Hall and Christ's competition includes Phil Wilson's girl-to-gorilla show, "Christine" (see her change from beautiful woman to ugly beast... not a hologram but a genuine illusion) and a show of life-size Fiberglas dinosaurs, framed by (I'm not kidding here) some misguided golf course owner who hadn't a clue about showmanship. He groused in the "Tampa Tribune" about his show being condemned to sit among the "freakshows" even though his saurian exhibition was "educational." He had no one but himself to blame for his fiscal misfortune (the real cause of his complaints): He'd done nothing to flash up the front, nothing to get your attention to the show, which was housed in a plain white tent with nada on the outside to tell you there was anything taking place inside. The result was as inevitable as the spring rains: The Hall/Christ show, with it's garish pictorials of ape women, UFO aliens and monstrous sea creatures, was out grossing the dinos 20 to one.

Ward found that pretty hilarious. But then he told me that making 20 times the gross of the show across the street was still no guarantee against beefs. He said that, the day before, he'd had two older women come out of the museum, up to him and demand to see the man in charge. Of course he told them that it wasn't him. "You know," he told them, raising his eyes skyward, "there's only one man in charge." When he jumped out of the ticket box on those two oldsters and urged them to kneel and pray to "the man in charge" for guidance, they ran off down the midway. Ward knows better than anybody that a little faith liberally applied can send people a long way.

(1998)