August 21, 2008

Section: Local News

Man fascinated by 'Gorilla Girl' for three decades

TIM BOTOS

TIM.BOTOS@CANTONREP.COM

For $3, you can witness a slice of Americana, even if it does show up wearing a bad gorilla suit.

Most every summer, for three decades, Tim Deremer has carried on a not-so-secret fling with
"Princess Gabora, the Gorilla Girl." After all, he's the one who created, nurtured and made her into
what she is today.

He's ashamed and proud.

You see, Gabora is a carnival sideshow. Shows like it mostly have gone the way of hula hoops,
lava lamps and sea monkeys. Deremer, a professional magician, hosts Canton's annual International
Battle of Magicians at the Palace Theatre. He's not sure his flashy magic friends would understand
his summer sideline.

"It's kind of a dying thing," Deremer said.

In a 16-foot trailer and camper, he left his Lake Township home for the road this month, with a
first stop at the Cuyahoga County Fair. He moved to a fair in Lorain County this week, before he
heads to Geauga County, then the Virginia State Fair next month. He has appeared at the Stark
County Fair but won't be making that stop this year.

In the shadow of a Ferris wheel, amid greasy odors of funnel cakes and fresh-cut malt-vinegar
fries, his sideshow sat beneath a sprawling birch tree. The entire show is contained in the rear of a
trailer and can be viewed only from inside a tent.

'WAS DARWIN RIGHT?'

From the asphalt path that snakes through the Berea fairgrounds, the Princess Gabora sideshow
is like a car wreck. You don't want to look. But you have to look. You don't want to listen. But you
can't help but hear.

A 50-foot-long, two-story metal framework, plastered with signs that would make P.T. Barnum
proud, entice customers:
 "Ape Girl"

"Was Darwin right?"

"Positively Alive"

"See her change before your eyes from a beautiful girl into a terrifying gorilla"

The ultimate teaser: "Warning! If you have a weak heart, are an expectant mother, or are easily
frightened, do not experience Gabora!"

Loud speakers broadcast a looped tape. Over and over. Complete with jungle background noises.
From noon until 11 p.m. Marines in the booth across the path have heard it so many times, they
know it by heart. "Was Darwin right ... see her teeth become fangs." The voice is familiar in
Northeast Ohio. Deremer said he paid Howie Chizek $30 to make the tape, before Chizek turned
into a talk radio icon at WNIR 100.1-FM.

Show-watchers react in one of three ways.

They smile and laugh. They walk away mumbling, "It's fake." Or they run away in fear.

The 58-year-old Deremer wears a Mickey Mouse watch. He performs comedy magic at birthday
parties and corporate events in the autumn and winter. Balding, with a dark beard and mustache,
the summer sideshow circuit isn't as fun as it was in his younger days, when he could hire college
kids eager to work, not leftovers no one else would employ.

"The stories, you wouldn't believe them," he said.

Through the years, Deremer ran other shows alongside Gabora. Fire-eaters and sword swallowers.
A six-legged cow named Barney and 558-pound man nicknamed 'Big Billy Pork Chop,' who died in
1990 at the Ohio State Fair.

"Those things aren't politically correct anymore," Deremer said.

That, combined with age and a kidney replacement in 2001, have slowed him. Not enough to
retire Gabora, though. After seeing a headless woman show at the Ohio State Fair, Deremer and a
friend from Kent State University built the Gabora show in the 1970s.
 To the audience, it appears that a beautiful woman slowly transforms into a gorilla. Of course,
it's all a trick, an illusion. A takeoff on a centuries-old classic known as a Blue Room or Pepper's
Ghost. For critics who claim every illusion is done with mirrors, they'd be close in explaining this.
Without revealing too many secrets, it's accomplished with a pane of glass, two performers and
Deremer as the 'talker,' leading an audience through the illusion while guiding his two actors with
subtle cues embedded in his story.

Dozens of women and men have played the roles of Princess Gabora and the gorilla. At this stop,
Deremer recruited Janet Swisher for Gabora. She's a 5-foot-3, 115-pound laid-off dental assistant
from the Berea area. The gorilla is Sterling Taylor, who met Deremer at the Virginia fair three years
ago while seeking a job.

"As long as the audience runs, I'm doing my job," Taylor said.

Gabora is a "grind" show. There are no set show times. The signs, speakers and ticket taker
combine to grind fairgoers all day. When a handful of people have bought tickets, or if someone
has waited longer than 15 minutes or so, Deremer puts on a show.

He and the actors pass time playing cards behind the show tent, or he kicks back in his air-
conditioned camper, waiting for a knock on the door from his ticket taker. A fan of magic and
student of the history of sideshows, Deremer keeps snapshots of himself with the likes of Lance
Burton, David Copperfield and Penn and Teller.

"It's all I've ever done; I've never really worked for anyone but myself," he said.

He's lost count of how many times he's performed the Gabora illusion but remembers celebrities
who've seen it over the years: Musicians such as Teddy Pendergrass, Ted Nugent, members of
Journey and Steppenwolf and comedian Jerry Van Dyke.

Business was so slow one Wednesday in early August that he had to put on a show for an
audience of one. A middle-aged man in khaki shorts and a Cleveland Browns hat. The guy stood
poker-faced from beginning to end.

A woman and four elementary school-age children filed into the big green tent later that
afternoon. Microphone in hand, Deremer started to sell the upcoming illusion. The crowd shuffled
on the grass behind a pair of crowd-control ropes. Their eyes glued to the trailer "stage" in front
of the tent, just beyond Deremer.

Bellowing and gesturing toward the stage curtain, he hyped the main attraction. "She was
captured 18 months ago in Nairobi, South Africa, ... the daughter of a scientist or missionary ...
believed to have been subjected to cruel experiments."

Never mind that Nairobi isn't in South Africa.

Deremer knows that. Still, he said, it sounds better, more mysterious.

He explained that Princess Gabora was under a trance. He's in complete control of her when
she's in that state. The curtain slowly drew open, to reveal Gabora in back of a cage, clad only in a
leopard-skin cavewoman dress.

"Wave to the people, Gabora," he said.

She waved.

"Pay close attention to her face."

"You'll actually see her face begin to transform ... "

The audience stared.

"I want you to think back 25,000 years Princess, back, back."

"Think fangs instead of teeth."

"Think back Princess."

"Gorilla, gorilla, gorilla, gorilla, gorilla," he urged in rapid-fire succession, like an auctioneer trying
to squeeze an extra dollar.

In less than a minute, she'd changed into a gorilla. Deremer woke the beast from the trance but
warned her to remain in the back of the cage. The gorilla stumbled around, visible to the crowd
through the three cage-door bars.
 He flipped a switch near the microphone, so the audience could hear the gorilla breathe.

"Grrrr ... Grrrr."

The gorilla fumbled around the cage.

"What's wrong Gabora? Gabora, what's wrong!?"

"Get in the back of the cage," Deremer frantically ordered.

The gorilla grabbed the cage bars.

The woman in the audience smiled. Two children stepped back a few paces.

With a mighty shove, the gorilla pushed the cage door open.

One boy, about 10, darted out of the tent, before the cage slammed to the stage floor.

"Bang!"

"Exit carefully and exit quickly," Deremer instructed the remaining four.

They walked out to tease the terrified boy who made an early exit. The actors re-grouped behind
the tent. And loudspeakers continued to grind away for the next show:

"Was Darwin right? See her change before your very eyes."