“She was a fanatic about clowns,” Chuck Bisel told appraiser Brian Thomczek at a recent appraisal session held at the Michigan Design Center in Troy. Chuck and his wife, Leah, inherited one of the two oils on canvas they brought in — including a work by entertainer Red Skelton – from his mother, who was a fan of clowns, they shared.

Many know Richard Bernard Skelton as the host of a variety of national radio and TV shows. According to imdb.com, he was the son of a former circus clown turned grocer and a cleaning woman and was introduced to show business at the age of 7.

Born in Indiana in 1913, his nicknames included “America’s Clown Prince” and “The Marcel Marceau of Television.” The site goes on to say that Skelton left home at age 10 to travel with a medicine show through the Midwest

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