Who didn’t fall in the lust
with Jake and Marty LaSalle
 this month as  PBS aired  CIRCUS ?!

Over the course of six dramatic hours, the documentary follows the legendary Big Apple Circus  on an unforgettable journey from the big top to the “back lot,” where nail-biting drama unfolds both high in the air and down on the ground and the real heart of the circus beats.

The delicious gay twins (how hot is that?!)  Jake and Marty have left juggling now however. In the show we get a glimpse of their tension building –  but it’s never really revealed, what is driving them apart. Is it Jake’s decision to leave the circus? or something else?

They had the same genes but different dreams, and that spelled the untimely end of one of the most celebrated young circus acts in recent memory. Two years ago, the brothers said, they were each earning $67,000   a year — from the circus, and double that from regular side gigs.

Now, Marty makes about half as much as he used to. He still lives in a trailer at Damrosch Park, working for the circus in guest relations and business development — he exercises infrequently and has not juggled publicly in 16 months.

Brother Jake is in his second year of medical school at the University of California — he chose the institution because a top training ground, the San Francisco Circus Center, is also nearby.

The New York Times  did a big piece on the brothers last week.

Jake says, “I definitely have no regrets about joining the circus. I think that if I ever do, it will be that I didn’t stay in the circus long enough. There were, of course, times when it was difficult. We sacrificed a great deal when we were developing our act as teenagers, and we had conflicts with each other, our parents and our coach.

I also have no regrets about leaving the circus to become a surgeon, though it was not an easy decision to go to medical school. I imagine I would have found happiness in either path, but I’m very satisfied with the new challenge that the practice of medicine has presented to me.



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