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When Darlene Uyeda puts her makeup on for work, she accents the lines on her face -- the laugh lines, the crow's feet, the things most people want to hide.
Generations of Gwen Texeira's
family spread red-nosed joyBy Pat Gee
pgee@starbulletin.com
She makes sure her nose shines, so much so that it glitters, and she uses the white-out not only on the undereye shadows, but all over. Her bright lipstick goes way past her lower lip line.
Then she dons a wig that resembles a strawberry-red haystack.
When Uyeda's done, she does a little "ta-da!" in the mirror with a flash of her hand, mimicking a spotlight going on, and says, "Say good-bye to Darlene and hello to Bungie, the clown!"
Uyeda, 39, is the manager of the family business, Cotton Candy's Clown Circus, which could boast four generations of clowns before her grandfather's death this year.
It all started with her mom, Gwen Texeira, who became a clown at the age of 46 to save herself from a grand funk that involved a custody battle over her daughter and recovery in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.
"They say there's a bit of sadness in every clown," Texeira said. "I believe that. If people knew how much being a clown makes them happy, there would be a lot more clowns. When you give happiness, happiness comes back to you."
Texeira, who always wanted to be in show business, created her first clown character in 1984. "Stormy Weather" had a perennially gloomy face. But when Texeira got custody of her daughter, she was reborn as "Cotton Candy."
The fun she was having was contagious and Texeira, who has several children, eventually recruited up to 19 family members. Even though most of them are inactive today, she refers to people by their clown names, not their given names.
Texeira's most special recruit was her father, Albert Kovner, who joined the circus when he was 77 as "Freddie the Clown." He died this May at the age of 88.
Uyeda, the mother of two (one of them "Popcorn"), has been Bungie for almost 17 years. The shy, quiet person transforms into a nutty, playful character when she puts on her clown makeup.
"You kinda just let yourself go and just be silly," she said. "Your inner self comes out -- the kid in you."
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Texeira, who also was shy, said becoming a clown is like "becoming another person.""I feel free as a clown," she said. "I do things I wouldn't ordinarily do. I like the fun of making people happy."
She had to retire about three years ago because of health problems and to help take care of her aging father. Uyeda took over the business, and she immediately had big shoes to fill -- red 18-inch clodhoppers.
Texeira used to get calls 24 hours a day, some from children who just wanted to chat. The phone is always ringing for her daughter, as well, since Bungie is one of the most popular of clowns in town, she said.
Today, there are only six active clowns in the company, one of them on the mainland.
Uyeda performs every "Keiki Monday" at Mililani Town Center, a regular gig that started last July and will run until the end of the year. It's an unusual "blessing to be booked that long," she said.
At $150 for the first hour and $100 for any hour after that, they are still in a lot of demand, Uyeda said. But the profit margin isn't that great; she gets no vacations, no expenses paid, and no medical or other benefits. The family has always donated their talents to charity benefits, as well.
Still, it's obvious there's something more driving Uyeda to stick with the business.
More than once, she tells you, "It's really awesome to get up there and make that many people laugh, to get a whole audience, even the adults, to get up and do the Hokey-Pokey. ... It's a natural high. It's very, very exciting to have that kind of response."
Her sister, Abbie Neves, meanwhile, became "Pockets" with curly purple hair when she turned 37 and had her own clown business on the Big Island until 1999.
The mother of four, Neves is studying to become a nurse after having a child, Reina, with severe heart problems. Still, she somehow manages to do shows every weekend.
Her goal is to start a center for children with terminal illnesses with clowns on the staff "so kids have lots of fun while going through treatment," Neves said.
Reina, now 14, used to accompany Neves to clown shows dressed as the "Mini Marshmallow" clown to cheer her up.
"I tried to make her life as much fun as possible," Neves said.
Uyeda's 22-year-old son, Kimo Texeira-Figueroa, was part of the fourth generation of clowns in the family, but gave up his "Popcorn" costume to take a normal, full-time job. Of all the fourth-generation clowns, he spent the most time on the job with Texeira, helping his grandmother paint faces, carry equipment and twist those long, skinny balloons into funny shapes, from when he was 5 until the age of 8.
Being an entertainer apparently ran in his blood because Texeira-Figueroa was known as the "class clown" at Liliuokalani Elementary, he said. When he got older, he became "Bat Boy" for a couple of years and his friends thought it was cool.
When the time comes to play with his child, the expectant father said, "I won't need to put on a face to become a clown; it comes natural to me."
Texeira formed the Paradise Clown Club in 1989 and, from that, a lot of other clown companies sprouted in the state.
At one time, Uyeda worried that her mom was giving away the family's business, but she said her mother reassured her that "there are no clowns like a family of clowns; we go the extra mile."
"It's true, because people see how caring our clowns are," Uyeda said. "Kids see through that makeup -- the patience, whether you're enjoying yourself and having fun. You can't be in it for the money or you're in it for the wrong reason."
