Switzerland's favourite mime artist Clown Dimitri dies aged 80

Clown Dimitri, a beloved Swiss clown and mime artist who studied under Marcel Marceau, has died aged 80, his office has said.

A man of few words in a country with four official languages, Dimitri spoke to audiences by combining naive, bumbling humour with acrobatics and skill with a vast repertoire of musical instruments.

Verena Graf from Clown Dimitri’s office said the clown died at home on Tuesday at his home in Borgnone, Ticino, the southern most canton of Switzerland. She said he had not been ill when she last saw him at the weekend and did not know the cause of death.

Jakob Dimitri was born in 1935 in the Swiss village of Ancona, and at the age of seven knew that he wanted to become a clown. In 1958, he trained under and befriended the French mime artist Marceau, Dimitri’s idol, and a year later performed his own show.

With a bowl-cut hairdo and gap-toothed grin from a mouth he would stuff wide with ping pong balls to juggle over the years, Dimitri long performed as a solo artist. He eventually set up a family troupe in New York in 2009. La Famiglia Dimitri staged well-regarded, family-friendly shows featuring juggling, cycling, singing, high wires, tight wires and slack wires.

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In 2012, when well into his 70s, Dimitri launched a solo show focusing on elemental, no-frills, old-school clowning.

“I am a rather positive, optimistic and gay clown, without being superficial,” he told a Swiss TV interviewer in a report that coincided with his 70th birthday. “I don’t fit with the cliche of the sad, melancholy clown with tears – even if I do have painted tears under the eyes.”

Dimitri was also involved in humanitarian work. In 1995, as an ambassador for Unicef, he took a trip to war-torn Sarajevo. Six years ago, he traveled to Congo with an anti-torture human rights group.

A report aired last year by Switzerland’s state broadcaster RTS from Dimitri’s base in the Ticino village of Verscio, showed the clown still bouncy and limber. “I am still young in my mind. And my body,” he said. “Clowns are immortal, everybody knows that.”

He is survived by his wife and five children.