(MONEY Magazine) – BOUNDING INTO THE center of the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus in outlandishly padded nurse's drag, clown Elmo Gibb chases down another clown patient and administers a slapstick physical exam that ends with a hypodermic shot in the derriere. The patient leaps, the crowd roars, and Elmo manically scampers out of the big top and into the cool night air of a field in Orange Park, Fla., a Jacksonville suburb. In the dressing tent, he reviews his performance (''picking my teeth with the needle got a laugh,'' he says) while changing into his signature country-rube overalls and checkered shirt. Hurrying back to the big top, Gibb, 38, autographs programs for the departing crowd, which chortles at his corny patter. Example: ''Are you teaching fleas to jump through hoops?'' he asks a woman with hoop earrings. As the last tow-headed kid waves good-bye, Elmo says, ''A lot of old-time clowns get fed up doing this meeting-and-greetin g stuff, but I don't think I ever will. That's the trick of performing: to never stop loving what you're doing.'' Gibb's love of clowning explains a lot. With his college education, he could easily make $29,000 or more teaching high school students foreign languages. But he prefers making kids laugh -- for a paltry $11,000 (plus $10,500 to cover expenses) for Beatty-Cole's 34-week March-to-Thanksgiving circus season. Furthermore, he can't earn much more; he gets top dollar for a clown these days. Elmo is already an established star on Beatty-Cole's 12-man roster as well as among the country's 150 to 200 other circus clowns. ''Elmo is a real professional,'' declares fellow clown Jim Vogelgesang, who recently left Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth to freelance. And Bill Ballantine, author of the esteemed 1982 study of clown life entitled Clown Alley, adds: ''He's a darned nice person too.'' Besides being a clown's clown, the diminutive (five foot, six inch), irrepressibly chatty Gibb is a mainstay for Beatty-Cole, which annually tours medium-size towns of 40,000 to 140,000 along the eastern seaboard. A so-called advance clown, he not only performs with the circus but also travels ahead of its 75-vehicle caravan, promoting the coming show at schools and on local radio and TV in successive two- or three-day stints. ''Working on school auditorium stages is a nice change from an arena where you play 360 degrees,'' he says. ''And trading quips with radio deejays is like doing stand-up comedy.'' A fount of clown lore, he asks, ''Did you know that circus clowns started stand-up comedy?'' Philosophical about his profession's low pay, Elmo explains: ''Circus people have always looked down on the clown as the guy who couldn't do anything else. Since the 1970s there's been an influx of people who are well trained in the performing arts -- dancers, mimes, illusionists. But circuses keep the habit of not paying them much.'' By contrast, risk-taking animal trainers and flying trapeze artists, whose skills take years to perfect, can pull in amounts in < the low six figures. Ringling Bros. featured animal trainer Gunther Gebel- Williams, for example, is said by some circus experts to make $200,000 a year. Still, Elmo says he's found his lifework: ''I'll never retire. When I get older, I'll just become a 'tramp' clown. They're sad and weary, so you can't play them until your face has enough character lines.'' To supplement his Beatty-Cole income, Gibb appears off-season in smaller shows like the International All-Star Circus. Using carpentry skills he picked up in his youth, he also makes props such as copper-tube water squirters for fellow clowns. The extra work brings his yearly earnings to about $24,000. That's enough to support the unmarried Gibb's nomadic life style: when traveling with the circus, he lives in a 24-foot-by-eight-foot trailer that he tows from town to town behind his brand-new $16,800 Ford F250 pickup. But little is left over to go toward meeting his chief financial goal: buying a house in his winter base of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., a seaside resort town 15 miles south of Daytona Beach. Currently renting a $250-a-month, one-room apartment there, Gibb says, ''I'd like a house close to the ocean to catch the breeze, with two bedrooms so I can put up friends.'' He plans to pay around $60,000, putting down 40%, or $24,000, to get a favorable mortgage rate, lower the principal and reduce his monthly payment to a manageable $320 or so. To date, though, his reserves are scant. The largest is the $7,400 cash value in a $25,000 life insurance policy that he has been paying on for 17 years. Otherwise, he has only 207 shares of Philadelphia Electric stock, recently worth $3,685, and $3,500 in a checking account for emergencies. As for liabilities, the new truck, financed at 12%, has raised them substantially while flattening his wallet. Monthly payments of $454 will eat up about a fourth of his take-home pay. Besides getting skimpy cash compensation, Gibb lacks benefits routinely offered by noncircus employers. Beatty-Cole doesn't furnish medical insurance, so Elmo spends an annual $433 for a Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy that pays 80% of the bills after a $200 deductible. Nevertheless, he had to shell out close to $1,000 last year for the uncovered costs of having a benign stomach tumor removed. Operated on during circus season, he was back at work within a week: ''Circus performers work sick or well,'' he says stoutly. If injured on the job, he can claim workers' compensation. But he has no disability & insurance -- and no pension. ''Doesn't bother a workaholic like me,'' shrugs Elmo. ''I've had jobs since age 14.'' Back then he was Dean Chambers of Cherry Hill, N.J. (''I chose Elmo as a name kids can read,'' he says, ''and Gibb sounds like a hick.'') He caught circus fever from his late father, a tool-and-die maker and circus buff. ''Dad taught Dean juggling and gymnastics,'' recalls his brother Kevin, 35, a marionette maker in Ocean Grove, N.J., ''and Dean used to dress up like an engineer and pretend to be driving the circus train.'' Dean was nine when his parents separated, and for a time his mother produced children's plays in southern New Jersey, where Dean learned how to make costumes and props. Briefly attracted to teaching, he entered Georgetown University in 1969 to study modern languages. During his senior year, however, he succumbed to his longtime love of the circus and became one of 2,742 who applied to Clown College, the free 10-week course taught each summer by Ringling clowns in Venice, Fla. Although he failed to secure one of the 45 or so openings, his hopes for a circus career weren't completely crushed: ''I got a letter saying I came close,'' he recalls. After receiving his B.S. in 1973, he spent three years working as a factory hand at a Philadelphia industrial brush plant. Then in 1976 he made it into Clown College on his second try. Ringling doesn't guarantee jobs to all graduates, but Gibb got one, starting as a so- called silent clown. In that beginner's post, he says, ''you keep your mouth shut and just make big comic gestures.'' Two months later, he recalls, ''like a lightning bolt, I came up with Elmo.'' Meanwhile, living on the 35-car Ringling train, he practiced such frugality (''lots of granola bars'') that each week he banked $100 of his $132 take-home pay. Although he found Ringling ''a good place to learn,'' Elmo quit the show after 18 months. ''They were so afraid of offending people in the audience that you couldn't even put on freckles, big ears or buck teeth,'' he says. Investing his $5,600 savings in a truck and trailer, he went to work as Beatty-Cole's advance clown in 1979, leaving three years later to tour with smaller shows. Among his memories: ''A winter of 50 one-night stands at high schools in upstate New York; Shrine circus dates at Nebraska rodeo grounds with terrible wind, sand and dust; working on a show that played every town in British Columbia with a hockey rink, and another that didn't even have a name -- it just sold tickets over the phone and toured Georgia for six weeks.'' He rejoined Beatty-Cole in 1984. Based in DeLand, Fla., the troupe travels 10,800 miles a year, playing 120 communities in some 240 days before ending the season back in Florida in November. Its colorful circus family of 160 includes roustabouts, aerialists, accountants, musicians, welders, acrobats, cooks and animal trainers. But Elmo works mostly alone, out on his promotional gigs. One recent morning in Ladson, S.C., a Charleston suburb, he was up at 6 a.m., preparing for the day's appearances. After exercising (''200 trunk twists and 100 sit-ups to get the kinks out of my back from too many years of the acrobatics of clowning''), he donned his costume, painted on his makeup (a 35-minute ritual) and was at a radio station by 8:45. He did his on-air stuff (''Hi, I'm Elmo but I used to be known as Quits 'cause I was so ugly when I was born that my dad said, 'Let's call it quits' ''), plugged the circus and lit out for a TV studio. Forced to park some distance away and walk through the streets, Elmo stayed in character, never losing his performer's discipline. His perky-jerky strut drew grins; his greetings, occasional groans. Example: ''Hi, I'm Elmo, and I'm out early 'cause I never want to be called the late Elmo.'' Inside the TV studio, he switched to visual clowning on camera, performing magic tricks and face-painting a studio employee. Trailer in tow, he was on his way to the next town before noon. Elmo spends his few leisure hours watching other entertainers in person or on videotape. ''For me, it's considered job training and is a business expense,'' he says. He estimates the cost of tickets at $300 to $400 a year, but he rarely takes the tax deduction. ''Too much trouble to keep the ticket stubs,'' he says. ''Anyway, I'm due a $695 refund for 1989, so I'm not uptight about my tax bill.'' Reflecting on his future, Elmo says, ''A number of clowns swallow their pride and end up becoming Bozos or Ronald McDonalds. The Ronalds get steady money, about $15,000 to $18,000 a year, but it's tough because you're no longer your own clown creation. I'd rather have a spot on a TV show.'' Then he laughs softly and shakes his head. ''But I'd miss my small towns and my small- town people. The kids are well behaved, the families are stable, everybody's real friendly. It's a pleasure clowning for them.''

BOX: INCOME

Salary and expense allowance $21,500 Withdrawal from savings 2,655 Off-season jobs 2,394 Dividends 448 Unemployment benefit 113 Total $27,110

OUTGO Business expenses $16,560 Rent 3,000 Taxes 1,584 Medical expenses 1,459 Utilities 983 Meals at home 900 Miscellaneous 858 Clothes 560 Life insurance 405 Truck expenses 343 Gifts 300 Credit-card finance charges 158 Total $27,110

ASSETS Ford F250 pickup $16,800 Costumes and props 7,500 Cash value of life insurance 7,400 Personal property 4,500 Stock 3,685 Checking account 3,500 Tax refund receivable 695 Total $44,080

LIABILITY Pickup-truck debt $16,800 Total $16,800 NET WORTH $27,280

BOX: THE ADVICE

-- THE PROBLEMS: Building savings for a house and improving cash flow -- THE SOLUTIONS: Get realistic, and get those deductions.

While in Ladson, S.C., Elmo Gibb spent an afternoon with William Prewitt, a Charleston certified financial planner. Prewitt's suggestions: Savings and cash flow. Before Gibb even considers saving for a house, he should boost his emergency reserve by $2,800, to $6,300. That would cover four months of expenses instead of the usually recommended three; Gibb needs the extra cushion because his income is flighty. To raise the money, he should ) adjust his tax withholding; his $695 refund for 1989 means that he's having too much tax withheld. He should also add his costs for seeing fellow entertainers' acts to his itemized deductions; he can write off the expenses to the extent that they, plus other unreimbursed work-related outlays, exceed 2% of his adjusted gross income. ''To track what you spend,'' said Prewitt, ''put a shoebox in your trailer and toss into it ticket stubs and movie- rental receipts.'' And he urged Gibb not to neglect longer-term saving, suggesting that he open an IRA at a no-load growth-stock mutual fund that has a low minimum initial deposit. A solid candidate: Twentieth Century Growth (up 27.3% in the 12 months to April 1; 800-345-2021). The dream house. Apart from Gibb's stock -- which Prewitt advised keeping as a long-term growth asset -- the clown's only savings are the $7,400 cash value of his life insurance. That leaves him $16,600 short of the $24,000 he needs to put down 40% on a $60,000 house. Prewitt recommended reducing the down payment to 20%, or $12,000. ''At current interest rates of 10.25%, your monthly mortgage payment on a $48,000 loan would be around $430,'' he said. ''That will be a squeeze. But lowering your down payment is the only way you'll save enough for a house without waiting more than five years.'' Gibb agreed to put off his house hunt and later reported a new evening occupation: ''Looking for old ticket stubs that I can claim on my next tax return.''