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Families have always held a special place in the culture and history of the circus.

Yes, you will find great individual performers and hucksters in the annals of the circus. Had it not been for the brilliant and boisterous salesmanship of B.T. Barnum during the 19th century, the modern circus of today would never have been born.

But the circus business has mostly been a family business, from the high-flying trapeze acts of the Wallendas to the original Ringling brothers, who were among the most shrewd and successful business people of their time.

You will still find many family acts performing under the big top, or wherever they may find an audience for their acts.

Mary Evanoff and her daughter, also Mary, are part of this tradition and history. They often perform together along Pier 39 in San Francisco. They put on a show that combines storytelling, juggling, mime and pole walking.

Evanoff has been performing with her daughter almost since the day she was born. And there were many times, especially as Mary was growing up, when she had to stop being a performer to be a parent right in the middle of her act.

One time, when her daughter was two and a half years old, she strolled on the stage to tell Evanoff, her former husband and an audience of 1,500 that she, well, had to go somewhere.

"Mamma, Daddy, I have to go potty."

"Somebody from the audience took her to the bathroom and brought her back that particular time," Evanoff recalled. "It was very sweet. To her, the stage was home, so she didn't recognize that there was a difference having a crowd in front."

Another time, her daughter interrupted a performance because she wanted some crackers.

But Evanoff recovered, and she says audience members later told her that they were amazed by how she managed to keep the show going.

Evanoff became a performer in 1980 when she met her former husband, a tightrope walker and mime. She soon quit her job with a film development lab to join him off and on the stage. "I would never have been a performer if that had not happened," she says.

She had no real experience at the time, and was just recovering from a hearing impairment. But nothing stopped her, not even her petite stature. (She is 4'10".)

She has worked all across the world in the last two decades, including Japan and Australia. She also has appeared on local and national television shows. But Evanoff says she is not really interested in the publicity and attention that has come along with her fame.

"With most performers, they need the attention, they need the applause, they need the response from the audience," she says. "For me, I give [the audience] something so that they have enjoyment, so that they can laugh, so that they have a good time."

Thom Britain and his group of performers have the same goal. But this is where the similarities end.

Evanoff's act is geared primarily towards families. The act Britain and his Modern Gypsies put on is more edgy. It features escape tricks, beds of nails, fire-breathing and glass-walking.

"We do a classic American sideshow," says Britain from his home in Birmingham, Alabama.

Sideshows dominated popular entertainment in North America a hundred years ago because they featured acts, often humans with physical deformities, that had one overriding goal in mind: to freak out the audience. And people loved it.

Those days are long gone. But some elements have survived and found their way into the act of the Modern Gypsies. And in a way, the show reflects Britain's fascination with the history of the circus and its role throughout human history.

Britain developed this interest at an early age, as he would read anything and everything about the ancient circuses of Rome, the gypsies of Europe and the fakirs of India. In fact, Britain says he would have become a history teacher, had he finished his college degree. He didn't, of course, because he decided to become a circus performer.

After an apprenticeship, he began performing in clubs and bars on weekends. He often worked for free in those early days, but the thrill of a good performance was enough of a reward.

"That feels great when people like what you love," he says. "When they have never seen it and when they have no clue what they are getting into...and when they stand at the end of it, they love what I love."

He says his parents -- "they are real liberals" -- also enjoy his work, although his mother cannot watch him walk across broken glass.

Circus performers have to constantly come with up new ideas. Otherwise, they risk losing their audience and the chance to earn a living.

And that is the eventual goal for Britain and the other group members. But until that happens, they all still have to support themselves through "real" jobs.

"We have never really wanted to make a living off of it," he says. "It's probably the toughest way of making a living because you are completely responsible for everything. You have to promote yourself...and you literally have to book yourself from job to job to job."

But the group is starting to get ahead. They just landed a gig in Oman, and there is a chance that they might perform in Lebanon.

There is no question that circus performers may have to spend a lot of time on the road to make a living.

Just ask Decker Ladouceur.

He toured across the globe for more than a decade with several large circuses as a trapeze artist. He is now the director of a circus school. "It's a lot of wear and tear on the body," he says.

"It's exhausting. Driving from destination to destination is very tiring because when you get into town, the first thing you do is set up your equipment. And that can take up to six hours, depending on the venue. You might sleep a couple of hours, and then perform that day or night."

So working in the circus is not as glamorous as it appears. "The glamour part is when you get to perform," Ladouceur says. "Everything else is just brutal on the body, and it is exhausting. It adds years to your life, no doubt. But there are good years."

There are good years because you spend a lot of time around interesting people who share the same goals and passions.

"It's a huge family," says Ladouceur. "And within that family, you have your brothers and sisters and your parents. And you have disputes with them. You have arguments. You have frustrating moments with them. And then you have their compassion as a brother [and] their relationships as siblings."