FRANCIS BRUNN was one of the greatest jugglers of his day. Whereas many jugglers are judged by the number of balls they can keep in the air, and how long for, Brunn was acclaimed for the apparent simplicity of his act, which increasingly focused on an individual ball, which he would transfer from his toe upwards in apparent defiance of the forces of gravity until it came to rest on the highest part of his body.

Using a headpiece and mouthpiece supplied with ball bearings by a cousin who worked for Mercedes-Benz in Germany, he would then balance the well-travelled ball high above his head as he tossed one hoop while spinning another on his leg. An innovator who experimented constantly with new tricks, he claimed that “with fewer objects there are more possible variations”.

He was glad of an audience that did not applaud every trick, but showed their appreciation by remaining silent until the end of a performance. Spectators could rarely control their enthusiasm that long, however.

Born in 1922 in the town of Aschaffenburg, near Frankfurt, Francis Brunn mostly taught himself his trade, though the initial impetus to juggle came from his father. Brunn Sr had spent a spell in a French prisoner of war camp during the First World War, and through the barbed wire had watched a circus juggler warming up. Grabbing what was nearest to hand — three stones — he imitated what he had seen, and on his release taught his children how to juggle three oranges.

Brunn’s skills were honed at the Performing Arts School in Berlin, where he also studied wrestling and acrobatics. Yet despite his passion for juggling, he declared in an interview at the tender age of 19 that he thought he would give it all up by the age of 25. Instead he went on juggling for more than 50 years.

In the 1940s, assisted by his sister Lottie, a proficient juggler in her own right, Brunn toured an act around Europe, conventional in its format, slick with tricks and tumbling, to the accompaniment of music by Chopin. His dexterity earned comparisons with the maestro Enrico Rastelli, the first person to bounce-juggle balls, whose films Brunn had studied for inspiration. Brunn played down suggestions that he was Rastelli’s natural successor, though: juggling was primarily a matter of fascination for him rather than a vocation.

Funded indirectly by the takings of the three restaurants his father owned, Brunn could afford to juggle for fun. He shunned competitions and never borrowed another juggler’s tricks, regarding juggling almost as a sacrosanct art form.

Over the years, he simplified his stage persona, appearing in the costume of a Spanish dancer, moving around the stage with balletic grace, accompanied by his son Raphael on acoustic guitar and aided by his partner, Nathalie Enterline.

The juggling balls he used were made especially for him by a Mr Bowman in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who contacted NBC after a performance by Brunn on the Johnny Carson show during which the juggler lamented how hard it was to find good rubber balance balls.

After several years as a satisfied customer, Brunn noticed a slight difference in the feel of the balls and asked Bowman why. Amazed at the sensitivity of Brunn’s touch, Bowman admitted that a new employee had been hired who was cutting the rubber in a minutely different way.

Brunn’s rarefied skills could not thrive beyond the glory days of the cabaret hall and variety theatre, however, and Brunn was realistic about the future of juggling. Whereas once it had been a form of mainstream entertainment, the popularity of television and the demise of the traditional three-ring circus meant that it was increasingly marginalised. Certainly, in Greenwich Village, where he spent the last years of his life, there was little call for jugglers.

Like any performer, he suffered his share of accidents. Perhaps the biggest disappointment occurred in 1948 when John Ringling, of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, brought Brunn to America as the star attraction of the new show.

As the juggler stepped out into the centre ring at Madison Square Garden to open the show, his foot fell into a gap where the stagehands had failed to fit the boards together properly. He twisted his foot badly and spent several months recuperating before finally opening with Ringling in Boston.

A hip injury from 1970 troubled him for the rest of his career, and his fingers were as bruised and battered as those of the boxers he loved to watch in the ring.

Over the years Brunn appeared on various American television shows, before royalty and politicians. His partner Nathalie Enterline survives him, along with a son and daughter.

Francis Brunn, juggler, was born on November 15, 1922. He died on May 28, 2004, aged 81.