8 CREATED ODDITIES

IN ADDITION TO BORN, BONA fide human oddities, there are what William Lindsay Gresham (1953, 102) terms “‘made’ freaks.” These include tattooed and pierced people and those who otherwise deliberately alter their appearance so that they can be exhibited as curiosities or perform as sideshow working acts. Then there are the gaffed freaks, those whose oddities are partially or completely faked or whose acts are bogus.

Tattooed People

Eighteenth-century explorers encountered native peoples of the South Seas islands, the Far East, and elsewhere who practiced tattooing—the use of a thorn, needle, or other sharp instrument to prick dye into the skin and thus create indelible designs. Tattooing was also practiced in ancient times, being seen in Egyptian mummies dating from 2000 B.C. or earlier (Fellman 1986). The famous Stone Age body discovered in an Alpine glacier in 1991, dating from about 3300 to 3200 B.C., bore several tattooed markings. These were of the familiar blue color, indicating that they had probably been made with soot, and they appear to have had a magical or healing, rather than a decorative, purpose (Spindler 1994). A Chinese chronicle of the third century A.D. describing the “Queen Country,” Japan, states that “the men both great and small tattoo their faces and work designs upon their bodies”—a practice that would not be seen in China itself for several centuries (Fellman 1986). (See figure 8.1.)

The art form was popularized in Europe after Russian explorer Georg H. von Langsdorff visited the Marquesas Islands in 1804. He discovered a French deserter named Jean Baptiste Cabri, who had lived there for many years, married a native woman, and fathered several children. He had also been extensively tattooed. Cabri told Langsdorff such elaborate tales of his life among the Marquesans that Langsdorff said, “anyone who heard him relate them would be disposed to think himself listening to a second Munchhausen.” Cabri accompanied Langsdorff back to Russia for a brief theatrical career. After spending a year at the Marine Academy at Kronshtadt, where he was a swimming instructor, he went on tour in Europe, attracting the attention of eminent physicians and even appearing before royalty. After a few years, however, his career declined, and he was reduced to being exhibited at country fairs. He died at his birthplace, Valenciennes, France, in 1812, “poor and forgotten” (Gilbert 1996).

FIGURE 8.1. A Japanese illustrated man is depicted in a nineteenth-century engraving.

Like Cabri, Englishman John Rutherford was tattooed by native tribes-people—in his case, New Zealand's Maoris. He told an extravagant tale of capture and forcible tattooing by two Maori priests during a four-hour ceremony in which he lost consciousness; Rutherford had to convalesce for weeks afterward. Subsequently, the tribe adopted him among their chiefs and offered him many brides. Prudently, he selected two, both of them daughters of the ruling chieftain. After rescue by a brig from the United States, he returned to England, but not before a stopover—and marriage to another native girl—in Hawaii. Rutherford's biographer wrote that he subsequently “maintained himself by accompanying a traveling caravan of wonders, showing his tattooing, and telling something of his extraordinary adventures.” These tales were related in a pitch book sold at his appearances. Although some accused him of fictionalizing his story, according to tattoo historian Steve Gilbert (1996, 102), “there is no doubt that the tattooing was authentic Maori work, and that he knew from firsthand experience a great deal about the lives and customs of the Maoris.”

The story of being forcibly tattooed by savages has been told by others, including James F. O’Connel, who was reportedly the first such man to exhibit professionally in the United States. O’Connel debuted at Barnum's American Museum after its opening in 1841. He regaled audiences with tales of capture and forcible tattooing by South Seas virgins, one of whom—a beautiful princess, of course—he was obliged by custom to marry (Gilbert 1996). He sold a thirty-one-page pitch book titled “The Life and Adventures of James F. O’Connel, the Tattooed Man, During a Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and Caroline Islands,” published in 1846. When last heard of, he was with Dan Rice's circus in 1852 (Bogdan 1990, 242-43).

Barnum's greatest tattooed wonder was a Greek, Captain George Constentenus. He was the star of the sideshow with the Greatest Show on Earth in 1876. Since it was America's one-hundredth anniversary, Constentenus was billed as the “Centennial Portrait Gallery.” He was covered from head to toe with “388 designs in indigo and cinnabar.” The noted physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes said of the array, “It is the most perfect specimen of genuine tattooing which any of us have ever seen.” Barnum added that Constentenus had “over seven million blood producing punctures.” His pitch booklet told an elaborate and sensational tale of being raised in a harem in Turkey, having a romantic affair with the daughter of the shah of Persia, and eventually being captured by the “fiendish” khan of Kashgar. Given a choice of being stung to death by wasps, impaled, burned alive, or other fates, including undergoing complete body tattooing, Constentenus chose the last, upon being told that he could go free if he survived. However, the tale was completely bogus: “In actuality, the eccentric Constentenus willingly obtained his own tattoos in a carefully conceived plan to become a self-made curiosity” (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 251).

In 1891 the leading New York tattoo artist, James O’Reilly, patented his electric tattooing machine, and many circus people were among his thousands of customers. After his death in 1908, O’Reilly's apprentice, Charles Wagner, became “the best-known tattooer in America and tattooed over 50 completely covered circus attractions.” O’Reilly and Wagner did the work on the first totally tattooed female to be exhibited in a circus sideshow, La Belle Irene. She debuted in London in 1890, and—although her designs included hearts and flowers, cupids and birds, scrolls and sentiments—“Londoners were asked to believe that she had acquired her embellishments in a strange and savage land (Texas) as a protection against the unwelcomed advances of the natives” (Gilbert 1996, 103).

Soon, there appeared a tattooed couple, Emma and Frank de Burgh. Emma's extensive designs included a rendering of The Last Supper across her back. One who had admired her and then saw her again years later reported that she had gained so much weight that when he looked at The Last Supper, “all the apostles wore broad grins” (Gilbert 1996, 103).

At least one bearded lady, Jean Furella, took a friend's advice and improved both her career and her love life by shaving and having her body illustrated. She was thus reinvented as the “Tattoo Queen” at the Riverside Park in Chicago and enjoyed a happy marriage.

By 1920, several hundred tattooed people were exhibiting in circus and carnival sideshows, some earning up to $200 a week (then a tidy sum). In the competition for ever more extravagant acts, there were soon tattooed fire-eaters, sword swallowers, strongmen, jugglers, knife throwers, dwarfs, fat ladies, and others. Tattoo artists traveled with circuses and carnivals, one of them—Stoney St. Clair (1912-1980)—even having his own colorful banner. Headed “Tattooing by Stoney,” it showed him at work illustrating a scantily clad young lady, while omitting the wheelchair to which he was confined due to a childhood attack of rheumatoid arthritis (Gilbert 1996).

Particularly distinctive among the bodily illustrated oddities was Djita the “Tattooed Oriental Beauty,” whose skin art was rendered in no fewer than fourteen colors. She claimed that she had been punctured by the tattoo needle 100 million times. Another was Maude Arizona, who was advertised as the “Most Tattooed Lady in the World.” She was covered with various figures from her feet up to her neck, where, according to Dick Gardner (1962, 135), “a pearl choker stopped the designs below a singularly attractive face.” Ripley's Odditoriums and other enterprises have featured uniquely tattooed oddities. One was Dick Hyland, the “Human Autograph Album,” whose body was “signed” by more than 600 celebrities—Robert Ripley included (Mooney et al. 2002, 69).

Probably the most unique of the tattooed men and women was Horace Ridler, a British prep-school-educated ex-army officer who was down on his luck and decided to transform himself into a circus star. His idea was to be tattooed all over with zebra-like stripes. Claiming that he had been forcibly tattooed by New Guinea savages, the “Great Omi, the Zebra Man” eventually became one of the “highest paid circus performers in the world” (Gilbert 1996; Bogdan 1990, 255-56). Ripley was especially taken with the Great Omi, describing him as “the most remarkable-looking person I have seen in traveling to two hundred and one different countries.” He was impressed that “the symmetry of the pattern was especially designed to fit the contour's of Omi's face—even the ears are tattooed.” Ripley was also amazed by “how close to his eyes the tattooing needle worked.” He alleged that the unique blue pattern required “five hundred million stabs” (Considine 1961, 143-44). Be that as it may, Ripley's claim that the work required nine years was an exaggeration—perhaps by Omi. In fact, it took “only” a year.

Omi had successfully toured Europe before coming to America. From Ripley's 1938 Odditorium appearance, he went on to tour with Ringling Brothers and also exhibited at Madison Square Garden, drawing large crowds in his coast-to-coast appearances (Bogdan 1990, 255-56). Omi augmented his extreme tattooing with other freakish elements. He had his teeth filed to points, his nose pierced and fitted with an ivory tusk, and the lobes of his ears pierced and stretched so that the holes measured over an inch across. He had the complete support of his loyal wife. His tattooer was London's best, George Burchett, who wrote: “I have the greatest admiration for these two people. Their devotion to each other was one of the great experiences of my long life, during which I have met many brave and unusual people” (Gilbert 1996, 104).

Reportedly, Omi had once been a British army officer and had seen battle in Mesopotamia with the Desert Mountain Corps. When World War II came, he attempted to aid the American war effort but was judged too freakish to be allowed in the military. Instead, he spent the war years raising money to benefit the troops. “By the time he retired,” according to Alan Weiss (1996, 135), “there was no doubt in anybody's mind that The Great Omi had turned himself from an ordinary human into one of the most successful freaks of all time!”

A modern-day Omi is Paul Lawrence, known as “The Enigma” and formerly “Slug the Swordswallower.” He has traveled with the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, a troupe with many self-made freaks who perform in theaters and other venues. The Enigma has been exhibiting as a work in progress. He is tattooed all over with jigsaw-puzzle outlines, and some of the “pieces” have been filled in with the familiar tattoo-blue coloration. He also has surgically implanted “horns” above his forehead. “When not on the road,” a bio note reads, “he lives in Texas with his wife Katzen, who is fully tattooed as a cat” (Gregor 1998, 386).

Such full-body tattooing is a permanent, life-transforming commitment. Consider Betty Broadbent, who came from a prominent Philadelphia society family. Intelligent, educated, and privileged, at age seventeen she vacationed at Atlantic City, where she was motivated to obtain some tattoos. Her family's displeasure may have prompted her to have her whole body illustrated, and she became the “Tattooed Lady.” Her career included all the leading sideshows in the United States, as well as abroad. She later enjoyed retirement with her third husband at Riverview, Florida. However, Ward Hall (1991, 34) says, “Betty talked little of her early life, but once disclosed to me that she regretted having that first tattoo.” (For other illustrated people, see figures 8.2 to 8.5.)

Pierced Ones

Some self-made freaks use body piercings instead of tattoos or, like the Great Omi, combine the two effects. One was Rasmus Nielsen, the 1930s tattooed strongman. An erstwhile California blacksmith of Scandinavian ancestry, he told the obligatory tale of capture and forcible tattooing by South Seas islanders. The “savages,” he claimed, had added to the torture by inserting metal rings through the skin of his chest, placing ropes through the rings, and then dangling him from tree limbs.

In fact, Gresham (1953, 102) describes such a performer, probably Nielsen, as “having a plastic surgeon cut slits in the pectoral muscles of his chest” so that he could lift weights “in imitation of the fakirs of the Orient.” Indeed, that is how Nielsen used the torture rings in his act. He inserted an iron bar through the rings; the bar was attached to a chain tied around a large anvil. Leaning back, Nielsen was thus witnessed “lifting 250 lbs by his breasts,” according to the caption penned on a photo of the stunt (Gilbert 1996; Mooney et al. 2002, 134). Writes Daniel Mannix (1999, 117): “One day a smart young reporter jumped on Nielsen's platform and shouted that the anvil was wood. Nielsen told him to pick it up. The reporter struggled vainly to lift the anvil while other newspaper men happily took pictures. The resulting publicity made Nielsen one of the best known side-show acts.”

A double banner featuring Nielsen was painted by famed banner artist Fred G. Johnson. Still extant in a private collection, it bears the stenciled imprint of Johnson's employer, the O’Henry Tent and Awning Company of Chicago. The upper banner shows the performer—under a scroll-like panel, lettered “Rasmus Nielsen Scandinavian Strong Man”—wearing only shorts to show off his body art and lifting an anvil with his pectorals. In the other scene, Nielsen is lifting a smaller anvil by means of a chain with a hook through his pierced tongue (Johnson et al. 1996, 98-99).

FIGURE 8.2. A pretty tattooed girl posed in the buff for this publicity photo, exhibited in Bobby Reynolds's sideshow museum.

FIGURE 8.3. This “Totally Tattooed” banner graced the front of Bobby Reynolds's International Circus Sideshow Museum & Gallery. (Photo by author)

FIGURE 8.4. Front of the pitch card of tattooed lady Lorett Fulkerson. It is signed, “Best Wishes / Lorett.” She appeared with the Hall & Christ sideshows.

FIGURE 8.5. Back of Lorett Fulkerson's pitch card. (Author's collection)

This latter effect is called an iron tongue act, in which the entertainer lifts concrete blocks, filled buckets, or the like using a pierced tongue. According to James Taylor (1997, 94), such an act “could be gaffed, with a steel hook ‘through’ the tongue”; however, “these days, this act is less often gaffed than it is accomplished using genuine tongue piercings.” With the current fad of tongue and other body piercings among young people, the act may not seem as impressive as it once was. Nevertheless, such an iron-tongued wonder was with the 2000 traveling ten-in-one sideshow of Hall & Christ. I intercepted the show on the midway of the York Interstate Fair in York, Pennsylvania, where I obtained the accompanying photo (figure 8.6). The young marvel also had pierced nipples, fitted with rings, with which he pulled a small wagon.

FIGURE 8.6. An iron-tongued wonder with the Hall & Christ sideshow in 2000 also had pierced nipples fitted with rings, which he used to pull a wagon. (Photo by author)

Another type of human marvel—one who demonstrates any amazing ability with his or her body (Taylor 1998, 94)—was represented by Harry McGreggor. A 1933 Ripley Odditorium performer, McGreggor “used his eyelids to pull a wagon carrying his wife” (Packard et al. 2001, 30). Another of the genre was R. H. “Sheets” Hubbard, one of the “Strange as It Seems” congress of unusual people presented at the 1939 world's fair in New York City. Showman Lou Dufour described Hubbard as “a young man who would pull weights with hooks passed through his eyelids.” Such acts were termed “iron eyelids” (Dufour 1977, 134, 124).

Then there is the iron—well, another part of the male anatomy. The “Amazing Mister Lifto”—Joe Hermann, who performs with the Jim Rose Circus sideshow—has not only pierced nipples but also a pierced penis. He uses the former to do a concrete-block lift before large audiences. As for the latter, published photographs show a nude Mister Lifto with a stretched member lifting a household steam iron (Gregor 1998; Taylor 1998, 10-11).

The most remarkable pierced marvel was no doubt Mortado, who was seemingly crucified during his act. His hands and feet had been pierced surgically, and the holes concealed capsules of “blood” that spouted forth when spikes were pounded through them. As such, he had been the “Sensation of Europe.” Later, he claimed to have been “the only living man captured by savages and actually crucified.” According to his pitch book, the “savages” had been “a wild tribe of Mohammedans” in the Sahara Desert. Upon encountering him at an oasis, they showed their contempt for a “white Christian” by placing him in a “spread eagle” position and nailing him to a large wooden wheel used for drawing water. Abandoned to his fate, he was fortunately rescued by “some white men” and recovered at an army hospital in Berlin. The piercings, his spiel claimed, prevented him from working, so he was resigned to sideshow life. In a later presentation, utilizing a specially designed chair with plumbing fixtures, the turbaned and exotically costumed performer became Mortado the Human Fountain, with streams of water arcing from the holes in his hands and bare feet.

Mortado made his initial appearance in the United States on April 27, 1930, at Dreamland Circus Side Show, Coney Island. Little is known about his background, except that he claimed to be “a native of Berlin, Germany.” A photo in his pitch book, dated 1914, shows him in the uniform of a German junior naval officer at the onset of World War I. He stated that at the time of his alleged capture, he had been “assigned to special duty in Northern Africa” (Mortado n.d.; Barta 1996).

Mortado stayed at Dreamland for years, but the public eventually tired of his act and, says Barta (1996, 161), “When he failed to come up with anything new, his career slowly faded away.” Mannix (1999, 119) writes: “Shortly afterwards, I read that a man had been found crucified to a wooden wall of an elevated train station in New York, but when police investigated they found it was a fraud; the man had crucified himself. As it is impossible to crucify yourself, I have often wondered if this was Mortado making a last bid for fame.”

All the foregoing acts involve permanent body piercing. A related phenomenon—featuring the impromptu piercings and skewerings of the human pincushion act—is featured at some length in chapter 9.

Other “Made” Oddities

Among the exotic exhibits of the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were “Genuine Monster-Mouthed Ubangi Savages,” supposedly the “World's Most Weird Living Humans from Africa's Darkest Depths,” according to one circus ad. These were women from the French Congo who beautified themselves by lip enlargement. This was accomplished by slitting a female infant's lips so that wooden discs could be inserted—larger ones being placed in the lower lip. Increasingly bigger discs were used as the girl grew, and her lips were eventually extended ten inches or more, giving the woman “a duckbill appearance” (Bogdan 1990, 193-94; Dufour 1977, 177). Several of the tribal women were originally exhibited in Europe and then brought to the United States to appear in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey freak show in the spring of 1930 (figure 8.7).

Ringling sideshow manager Clyde Ingalls introduced them: “Ladies and Gentlemen, from the deepest depths of darkest Africa we present the world's most astounding Aborigines—the ‘Crocodile Lipped Women from Congo’—the Ubangis.” Actually, the women were not Ubangis. Ringling press agent Roland Butler admitted that he had picked that name from an African map purely for its exotic sound. As he reportedly said, “I resettled them” (Bogdan 1990, 194). After Ingalls introduced them, the “Ubangis” slowly filed in, topless and preceded by men who wore loincloths and carried spears. Naturally, the women's banner art “extended the lips far in excess of reality: in some they appear as if they have turkey platter inserts.” Their pitch book was amply illustrated with pictures of the bare-breasted women (Bogdan 1990, 194-95).

FIGURE 8.7. A Ringling sideshow in California featured these “genuine monster-mouthed Ubangi savages” on the bally platform in 1930. (Author's collection)

Another group of native women who deform themselves to achieve their cultural ideal of beauty are the long-necked women of Burma and Thailand. They are the Padaung people, who achieve the look by fitting five-year-old girls with copper necklace rings. More rings are added as they grow, until the desired neck length is reached. The maximum recorded extension is fifteen and three-quarters inches. But there is a drawback: the stretched muscles of the neck are not strong enough to bear the head's weight without the rings, and if they are removed, the woman could suffocate (Packard et al. 2001, 22; Parker 1994, 27).

A ring-necked woman, together with a saucer-lipped “Ubangi” and other female oddities, was depicted on a double banner headed “Strange Girls.” Painted by Snap Wyatt, this was for Dick Best's circa 1965 sideshow that featured an all-female troupe of working acts (Johnson et al. 1996, 110, 158).

Whereas the “Ubangis” and the ring-necked women did not deform themselves for the purpose of appearing in sideshows, Fred Walters did. He was, according to Gresham (1953, 103), “one of the weirdest-looking characters of the side-show world.” Walters's skin was a strange slate-blue color. Billed as the “Blue Man,” he let audiences think that his was a rare example of abnormally pigmented skin. However, at his death, a quantity of the chemical silver nitrate was discovered among his belongings. Apparently, Walters had begun taking it for some nervous condition, found that it turned his skin blue, and decided to capitalize on the effect, maintaining it through repeated doses (Gresham 1953, 103; Gardner 1962, 135).

Apart from such self-made freakery, there are instances in which a deformity is caused by an accident or the deliberate intent of others. For example, the legless wonder Bill Cole, of Buffalo, New York, was the victim of a railroad accident (Hall 1991, 24). And Captain Callahan, who was sexually mutilated, was a genuine attraction at the 1933 Chicago world's fair, whether or not the tale of how he acquired his deformity was true. Manager Nate Eagle spieled for the blowoff in the African Village (Dufour 1977, 68-69):

Ladies and gentlemen, on the inside of this enclosure you will see and hear Captain Callahan, that brave and durable man who was so horribly tortured by a ferocious group of savages in the Cameroons, who were about to fling his bruised body into a steaming pot of boiling water, after a sadist beast had decapitated his penis and testicles. Please, please, just stop to think—what a terrible, despicable crime! On the inside you will hear from the very lips of Captain Callahan how he was rescued from those ruthless cannibals.

The famous talker continued:

Now, please listen very carefully: everyone is invited to come in, this being the understanding—that the captain will be on an elevated stage. He will remove his robe. And after you see with your own eyes that the captain is absolutely devoid of sexual organs as I am now stating—then, and only then, will you be expected to pay fifty cents to the cashiers as you pass out through the turnstiles.

Falling somewhere between “made” oddities and outright gaffs were the so-called Circassian beauties (figures 8.8 and 8.9). According to mid-nineteenth century racial theories, the purest and most beautiful examples of the Caucasian race were the Circassians, a tribe from Russia's Caucasus region. Allegedly, Circassian females were often stolen and sold into Turkish harems. P. T. Barnum sought to obtain a “beautiful Circassian girl” in 1864 and soon had one exhibited at his American Museum. She had supposedly been obtained by one of his agents who had disguised himself as a Turk and purchased her from the slave market in Constantinople. However, an alternative story says that Barnum's man was unsuccessful, so a bushy-haired local girl was dressed in Turkish attire and christened “Zalumma Agra, ‘Star of the East.’” There followed a succession of such beauties, distinguished by their Afro hairdos and Z-dominating names: Zribeda, Azela Pacha, Millie Zulu, Zoledod, Zuruby Hannum, Zoberdie Luti, Zula Zeleke, Zana Zanobia, and others. “Almost certainly,” reports one authority, “all of them were dressed-up local women who were taught to wash their hair in beer, then tease it, for the frizzy look of Circassian exotics” (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 181; Bogdan 1990, 235-38).

FIGURE 8.8. Alleged Circassian beauties were frequent subjects for photographer Charles Eisenmann. This is the carte de visite photo of Barnum's Zoe Meleke. It is autographed on the back. (Author's collection)

FIGURE 8.9. Cabinet-size photo of Zoe Zobedia, another Circassian beauty photographed by Eisenmann. (Author's collection)

Perhaps Barnum's most popular Circassian was a girl renamed Zoe Meleke (see figure 8.8). To disguise the fact that she spoke ordinary Yankee English and knew nothing of her “native” land, the following paragraph was placed in her circa 1880 pitch book, “Zoe Meleke: Biographical Sketch of the Circassian Girl”:

Being a very tender age at the time of her exodus from the land of her nativity, her recollections of Circassia are of course very imperfect and obscure; the associations of her far off country seem to her an imperfect and confused dream, rather than reality; and from her long severance from the people of her kind, she has partially, if not entirely lost remembrance of her native tongue; and yet, as has been stated elsewhere in this little sketch, she speaks the language of her adopted land with an ease and fluency that would puzzle the most cunning linguist that was not otherwise informed to discover that she was not a native of America. (quoted in Bogdan 1990, 239)

When interest in the Circassians flagged, there were attempts to exhibit men in the role, but these were unsuccessful. Some Circassian beauties doubled as sword swallowers, snake charmers, or other working acts. When Circassians were dropped as a sideshow feature by 1910, “moss-haired” women and similar bushy-headed oddities took their place (Bogdan 1990, 240). One was “Mlle. Ivy,” who was with Barnum & Bailey. She was said to have been “born with a wealth of luxuriant hair, so closely resembling ordinary moss that she is called ‘The Moss-haired Girl.’ She is a notable and pleasing addition to the army of living monstrosities and living curiosities” (Conklin 1921, 163).

Among these moss-haired wonders were genuine oddities Eko and Iko, who were twin albino blacks. They appeared with the Ringling Brothers sideshow for years, being part of the Congress of Freaks in the 1920s and 1930s (Barth and Siegel 2002, 102-9). Although they sported long ringlets rather than Afros, “the mosslike appearance of their pale yellow hair and beards,” says Gresham (1953, 101), made the pair an interesting and popular act. He notes that they were musicians and sat on the sideshow platform, “softly practicing on saxophone and guitar, hour after hour when not called upon by the inside talker to stand up and be seen.”

Gaffed Oddities

Human oddities are often gaffed—faked—in whole or in part. We have already seen (in chapter 4) how tricks can be used to make giants seem larger and midgets smaller.

William Durks, the “Two-Faced Man” (see figure 6.12), enhanced his split face to create an alternative sideshow identity and thus enable him to continue on the same show route with fresh billing. Durks, who had an eye and nostril on either side of a growth in the center of his face, later enhanced the effect; he used makeup to add an extra central “eye” (and two more “nostrils”), becoming the “Man with Three Eyes” (Taylor 1997, 40-47).

Bobby Reynolds (2001) recalls that when he solicited Bill Durks to perform in the sideshows at the Flemington, New Jersey, fair, “he was a janitor in his church and they were giving him thirty-five dollars a week and he was sleeping in the basement somewhere.” Later, when Durks used a little white makeup to create a third eye, Bobby had a better idea: “I literally wanted to have a plastic surgeon put a real eye in there, a glass glimmer, you know, and…he wouldn't go for it. And I had the guy and I set up, and I—you know, it only cost a G-note. I could've had this eye put in there, but he wouldn't go for it. And I said for two hundred dollars more I could've had it wink, you know. But he wasn't going for the plastic-surgeon crap.”

The irony is that the “Man with Three Eyes” was actually one-eyed, his other being vestigial. His stepdaughter, Dorothy Hershey, confirms the fact: “Daddy always wore a hat over his one eye because you could tell he only had one.” She adds:

His aunt was there when he was born and the eye came out onto a little thing—it was stuck out and nobody knew what it was. They thought he was dead, and they wrapped him in a little rug and put him underneath the woodstove until the doctor came. And he still wasn't dead when the doctor came, but that eye was ruined. They just wrapped him up and stuck him under the wood fire until the man could get there and that was the next day.

Then when the doctor come, he said, “This child is still alive!” So they naturally got him back to breathing real good and that's what happened. Bill Durks had a story behind him before he ever entered show business. He had a heck of a time getting into this world. (quoted in Taylor 1997, 46)

Another who altered a genuine deformity was a Texas field laborer named Pasquel Pinon, who had a large tumor protruding from his forehead. This was transformed, by the addition of facial features, into a second, seemingly vestigial, “head.” Pinon, who was billed as the “Two-Headed Mexican,” appeared in the Sells-Floto Circus sideshow in 1917. His career was brief, however, since Pinon died after only two years—possibly from the cranial tumor (Bogdan 1990, 84-85; Reese 1996).

Among the boldest of the gaffed oddities were bogus Siamese twins, such as Adolph and Rudolph, shown in a circa 1899 photograph. A comparison of their facial features reveals that they lack the close resemblance of identical twins, which conjoined persons always are (their condition resulting from incomplete division of one fertilized egg). In fact, a harness concealed under the young men's specially devised suit held Rudolph so that he seemed to grow from Adolph's waist (Bogdan 1990, 8; Reese 1996, 190).

Vestigial twins were sometimes partially or totally gaffed. Recall from chapter 5 the parasitic twin of Laloo, the Hindu, which was dressed as a female for effect, although it had a rudimentary penis. “Girl with Four Legs and Three Arms was so popular,” states Drimmer (1991, 33), “she was widely imitated by fraudulent sideshow operators.” He adds, “It wasn't uncommon for an attractive girl to appear before the public with a tiny deformed body of rubber strapped to her shapely torso.” Indeed, Gresham (1953, 103) reports: “I saw one cultured old lady displayed in an annex [i.e., blowoff], who was purported to be a double-bodied woman. She was shown in a subdued light and the vestigial twin, revealed when she opened her long cloak, was pretty sad. It was made of rubber, several shades darker than her own skin, and had dust in the cracks of its fingers and toes.”

Perhaps the most famous of the gaffed “double-bodied girls” was a veiled woman, Margurete Clark, who had a rubber doll hanging from her midriff. Actually, “Margurete” was Billy Logsdon, an alleged “half-and-half” (or hermaphrodite) (Taylor and Kotcher 2002, 143). Ward Hall (1991, 40) tells of several other female impersonators who transformed themselves into “double-bodied” acts. Among them were Shari Dean, Pinky Pepper, Claude Claudette, and Louise Logsdon, all working for various shows during the same time period, and all using the name Margurete (or Margaret) Clark. He admits: “I wanted one of these fake bodies for use on our own show. An elderly sideshow impresario agreed to make one for a considerable sum. It arrived C.O.D. He had simply removed the head from a toy rubber doll, and sewed it onto a woman's girdle. I took one look and threw it into the garbage can. It served me right for even thinking of fostering such a fake on the public.”

As to Billy Logsdon, the reputed half-and-half, the real variety is rare. Medically, a hermaphrodite is “an individual possessing genital and sexual characteristics of both sexes,” the clitoris usually being enlarged and so resembling a penis (Taber's 2001). Some half-and-half acts have been realistically gaffed. Ward Hall (2004) confided to me how a half-and-half he had exhibited had used a loop of elastic to draw his penis between his testicles to create the folds of a “vulva,” the remainder of the penis hanging down as if from a rudimentary organ. At least one physician was fooled by this trick.

However, the showing of genitalia in sideshows was increasingly considered “indecent exposure,” thus helping to give rise to a differently gaffed variety. Gresham (1953, 103-4) writes: “The side show half-and-half is usually a man with a very feminine voice which he can, for contrast in the show, lower to a husky baritone. He lets the hair on one side of his head grow long and has it waved, bleaches out the beard stubble on that side of his face, and if very ambitious may exercise the ‘male’ half of his body with adjustable dumbbells to provide an impressive difference in the muscular development.” Such a half-and-half's costume typically continued the split look. For example, Josephine-Joseph, the “Half Woman-Half Man,” (figure 8.10) wore a short black dress with plunging neckline and a stocking on “her” feminine side and a strongman's leopard skin on “his” masculine side (Fiedler 1993, 181-83). Thus styled, the half-and-half could pose and talk as a female facing one way and as a male facing the other way (Sideshow 2000).

FIGURE 8.10. Josephine-Joseph, the “Double-Bodied Half Woman, Half Man,” typified the gaffed presentation. (Pitch folder from author's collection)

“Alligator” people represent another type of sideshow oddity that is often bogus. With a secondhand banner, a willing subject, and a secret formula, “a small-time operator lacking the funds to book the real McCoy could manufacture one very inexpensively” (Meah 1996, 120). Famous showman Bobby Reynolds (2001) provided me with the secret recipe: Casco powdered casein glue was obtained from a hardware store, mixed with water, and tinted with “a little bit of McCormick's green [food] dye to get that look.” This solution is painted on the hapless show person. After it dries, perhaps assisted by a heater, he or she twists and flexes to help create the cracking pattern that simulates genuine ichthyosis (Meah 1996, 120). Reynolds (2001) described another ingenious touch: While the painted-on coating is tacky, a little sand is sprinkled on to give it a realistically rough texture. Then, during the exhibition, the show's talker would emphasize the effect by striking an old-fashioned kitchen match on the “alligator” person's skin.

Bearded ladies were often gaffed as well. Barnum's Madame Fortune was the genuine variety, but when her son proved to be hairy too, Barnum had an idea: he had the boy exhibited in dresses until the age of fourteen. “This was typical Barnum hokum, reports Mike Parker (1994, 91); “not satisfied with a bearded boy, he did his best to dupe punters into believing that they were actually viewing a bearded girl!”

Then there was Frances Murphy, the bearded lady who worked for the “Strange as It Seems” show at the New York world's fair. Mrs. Murphy lived in uptown Manhattan and commuted by subway. One night she was insulted by some drunken sailors, one of whom gave her beard a tug. She got up and landed a punch that sent him sprawling halfway down the subway car. She gave another sailor a black eye and slammed a third into a metal wall. The incident came to the attention of the police, who decided to look more closely at the assailant. As it turned out, “Mrs.” Murphy was a female impersonator who had, according to showman Lou Dufour, “a creditable record as an amateur boxer.” Dufour and his partner Joe Rogers were forced to remove the bearded “lady” from their payroll. Their incorrigible sideshow manager and talker, Nathan T. “Nate” Eagle, apparently kept a straight face as he told a newspaper reporter: “I have been completely taken in by this bearded mountebank. Unfortunately, there always is some unscrupulous person who will take advantage of an unsuspecting showman” (Dufour 1977, 124-25).

With such gaffed oddities, it was small wonder that in 1958 the New Yorker would characterize Eagle as “a carnival talker of almost unparalleled genius, a man of such deep, legitimate guile and persuasion that, over the past 43 years, with acts too varied and spurious to list fully, he has probably hoodwinked at least half the nation” (quoted in Nelson 1999, 121). Eagle allowed himself to be fooled on another occasion when he was a contractor for the Ringling sideshow attractions at Madison Square Garden. This time, “Brenda Beatty the Bearded Lady” was a fellow named Bernie Rogers. During the engagement, the sideshow was visited by a city vice detective who wanted to know, “Is the bearded lady a female impersonator?” As it turned out, the detective was there as a result of a signed complaint by “Stella the Bearded Lady”—a genuine one whose real name was Betty Macgregor. Eagle alerted “Brenda” and sent her to the hotel while he went to the office to meet the detective. He was accompanied by Dotty Williams, “a beautiful midget lady who had worked a number of years for Nate.” Hall (1991, 7-8) picks up the story: “Nate said, ‘She looks like a woman, dresses like a woman, and tells me she's a woman. That's good enough for me.’ Pointing at Dottie, he continued, ‘This little lady has worked for me several years. She looks like a woman, dresses like a woman, tells me she's a woman and during our years together, I have never asked her to raise her dress and drop her panties to show me she's a woman.’ Now directing his remarks to the detective he said, ‘You look like a man, you dress like a man, that's good enough for me.’” The detective, learning that the alleged bearded lady would be leaving the city in just five days, thought it over. “He then suggested he write to the complainant asking additional information,” says Hall. “By the time a return letter could arrive the show would be gone, eliminating the problem.”

A few months later, Bernie Rogers was killed in a Nevada traffic accident. Stella Macgregor continued to exhibit as “Stella the Bearded Lady,” appearing in the Ringling sideshow in Washington, D.C. in 1973 (the last really big sideshow assembled by Hall & Christ). Shortly afterward, Stella gave up show business for a career as an accountant (Hall 1991, 8).

Gaffing has had its inspired—and ridiculous—moments. Bobby Reynolds once had the idea to create his own “gorilla girl” (rather like “Monkey Girl” Percilla Bejano, discussed in chapter 6). He turned to Carrie Adams, an African American woman who performed a dance act for the bally. Bobby told her, “Carrie, we're going to make you a star.” And she replied, “Mr. Bob, when you start talkin’ like that it's gonna be bad.” But Bobby pacified her and soon was attaching crepe hair with spirit gum all over her face. “And,” he says, “I gave her the first Afro that I think ever was.” Bobby sat her on the bally platform with a silk scarf over her head and spieled: “Half animal, half human. Her mother was normal; what was her father? These things will be explained on the inside.” Inside, the “Gorilla Girl” would lecture on herself, Bobby says. She began:

“My name is Carrie Adams, and dah dah dah.” So it's a hot day, and we're working Winston-Salem, North Carolina, or something, and it's really hot, and she was perspiring quite well, and the hair is down like this, on the side, hanging there. And I take the scarf off and there's that, and I put it up with my elbow, and I says, “This is the way we go through life, exactly like this.” But she says, “Mr. Bob! Mr. Bob, you gotta put better glue on there. Me a black woman and you a New York Jew, they're gonna kill us down here! They're gonna kill us down here!” I said, “Well, I don't know what to do, Carrie.” She says, “I ain't gonna do this no more, honey, unless you give me some real good glue, ‘cause I ain't goin’ with this stuff, this spirit gum.” I says, well, I says,…“Oh I’ll figure it out.” So I got the stuff that we patched the tent with, it's called Brown Bear, and I put that on there and I glue this onto her face, and it held up for the whole day.

Unfortunately, it held better than that: it would not come off! Carrie used alcohol and rubbed and rubbed until her face puffed up, and Bobby decided to seek medical help. He finally found a doctor's office and went inside:

“Doctor, you're not going to believe this.” He says, “Try me, son.” I said, “Well, I got this lady, I glued hair on her face, and we charge a quarter to see her—half-animal, half-human—and I used this glue and I can't get….” He says, “I’d like to see this. Bring her in.” So I bring her in there, and he sits down and gingerly takes the hair off, and puts some salve on, and he says, “Son, I wouldn't be doin’ this for at least two or three weeks.”

Soon, Bobby had found a new latex adhesive, and he continued spieling “Half animal, half human” until the season ended (Reynolds 2001).

A gaffed presentation reminiscent of Bobby's Gorilla Girl was Lionella the Lion-Faced Girl, a grind show operated by the husband-and-wife team of Jeff and Sue Murray. “Direct from Germany,” read one banner; “Stranger than Rosemary's Baby,” proclaimed another. In fact, Lionella was the product of “a partial mask that was laboriously glued onto the poor girl's face every day with spirit gum adhesive” (Ray 1993, 35, 45).

Among various other gaffed oddities, one was unique. She was Koo-Koo the Bird Girl, who was with the Ringling sideshow for many years. She posed for the annual Congress of Freaks group photograph during the 1920s and was among the oddities featured in Tod Browning's 1932 film Freaks. She is always instantly recognizable, with her diminutive size, big round eyeglasses, feathered costume, and large single plume sticking straight up from the top of her head. Anton LaVey, the “Satanist,” who knew her, told Mannix (1999, 119): “She was not a freak at all. She was a gangling, homely girl from New York who dressed in special costumes and learned to exaggerate her worst features. She sucked in her cheeks and popped out her eyes to make herself look grotesque. Otherwise,” LaVey adds, “she was a nice, quiet person whom you'd never notice.”

Gaffed Acts

There are many other types of gaffs, and here we look at sideshow working acts that were gaffed.

Some acts, although essentially genuine, contain gaffed elements. For example, the previously mentioned tattooed strongman Rasmus Nielsen lifted an anvil allegedly weighing 250 pounds “by his breasts” (Gilbert 1996). Actually, according to anatomical wonder Melvin Burkhart, the anvil was gaffed, being made of aluminum. “It was heavy,” acknowledged Burkhart, “but it wasn't a steel anvil” (quoted in Taylor and Kotcher 2002).

Other strongman stunts were exposed by magical authority Walter B. Gibson, who gained fame as creator of the Shadow. (I once spent an enjoyable afternoon talking with Gibson while I was resident magician at the Houdini museum in Niagara Falls, Ontario.) In his delightful book Secrets of Magic: Ancient and Modern, Gibson (1967) tells of wooden dumbbells painted to look like they were made of iron, as well as hollow dumbbells that were “weighed on false scales, so that the strong man would appear to be lifting a weight of double size.” (See figure 8.11.)

Then there was the veritable Samson, or so he seemed, who could lift a dumbbell that supposedly weighed half a ton. With difficulty, two men wheeled it on stage. Two strong men from the audience were invited up but were unable to lift the great weight, whereupon the performer accomplished the feat to enthusiastic applause. However, says Gibson (1967, 62-64): “During one of his shows, two brawny steel workers stepped on the stage when this modern Samson called for volunteers. They braced themselves, determined to raise the dumb-bell, while the strong man smilingly looked on. As the men raised their shoulders, a strange thing happened. Up came the dumbbell and the truck with it! As they held the dumb-bell on their shoulders, the truck dangled below. The audience was momentarily stunned—then the truth dawned upon everyone.” As Gibson explains: “The dumb-bell was a hollow sham which weighed less than a hundred pounds. It had two slots which fitted into pins in the truck. When the truck was brought on, the dumb-bell was locked tightly in place and could not be lifted. The strong man simply turned it in the right direction, releasing the catches which enabled him to raise the dumb-bell with ease. The truck was so heavy that the average man could only push it, but the combined strength of the powerful steel workers brought the truck up with the dumb-bell.”

FIGURE 8.11. On the midway, in front of an unidentified show's banner line, a strongman hoists a large dumbbell with one hand. (Author's collection)

One type of sideshow exhibit that was “one hundred percent presentation” was the reputed “wild man” or “wild woman” act (Bogdan 1990, 260). Sharing the platform at P. T. Barnum's Second American Museum with the Two-Headed Girl (conjoined twins Millie-Christine) were the Wild Australian Children. Their pitch book called them Hoomio and Iola and claimed that they had been discovered by explorers, who first mistook them for kangaroos. Described as “long, sharp-toothed cannibals,” the pair was suspected of being the “link” between humans and the orangutan. However, according to P. T. Barnum: America's Greatest Showman (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 209), “The secret that only showmen back then knew was that in truth, the Wild Australian Children were severely retarded microcephalic siblings from Circleville, Ohio.”

In 1880 Barnum exhibited a pair of muscular dwarfs with long hair billed as the Wild Men of Borneo. Named Waino and Plutano, they were described in their pitch books as “so wild and ferocious…they could easily subdue tigers.” Their “capture” was portrayed in a chromolithographed advertisement showing armed men netting and caging them. Their act included demonstrations of strength and challenges to men in the audience to fight with the diminutive savages. Actually, they were retarded brothers from Ohio, Hiram and Barney Davis, and they continued to be exhibited past the turn of the century (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 270-71).

An 1890s exhibit, the Mexican Wild Man, featured a long-haired man dressed in furs. A circa 1891 photograph by Charles Eisenmann depicts him sitting on a “boulder” and holding up a hand to reveal grotesquely long fingernails (thus making him something of a “made” oddity and not just a gaffed one). His name was George Stall, and he had a successful run, but most of the wild men and women “were so transient that they changed from month to month” (Bogdan 1990, 260-61).

An example of the transient nature of the act comes from circus owner and showman W. C. Coup (1901). He told of visiting a dime museum and seeing a savage fellow with a hairy body and yellowed skin who ravenously ate raw meat thrown to him. He had purportedly been captured from a Kentucky cave, but Coup recognized him as having once been a different act with his own show. “For his new job he had dyed his skin yellow and his whiskers and his hair black. After being a wild man for awhile he resumed his former employment as ‘Ivanovitch, the hairy man.’”

Another illustration of the transient nature of the act is this amusing circus anecdote: A young man showed up on the grounds of the John Robinson family circus (in the 1860s) looking for a job. He had long hair and unkempt whiskers and seemed promising as a wild man exhibit. The circus man gave him a dollar to seal the bargain and ordered him to show up for work in the afternoon. But when he returned, he was scarcely recognizable; his hair and beard had been neatly trimmed. Questioned, he explained that he had decided to invest his dollar at the barber's to make a neat appearance for his new job (Bogdan 1990, 69).

Wild men have been portrayed in various ways. Once, to present a troupe of genuine Ubangi saucer-lipped oddities from French Equatorial Africa, showman Lou Dufour enlisted a muscular African American entertainer known as Woo Foo, whose act included fire walking and performing as a wild man. But there were amusingly unintended consequences after an aide to the troupe's aged chief died. As the tom-toms began their beat, says Dufour (1977, 55):

The gals in the troupe took to Lucas’ rhythm in a big way, picking up his motions and whooping it up in general. They seemed happy at last, but he began to get worried. The females were warming up to his body and a few of them had made it known to him that they would like to play house. The old chief was also happy. He started presenting Lucas with presents to show his appreciation for what he anticipated would be genuine aid in his time of need—Lucas realized now that the dead aide had performed all the stud duties in the family. He wanted to quit at once. We jacked up his pay by another twenty-five dollars a day to keep him contented. He was all made up and ready for a show when one of our belles grabbed him and tried to draw him into the grass hut. He screamed, “That's it! That's it!” and vanished, costume and all. His disappearance wrecked the show, proving how ungrateful performers can be when you give them their big break.

Somewhat similar in theme was a 1970s performer styled as an African witch doctor. His banner (by Snap Wyatt) depicted him holding aloft a human skull while dancing on a bed of nails (a sideshow mainstay discussed in the following chapter). A bonfire and an idol-like effigy provided additional atmosphere.

In carny parlance, the wild man or woman was often called a geek. In 1903 the Kansas state senate passed legislation forbidding the exhibition of “Glomming Geeks,” whom the lawmakers defined as “persons who eat live snakes, rats or other small animals” (McKennon 1972, 1:60). Biting the heads off snakes or chickens was a common geek stunt that turned the stomachs of some and disgusted most of the rest. Often such a geek was an alcoholic who performed in order to indulge his addiction and have a place to sleep (Keyser 2001; Bogdan 1990, 262). Showman Fred Olen Ray, in his Grind Show: Weirdness as Entertainment (1993, 14), explains that the act is no longer common, since such people can be seen for free on the street (sadly enough).

Among the female geeks or wild woman acts was Eeka, whose name was an evocative amalgam of geek, freak, and “eek.” Billed as Strange Eeka, she was the brainchild of Chuck and Al Renton, who “were, if not the best, certainly the most memorable Geek Show operators in the last half century” (Meah 1996, 138). Over several years, many women played the title role. A 1970s banner by Fred G. Johnson, headed “Eeka and Giant Snakes,” illustrates the interface of different sideshow acts—wild girl, geek, and snake charmer (the last featured in chapter 9). (See figures 8.12 and 8.13.)

Along with Eeka there was Zoma, whose 1950s banners—”Zoma Depraved” and “Zoma the Sadist”—depict her as a fanged savage with a mass of hair as wild as her alleged nature. She is shown alternately headlocking a hapless sailor and using a jagged knife to attack a wild girl rival (Johnson et al. 1996, 140-41).

A sideshow geek was the subject of William Lindsay Gresham's dark study, Nightmare Alley. The novel (and subsequent movie) traces the decline of a successful sideshow “mind reader” as he descends into alcoholism and, ultimately, the life of a geek. Transformed by dark grease paint, filthy underwear, a ratty wig, and still more drink, he becomes, states Leslie Fiedler (1993, 345), “a creature disgusting even to his own sodden self,” reduced to “gnawing off the heads of chickens for a drink.”

The irrepressible showman Bobby Reynolds (2001) once surprised me by saying, “I was a geek for a while.” He elaborated: “We used to kill chickens: You did that today they'd carry you away to the SPCA and beat the shit out of you. But we used to take the chicken and we'd grab it and we'd slit its neck and then squeeze it and the blood would hit the top of the ceiling of the tent and rain over and they'd let out this yell, ‘Yaaaaaahhhhhhh!’ And then you'd reach down and get a rope and throw it into the audience and they thought it was a snake—’cause you're in a pit with all these snakes—and they'd run out of the tent and that was it.” Did he actually eat the raw chicken? “No no no. What we did is we killed the chickens and we gave ’em to the cookhouse, and the cookhouse would wash them, clean ’em. We paid fifty cents for the chicken. They would buy ’em for a quarter, they would clean ’em up, and then we would have chicken at the cookhouse.” (The cookhouse is a great circus and carnival institution. It is not only the show's dining facility but also the place where show people engage in cutting up jackpots—the carny equivalent of “chewing the fat” and “swapping lies” [McKennon 1972, 2:146].)

FIGURE 8.12. Eeka was a wild-woman act featured in this line of banners by Fred G. Johnson, circa 1970s. (Author's collection)

FIGURE 8.13. Eeka was reprised for this Hall & Christ sideshow in Allentown, Pennsylvania, 2001. (Photo by author)

FIGURE 8.14. Single-O exhibit features a wild man who proved not to be wigged out, only wigged. (Photo by author)

A modern version of the wild man exhibit—perhaps an indication of how low the genre has sunk—is the single-O show I visited at the 2001 Erie County Fair in western New York. Its signage proclaimed “WILDMAN / He's Still Alive” but “Condemned to a Living Death” (figure 8.14). Promoted as “An Educational Exhibit,” it promised, “See the Horrors of Drug Abuse.” Other panels continued the message, with the word “Alive” repeated over and over. A mere took one inside to see a swarthy fellow in a fright wig. Chained in a tiny cell, he was responsive to visits by patrons, whereupon he flailed and rattled his chains. Humanely, a small electric fan provided the wild man some relief from the hot weather.