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The Real Sideshow Performers that Inspired “American Horror Story: Freak Show”

The tv show “American Horror Story” grabbed our attention, as well as that of anyone interested in sideshow attractions, with their latest hit season “Freak Show”, that follows the travails of a failing traveling circus and its performers. Despite some amount of grousing from clowns, who weren’t pleased by the portrayal of yet another scary clown on the show (sorry dudes, clowns are freaky), overall this season has hit a high-mark for the show according to many fans. But how many of the show’s ‘freaks’ were close to reality? More than you’d think.

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The show’s very creepy ghost of Edward Mordrake, played by Wes Bentley, was based on a real guy (arguably). The real Edward, or at least the apocryphal tale relating to him, suffered from a second face on the back of his head which he claimed whispered horrible things to him at night, and led to him taking his own life at 23.  Many had since assumed the tale too fantastic to be true, but there have been numerous other examples of people born with more than one face, or at least elements of a second one, so it’s not possible to rule out Edward’s tale entirely.

More specifically recognizable is the origin of Pepper, the microcephalic or “pinhead” featured in the show as played by Naomi Grossman, certainly based upon the famous Schlitzie, who appeared in Tod Browning’s famous film “Freaks”.

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Schlitzie actually appeared in another film as well, “The Sideshow” and worked in multiple circuses to great success up until his death in 1971.

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As human mutations go, ectrodactyly fingers aren’t that uncommon; most digit disorders are inherited. But still, a number of sideshow performers became quite famous as ‘lobster boys’, probably none more so than Grady Stiles, whose family had carried the trait since the 1800s, and whose father had worked the sideshow circuit himself. In “American Horror Story”, Jimmy Darling, played by series regular Evan Peters, plays the lobster boy of the show who pays tribute to Stiles not just in sharing the condition, but in referencing the actual convoluted murder plot that involved Stiles’ own family paying another freak to murder him. The actual Grady Stiles appearance is shown in the show’s opening credits, but Evan, who is quite the looker, seems to have more in common with handsome sideshow performer Fred Wilson, who worked in the second half of the 19th century.

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Polycephalics, or two-headed animals, make their appearance on the show in the form of Sarah Paulson playing both Bette and Dot Tattler, dicephalic twins with two heads and at least the physical appearance of shared everything else. While their story arc seems closer to the famous Daisy and Violet Hilton, two barely-conjoined twins who went on to some degree of vaudeville fame (and appeared in “Freaks” themselves), the Tattler’s joining is considerably more rare and similar to Abigail and Brittany Hensel, pictured above, who had their own reality show recently on TLC.

Of course, many of the actors on the show are real freaks like Rose Siggins, who plays Legless Suzi, Mat Fraser who plays Paul the Illustrated Seal who suffers from Phocomelia Syndrome, and Jyoti Amge, the world’s smallest living woman, who charmingly plays Ma Petite. It’s important to remember that although it can be shocking at first to encounter people who have these rare conditions, that they are people too with feelings just like you. They want to be treated like everybody else and it’s really quite rude to do otherwise. However, I’m sad to report that Angela Bassett’s three-breasted woman on the show doesn’t appear to based on a real person so much as the famous mutant prostitute in the movie “Total Recall”. Recent reports to the contrary appear to be a hoax. I’m afraid I might have some trouble keeping my ‘eyes up here’, as it were, if she were real.

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The Weird and Wonderful Sideshow Art of Fred G. Johnson

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If you’ve been to The Museum of the Weird, and we hope by now if you’re reading our blog you’ve at least looked into it, you know we’re pretty into the aesthetic of the classic sideshow. The trick was always to come up with a bunch of freaky looking art with exaggerated claims and proportions to entice the marks, er, customers, into a tent or series of tents to see a whole series of ‘freaks’, curiosities, and performers for one price. Sideshow banners festoons the walls of The Museum of the Weird (by Mark Frierson) and we even have original art in the classic style for our exhibits that you can buy in postcard or poster form. But where did this style begin?

The lurid and colorful banners meant to draw in the unwary were the most prominent form of visual art found in circuses in the first half of the 20th century. In America, from the 1870’s to the end of the sideshow era in the 1960s, the banners were almost ubiquitous. First used in England during the 1800s they are the oldest surviving form of fairground decoration.

Recently the style has been re-examined as a form of folk art painting, being featured in publications such as Folk Art, Connoisseur, and Applied Arts Magazine. The original works have since entered the art world as a valuable collectible for enthusiasts for early folk art.

One of the most sought after sideshow banner creators was Fred G. Johnson who worked for 65 years creating banners for circuses from the tiny to huge, from small traveling shows to Ringling Brothers. Like most of these artists, he came from no traditional art background, having learned in his spare time from an artist he was doing odd jobs for. Now his works hang in major museums and have been auctioned off at Sotheby’s in New York. Quite a voyage for the work of a man who started out cleaning out paint pots.

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Go check out a huge archive of his works at Cult of the Weird

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The Spider-Sisters Finally Find Love

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Meet Ganga and Jamuna Mondal, 45 year old conjoined twins who have spent a lifetime on the road with a traveling circus in India. Sadly, the pair were abandoned by their impoverished family when they were teenagers who believed they were a ‘sign of God’s fury’. Fortunately for them, they were found by the circus and have lived their lives in relative comfort. But not so much human comfort.

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Enter Jasimuddin Ahmad, a school teacher and part time sound engineer for the circus. ‘It was love at first sight. When we met Jasimuddin we both felt this was a man who would truly love us. And he does – he loves us straight from the heart,’ said Ganga. Jamuna added: ‘We have been very happy since he came into our lives. We have suffered in the past but we don’t want to suffer anymore. We really hope to spend the rest of our lives with him.’

I’m not one to stand on ceremony, but their community is, which is why they have no plans at this time for a formal union of any kind. But it’s a love story for two women who thought they’d never find someone and I say, whatever works.

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Conjoined Twins about to beat long-held longevity record

This Saturday, history will change…forever. At least in a Guinness Book of World Records sort of way. Already extremely rare (like, between 1 in 50,000 births to 1 in 200,000) and with only a 25% chance of early survival, while a staple of the traveling freakshow (although many were faked), conjoined twins aren’t exactly something you see every day. Which is why Ronnie and Donnie Gaylon of Beavercreek Ohio are celebrating.

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The brothers are about to hit the 62 years, 8 months and 7 day mark, which will make them the longest lived conjoined twins in recorded history. They’ve been counting down for months and have been excitedly marking down the days on the calendar. Hoping the Guinness Book contacts them in October when they celebrate their 63rd birthday is hopefully going to be the absolute cake topper for the pair.

Having lived in poor health for years, the community raised 170,000 dollars for the brothers to renovate their home where they were being cared for by their younger brother Jim and his wife. “It was to the point where they couldn’t do anything on their own anymore,” said Jim. But since getting community help and a special bed donated by Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, their health and disposition has greatly improved.

The twins performed in circus sideshows up until 1991 when they retired, and since getting all the help, they’ve been able to regularly attend baseball games, go fishing, and have a normal life. But the big goal is to outlast the famous Chang Twins.

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More power to you, Ronnie and Donnie. The Museum of the Weird is rootin’ for ya! The Chang’s reign of long-lived terror will finally be over.

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Classic Sideshow Acts: The Girl into the Gorilla

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A crowd is brought into a darkened tent. A beautiful girl is in a cage, often in jungle clothes (tiger-skin bikini and the like), and she stares forlornly out into the crowd. Sometimes it’s explained that she’s a genetic abnormality found deep in the forbidden jungles of the Amazon. Sometimes, she was the sad by-product of a mad scientist’s experiments. Regardless, the crowd knows what they’re there for: this beautiful girl to change into a gorilla right in front of their very eyes.

This trick, or varieties of it, has been a staple of the sideshow since the 19th century and it’s still performed today in a variety of forms. The technique is called “Pepper’s Ghost”, named after the British scientist and inventor John Henry Pepper who expanded upon and improved an earlier trick called the “Dircksian Phantasmagoria”. Using angled glass, lights, and a second identical room that is slowly transposed or morphed onto the primary, the concept is used daily at Walt Disney World in The Haunted Mansion, is seen in the Bond movie “Diamonds are Forever”, various museums in the UK, and even in an episode of the children’s show. “The Magic School Bus”.

Regardless, we miss the wonder of the original sideshow effect, as the woman became a beast, burst through her bars and chased the screaming audience out of the tent past carnies prepared for the mad rush of laughing and scared locals. While we don’t (currently) have a Girl-to-Ape attraction at The Museum of the Weird, we like to think we capture the spirit of these traveling shows. The next time you’re in Austin, Texas, make sure to come see us down on historic 6th street…and prepared to possibly run screaming out of a room yourself!