I owe Robert Wadlow, the tallest man who ever lived, a big thank you. An 8-foot, 11 ½ inch thank you, if you will.
As a child, I repeatedly read about Wadlow's enormity in the first several pages of the annual Guinness World Records books. There were only a few images, but they were powerful, and they planted the seed for my lifelong curiosity into human anomalies.
My passion for the world of oddities grew over the years, and eventually put me on the path to what was a personal dream project: writing American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History's Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers (Tarcher/Penguin).
This month marks the 10-year anniversary of its publication. Research for the book led me on a series of odd and very unique adventures as I explored both well-known and obscure performers of the past, and met with many of the present. I'll be sharing these these experiences, including the ones that follow, at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn this Friday night, November 20th.
A trip to Gibsonton, Florida was a must. Gibsonton, or Gibtown as it's better known, was the winter home for many sideshow personalities in the mid-twentieth century. Today, only a few are left, but among them are showmen Ward Hall and Chris Christ. I spent days at their home listening to their stories of giants, little people, bearded ladies, half men/half women and more. Hall, now in his early eighties has been in the business since the age of fifteen and currently runs the World of Wonders sideshow with Christ, his partner since 1967. We were joined by Pete Terhurne, a dwarf who had been performing with Hall for nearly 50 years. Sadly, Terhurne has since passed.
On the other coast, in Fillmore, California, showman Bobby Reynolds shared his many tales in a room with walls covered in circus and sideshow posters and decorated with various memorabilia, including a two-headed baby in jar. I was joined at Reynolds' home by George "The Giant" McArthur, who learned to swallow swords from the legendary impresario and is now the world's tallest sword swallower.
Back at my own home, I welcomed Harley Newman to learn more about his history and amazing abilities. My wife, Liz Steger-Hartzman, photographed him performing numerous stunts, such as blowing fireballs in our driveway. The neighbors didn't seem to notice. Years later, Newman taught me how to be a human blockhead -- a stunt in which a nail, or in my case, a plastic cocktail sword, is inserted through the nose and into the head.
Old articles, books and various pieces of ephemera offered information about past performers, including one of my favorites, Laloo. Born with a parasitic twin, he had a malformed brother attached to his torso which proved to be a spectacular attraction. Though, as an old illustrated advertisement for one of his appearances demonstrated, at least one showman heightened the drama by billing the twin as a sister. Just to make the sight a little more curious.
The Hilton Sisters, on the other hand, were fully formed conjoined twins who enjoyed a successful career in vaudeville for many years, but suffered through great turmoil behind the scenes and eventually left the business with barely a dime. Their story was recently brought back into the spotlight on Broadway, with a second run of the musical, Sideshow. The program for one of the Hiltons' shows, below, offers a fascinating photographic glimpse into their lives.
In other cases, I had the pleasure of speaking with surviving family members and descendants of performers. The great-great-granddaughter of Eli Bowen, the Legless Acrobat, provided whatever information she had about her famous relative, along with images from her family's archive. And Adena Baker, wife of the Smallest Man in the world, Pete Moore, shared her remarkable love story with me, beginning with the moment they met at a sideshow to their long, arduous road to marriage. Moore was afflicted with a condition called osteogenesis imperfect. Baker, too, provided various photos from her personal albums, including the one below with Pete accompanied by snowmen in Alabama.
In the ten years since the book's publication there's been an exciting growth in the world of sideshow, with new performers taking the stage, places like the Venice Beach Freakshow displaying sideshow's rich and remarkable history and showcasing its present -- live on stage and recently on national television with AMC's Freakshow. I've met many more performers through articles for Bizarre magazine, AOL Weird News and this Weird News section on The Huffington Post. Social media has opened up even more ways to communicate with performers and to find relatives of past performers, which has led to new and interesting connections.
With information becoming more plentiful and wondrous than ever, I could easily fill a second volume of American Sideshow -- which I would be quite happy to do. Tarcher, are you reading this?
Hear more about American Sideshow, along with Freaky Girls of the Sideshow, in my podcast discussion with Buck Wolf and The Lady Aye.
Photos of Ward Hall, Bobby Reynolds, and Harley Newman are © Liz Steger-Hartzman. Photo of Pete Moore is courtesy of Adena Baker. Photos of Laloo and the Hilton Sisters are courtesy of the author's collection.