LE PETOMANE – The Fartiste

Born in Marseilles, France in 1857 Joseph Pujol eventually became one of the most unique performers ever to grace a stage.

Legend has is that one day, while swimming, Pujol discovered his unique ability. As he took a deep breath before submerging, he felt water enter his rear. He soon discovered that, with abdominal control, he could deliberately suck water in through his anus and project it back out with great force. Further experimentation led him to discover that he could also do the same with air and, by varying pressures, he could produce distinct notes.
Pujol became the first flatulence musician. It was a skill that eventually made him the most well-known and highest paid entertainer in all of France.
Billed as ‘Le Pétomane’, Pujol began his career as a comedy act in 1887 at the age of 30. However, encouraged by success in his native Marseilles, Pujol began to take his ability seriously and within five years he was headlining the Moulin Rouge in Paris.
On stage, dressed in a fine red coat and black britches, Le Pétomane began each performance by explained to his audience that his emissions were odorless. After reassuring the masses, he would launch into his act. He would start with a comedy series of what he called ‘fart impressions’. He would emit a tiny toot, label it as the fart of a ‘new bride’, then flap a thunderous emission and label it as the same bride a week into the marriage. He did impressions of famous people, squeezed out a ten-second long squeaker, and then blew out candles using nothing by the gases emitted from his posterior.
For his finale Le Pétomane inserted a rubber tube into his anus, attached an ocarina to the end of the hose, and played popular tunes while inviting the audience to sing along.
He was a great success at the Moulin Rouge and eventually opened his own theater where he continued to perform until his popularity waned during WWI. He retired from show business in 1914 and in 1945 Joseph Pujol passed away at the age of eighty-eight.
Following his death, medical schools in Paris clamored to examine the late Le Pétomane’s famous anus. The family declined all inquires stating ‘there are some things in this life which simply must be treated with reverence.’

MADEMOISELLE GABRIELLE – The Half-Woman

Mademoiselle Gabrielle was a legless marvel from the early 1900’s. She was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1884 and began her exhibition career at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900 as The Half-Woman.
Her first foray into show business proved quite successful as she soon traveled to America to work with the Dreamland Circus Side Show, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Furthermore, in 1912, Mademoiselle Gabrielle embarked on a short-lived vaudevillian career with New York’s Hammerstein Theater. She eventually broke her contract with the theater agent and was subsequently sued for breach. A four year court battle resulted in a $2000 fine paid to the theater agent. Few human marvels appeared on the vaudeville stage, the Hilton sisters did so several years later, but Mademoiselle Gabrielle was a special case. She was beautiful, charming, graceful and demure enough for the general public to accept her deformity objectively.
Mademoiselle Gabrielle possessed no legs and, according to a 1929 London Life article, she possessed no stumps whatsoever. Her torso finished just below the hip gracefully. Her figure was impressive and she accentuated her physical qualities and natural beauty with opulent Victorian garb and striking jewelry. Mademoiselle Gabrielle was independent and never complained of her condition. She firmly believed that she was ‘no less a woman’, despite being physically half of a woman.
Mademoiselle Gabrielle attracted men in droves and married at least three times during her lifetime. First she was married to a man with the surname of Hunter and lastly to a German gentleman. Due to these surname changes, her later history is difficult to trace and her eventual date of demise is currently unknown.

BEN DOVA – The Drunk Daredevil

Ben Dova was born in Strasbourg on March 14, 1905 as Joseph Späh. After immigrating to the United States, as a young man, he took an interest in vaudeville and became quite an adept acrobat and contortionist.

Ben Dova was perhaps best known for his signature ‘convivial inebriate’ act. His act consisted of Dova playing a quirky drunkard. He would swaggeringly stagger out onto the stage, dressed in a rumpled top hat and wrinkled tails, and would feign falling into the audience while perform wonderfully limber moves. It appeared to the audience as though Ben Dova would topple at any moment and he teased such a disaster, only to steady himself and proceed. He would search, for a comical length of time, through his pockets for a cigarette which was in his mouth during the entire time. Then, at this point, he would climb a street lamp to light his cigarette.

While perched atop the lamp the lamp would begin to sway back and forth, eventually to an alarming degree. Dova would hold on and begin an astounding acrobatic routine heighten by his seemingly intoxicated state.

To some, Dova’s act was comedic and entertaining fluff, however in 1933 that all changed. For the benefit of American newsreels Ben Dova performed his act atop New York’s 56 storey Chanin Building with no net, no wires and no camera tricks. Theatre audiences were terrified by what they saw and genuinely feared for Dova’s personal safety. Fainting at the sight of the newsreel was documented.

Here, in all its unbelievable glory is the great Ben Dova performing atop the Chanin Building.

Dova’s remarkable survivability did not stop there. On May 3^rd, 1937 he was a passenger aboard the ill-fated airship The Hindenburg. He survived the disaster by climbing out a window and dangling until the airship was close enough to the ground to execute an acrobatic tumble. Physically he suffered only a sprained ankle in the ordeal but long after the disaster, many people wrongfully fingered Dova as a saboteur.

Dova continued performing his ‘convivial inebriate’ act well into the 1970’s before retiring to simple acting jobs. His most notable role was opposite Laurence Olivier in the 1976 film Marathon Man.

Ben Dova eventually succumbed to old age in September of 1986. He had lived his long life as a successful entertainer, daredevil and survivor.

image: Watch Ben Dova defy death atop New York’s Chanin Building on Youtube.

SARAH BIFFEN – The Limbless Artisan

The remarkable case of Sarah Biffen began with her birth in October of 1784. She was born without arms and only vestigial limbs to a family of farmers in Somerset. Despite this perceived handicap Biffen learned to not only perform simple tasks, but to perform extraordinary feats of dexterous artistry as well.

At the age of twelve, the Biffen family contracted their unwanted daughter to a showman named Mr. Dukes. Dukes exhibited Sarah throughout England and it was during these travels that he taught the young lady how to paint. It was initially done to improve her value as an attraction as the public loved to observe unique people accomplish rather mundane tasks. It was a precedent set long before by other limbless attractions. Crowds would gasp at the sight of limbless marvels brewing tea, shaving or firing pistols with accuracy. While Mr. Duke’s greatest expectation was to have Sarah churn out a sketch or two, her artistic talent far surpassed any expectations.

The paintings of Sarah Biffen progressed steadily in skill, precision and beauty. Soon people flocked to watch her paint, perched upon a pedestal, and they paid large admissions for the privilege. During her early years Biffen was best know for producing landscapes and miniature painted portraits on ivory cameos and medallions. She sold her creations for three guineas each and she could hardly keep up with the demand.

During her appearance at St. Bartholomew’s Fair in 1808, the Earl of Morton paid Miss Biffen a visit. The Earl had heard of the painting ‘Limbless Wonder’ but was not prepared for the talent the girl possessed. In fact, the Earl was so impressed that he sponsored Sarah and made possible private lessons from Royal Academy painter, William Craig. From there, her popularity soared. Her paintings were eventually accepted into the Royal Academy and The Society of Artists awarded her a medal in 1821. The Royal Family commissioned her to paint their portraits in miniature and she did so for Queen Victoria among others. Also with the aid of her benefactor ,the Earl, Sarah set up a studio on Bond Street in London.

Sarah Biffen became so famous that Charles Dickens mentioned her in Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit.

She fell on hard times in 1827 when her friend and benefactor, The Earl of Morton, passed away. However Queen Victoria soon awarded her a Civil List pension and she retired to a private life in Liverpool. She made a brief return some 12 years later, under the married name of Mrs. Wright, but her popularity never again reached its previous fervor.

Sarah Biffen died October 2, 1850 at the age of 66. She is buried in St James Cemetery in Liverpool.

image: Engraving of Sarah Biffen from a self-portrait.

RADICA & DOODICA – The Indian Siamese Twins

The term ‘Siamese twin’ is synonymous with the medical condition of conjoined twins. The slang term is due to the mid 19th century popularity of Chang and Eng Bunker, joined twins who originally hailed from Siam. The brothers were so popular that their billing as Siamese twins came to represent their condition and not their nationality, even though the depth of their intermingled connectivity was not overly impressive compared to conjoined twins like the Tocci Brothers. The Bunker brothers were primarily joined at the chest by only a band of cartilage.

In 1888 in Orissa, India twin girls were born connected in a similar manner. While the birth of conjoined twins was often viewed as highly unusual, the superstitious residents of their village saw the girls as ‘symbols of divine wrath’ and lobbied for their expulsion. Their father, distraught by the appearance of his daughters, moved to physically separate the girls by his own hand but local officials rescued the infants and the monks of a local temple took over their care. The monks named the girls Radica and Doodica. In 1893 Radica and Doodica were sold to London showman Captain Colman. The sisters began a career exhibiting themselves across Europe often paired with another Colman prodigy, a dwarf billed as the smallest man in the world, Peter the Small. It has been said that Colman treated the girls as an adoptive father and not exclusively as an exploitive promoter. The girls seemed happy and they had each other, until Doodica developed tuberculosis in 1902.
In Paris Dr. Eugene-Louis Doyen separated the sisters in an effort to save Radica. Doyen was a pioneering medical filmmaker and filmed the twins’ surgery as La Separation de Doodica-Radica.
The operation was considered a success initially and Doodica passed shortly afterward from tuberculosis. However, the separation came too late as Radica contracted tuberculosis from her sister and passed on in 1903.
She spent the last year of her life in a Paris sanatorium, alone.
Sections of Doyen’s filmed separation surgery were last shown in the UK documentary series The Last Machine in 1995. Previously, the film was often shown in grindhouse styled sideshows spliced into exploitation ‘freak’ films.

CAROLINE CRACHAMI – The Sicilian Fairy

Recently a number of television shows, documentaries and circulating picture sets have generated great interest in the genetic phenomena of primordial dwarfism. These tiny people, these seemingly fragile, delicate and near ethereal human beings conjure images of gossamer fairies and quaint folk stories. Such enchanting imagery is likely the root of this new interest in the condition.

The first individual to be medically cited with what we now call primordial dwarfism was Caroline Crachami. The story of ‘The Sicilian Fairy’ is inspiring, tragic and empowering all at once depending on which version of her biography one believes. Regardless, her story is one that should be told and remembered for it demonstrates the greed often found average men and chronicles the careless exploitation of a remarkable human being. According to the pamphlet entitled Memoirs of Miss Crachami, the Celebrated Sicilian Dwarf Caroline Crachami was born at Palermo in Sicily on November 15, 1815. Caroline Crachami purportedly only weighted one pound at birth and measured a scant eight inches in height. Caroline was the only unique child of five siblings and, despite claims of exhibitions in Panama, Miss Crachami first came to major public prominence during an 1824 visit to England. While there Miss Crachami was accompanied by one Dr. Gilligan who acted as her agent and he exhibited her in Liverpool, Birmingham and Oxford before finally taking her to London where she was exhibited in Mayfair.
Crachami caused a great amount of sensation and proved to be incredibly popular. Hundreds of people would queue up daily and pay one shilling admission to view the nine-year-old nineteen inch marvel. For the most part, inside the exhibit, Miss Crachami would simply wander around the stage while listening to music. For a few shillings more one was permitted to handle the tiny girl, permitted to dance a little with her, to pat her head and feed her a biscuit or two. King George IV was and admirer as were three hundred members of the English nobility. More than three thousand members of high society visited and played with the doll-like Crachami and likely thousands more common folk did so as well.
The exhibiting schedule was gruelling and on June 3rd of 1824, after receiving more that two hundred patrons, the tiny Miss Crachami collapsed and expired during exhibition.
Her exhibitor, Dr. Gilligan, shopped Crachami’s earthly remains around to various medical institutions before selling them to the anatomist John Hunter for $500, and this is where the tale takes a tragic twist. Caroline was a child far younger than the nine years she was billed as. Modern examinations of her remains place her age at no more than three. She was also likely not Sicilian and probably hailed from Ireland where her parents read of her death in the Cork Inquirer. Her father quickly ferried to England in an attempt to halt any dissection and autopsy. However he arrived too late and Caroline’s bones had already been stripped bare.
The skeleton of Caroline Crachami now resides at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons together with a few mementoes of her life including a pair of her silk stockings, her slippers, a ruby ring and casts of her face and arm. There Caroline forever stands next to The Irish Giant Charles Byrne, his seven foot seven skeleton standing as a silent protector.
image:
Portrait of Caroline Crachami by Alfred Edward Chalon.

PERCILLA – The Monkey Girl

The case of Julia Pastrana has long been held as a tragic example of exploitation. The remarkable bearded prodigy lived a life of manipulation and in death her body was abused and disgraced by callous souls and ignorance. The life of her contemporary could have easily followed the same shadowed path however her story is of true love, inner beauty and respect.
During her long life Percilla Lauther was known by many names. Originally she was descriptively dubbed ‘the hairy little girl’ and later as ‘the monkey girl’, but it is quite likely that she will forever be remembered by those dear to her as Percilla Bejano – loving wife of Emmitt the Alligator-Skinned Man.
The hirsute Percilla was born on April 26 of 1911 in the Puerto Rican town of Bayamon. Percilla had been born with hypertrichosis, she possessed two rows of teeth and drew immediate attention from the public and the medical community. Percilla’s father was a native of Spain and he did not know what to make of his hairy daughter initially. Percilla’s parents traveled to New York City seeking answers from American doctors and there they remained for seven months until Percilla’s father developed the idea of exhibiting his daughter for profit.
Percilla’s father was not a greedy man. He merely saw an opportunity to make the most of the situation nature had thrust upon his daughter. However his limited knowledge of English and business made promoting Percilla difficult and he approached showman Karl. L. Lauther for assistance. Lauther was an accomplished promoter and he owned and operated several shows during his lifetime. He took an instant interest in Percilla and hired her on the spot. Lauther also hired an assistant to help Percilla’s father care for the child after his wife returned to Puerto Rico. That arrangement was short lived however, as Percilla’s father was shot and killed in Gainesville. Upon his death, and according to his final wish, Lauther adopted young Percilla as his own daughter.
Percilla never said anything ill of her adoptive father, thus one may assume that he was a compassionate and loving man. In fact all evidence indicates that despite exhibiting Percilla for profit, Lauther was extremely sensitive to the public perception of his adoptive daughter. Lauther disliked the fact that the public took to calling Percilla a ‘monkey girl’ and verbally lashed out at anyone bold enough to call her a ‘freak’. But the ‘Monkey Girl’ moniker stuck and Lauther gave in and began to publicly pair Percilla with a trained chimpanzee named Josephine. He may have had the last laugh, however, as the two attractions were juxtaposed. Percilla would warmly and graciously welcome guests to her exhibit while Josephine would rudely smoke cigarettes and spit.
In the late 1930′s, while performing with the Johnny J. Jones Exposition, Percilla met fellow marvel Emmitt Bejano, the Alligator-Skinned Man. Despite her heavy beard and his ichthyosis a sweet romance blossomed between the unique couple. The pair saw past their physical differences. Emmitt was a man with calloused skin who spent performance intermissions submerged in vats of ice water because he could not sweat. Emmitt was quite literally ‘thick skinned’ and he had a ‘hard shell to crack’ but beneath he was a compassionate, gentle, charming and passionate man. Percilla, despite looking more beast than beauty, was elegant, eloquent and possessed an enchanting singing voice. Before long Percilla realized that the gentle Emmitt was the love of her life and the two eloped in 1938.
A year later, the couple welcomed a daughter, Francine, into their family. Unfortunately pneumonia extinguished her life after a scant four months.
When Emmitt and Percilla returned to exhibition they were promoted as the World’s Strangest Married Couple. Percilla and Emmitt shared the stage and most notably worked for Ringling Brothers and other shows successfully for over a decade. They appeared together in the 1980 film Carny opposite Jodie Foster and Gary Busey. Eventually the couple grew tired of life in the public eye and opted to retire to a private life in Gibbstown, Florida. There the two remained madly in love for many more years. Their union ended with Emmitt’s passing in 1995.
Percilla carried on, clean shaven for the first time in her life, and briefly appeared in various documentaries and on the Jerry Springer show where she charmed the audience with stories of her beloved Emmitt and by shyly singing his favourite song ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’.
Percilla herself passed away in her sleep in February of 2001. She is dearly missed by all who knew her.