Performers - Part 26

 Sideshow Performers

Last time, we looked at circus performers.  Today we look at performers in circus sideshows.  Exhibits featured strongmen, magic tricks, daredevil stunts, and people who were physically unusual.

Strongman Eugen Sandow was born in Prussia (Germany) in 1867.  In 1885 he left Germany to avoid military service and became a circus strongman, traveling through Europe.

Later he became the father of modern bodybuilding, inventing exercise equipment, organizing the world's first bodybuilding competition in 1900, and touring to promote his ideas and display his muscles.  Frontal photos of him always have a fig leaf, but he had no problem with rear photos, as above.

Another strongman was German weightlifter Paul Trappen, above.  He had the reputation as the world's strongest man – he lifted 32 men weighing 4740 pounds – and the Barnum and Bailey circus tried to hire him in 1913, but World War I broke out, Trappen had to serve in the German army, and his circus career came to nothing.

American sideshows tended to feature the unusual.  The original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng (above) were an early example.  Now medically known as conjoined twins, they were from Siam (Thailand) and were joined at the chest.  They were exhibited by P.T. Barnum.

Some sideshows became freak shows, featuring attractions like the man with a tail, above, or the famous "elephant man," Joseph Merrick, who suffered from a medical condition that deformed him with huge bony growths on his head and body.

Other sideshow attractions were a bit less disturbing, like circus fat man Happy Jack Eckert.  He's so fat that even though he's frontally nude, you can't see anything.

One of the strangest sideshow attractions was Frank Lentini, the man with three legs.  Medically, it was the result of a conjoined twin that didn't fully develop in the womb, leaving only part of its body attached to Frank's body.

He was born as Francesco Lentini in Sicily in 1889.  His family moved to America when he was 8.  He joined the sideshow of the Ringling Brothers Circus as the Great Lentini.  For over 40 years, he worked for every major circus, including Barnum and Bailey.  The photo above clearly shows his extra leg hanging off his rear end.

In addition to the extra leg from his conjoined twin, he had an extra set of genitals.  That's right, he had two penises, as shown in the center of the photo above.  I think the things to the left and right of them are scrotums.  Both penises were said to be functional.  At least one of them was, because he married and had four children.

After the 1950s, sideshows declined as the public began to consider viewing human freaks as distasteful.  The performers themselves said that they had no objection to being exhibited, which was sometimes their best chance at earning money, but today, people with birth defects or medical conditions get medical treatment instead of being exhibited as freaks, and the sideshow has become almost extinct.

In case you were thinking about "third leg" jokes, watch the interview above at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.  Announcer Clare Balding congratulates British swimmers Tom Dean, left, and Matt Richards, right, on their gold medal victory in the men's 4x200 meter freestyle race.  Speaking to Matt about his performance in the third leg of the race, she says, "your third leg was just phenomenal."  See how the guys are struggling not to laugh.

Perhaps this is the future of the circus sideshow.  I found it on the blog Big Whack Attack.  Thanks, Pat!