Trailer for Tod Browning’s Freaks, 1932. 2:09 min.
Some Call Them Freaks.
A sensitive account of some extraordinary human oddities. Host Richard Kiley. Aired in 1982.
“Let her try it! Let her try doing anything to one of us.”
Made this last night for my friend Coleen’s birthday. “We accept her! We accept her! One of us!”
i want this
“On the platform to your left we have Artie Atherton, the living skeleton. Artie weighs as much as a good-sized New Jersey mosquito. He is so thin that when he takes a bath he is afraid to pull the plug out. Last night, one lady wanted to borrow him for a hat pin.”
Arthur Moll, who took the stage name Artie Atherton, was born in Saginaw, Michigan on January 30, 1890 - weighing just two pounds at birth. Until the age of six, he had to be carried around on a pillow, as he was too frail to walk; he graduated to a wheelchair between the ages of six and ten, and then walked on crutches till the age of 17. He joined the Barnum and Baily Circus in 1909 and held a job as a newspaper reporter in Chicago during the off-season. He worked as a talker for the circus as well as a freak, and styled himself as “The Skeleton Dude”, after the famously dapper fellow skeleton James Coffey.
Artie gave his (surely exaggerated) statistics as follows: he weighed 38 pounds and measured 3 ½ inches around the biceps, 16 inches around the waist, 6 ¼ inches around the thigh, and wore size 3 shoes and size 6 gloves. There was no pathological reason for his size, he claimed - he was merely “small boned”. Despite his size, he enjoyed good health - he never felt ill and he ate three square meals a day.
Artie married a circus snake charmer, Blanche Buckley, and the couple had two average-weight children: Mary Adelaide (“Addie”), born in 1913, and Harold, born in 1915. Harold weighed 12 pounds at birth; Adelaide weight nine.
At the age of three and a half, Adelaide was entered in – and won – a “Perfect Baby” contest in New York City. A woman onlooker remarked “that’s the result of having eugenic parents,” noting that Mama Atherton was a healthy good-looking woman. The lady continued, “I’d like to see (her husband). He’s as big as a house and strong as an ox, I’ll bet - a policeman probably.” Just then, Artie walked up, gave his wife a buss, took his children by the hand and calmly walked away leaving the onlooker and the eugenics movement with egg on their faces and something to think about! Little Addie’s ”perfection” ran counter to the pro-eugenics attitudes that were prevalent in the 1910s – her father was a show freak, hardly what eugenicists considered a “fit” specimen, yet he had managed to produce two “ideal” children.Sadly, Artie came to an early end while visiting Pontiac, Michigan, in July of 1920. He was hit by a car while crossing the street and died of his injuries.
![The Doll Family, 4 of the most famous little people of all time, were, in actuality, three sisters and a brother. Grace, Harry, Daisy, and Tiny Doll were born Frieda, Kurt, Hilda, and Elly Schneider in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. in the 1910’s and 1920’s. Kurt and Frieda first started performing under the names Hans and Gretel, before eventually adopting the stage names Harry and Grace. Shortly after arriving in the U.S., they also “borrowed” the last name of the man who brought them here, Earles. When Hilda and Elly joined their brother and sister in the U.S., they also adopted the last name of Earles, and became known professionally as Daisy and Tiny. After the death of Mr Earles, the four siblings changed their stage name to Doll, which they would go by until their retirement in the mid 1950’s. Well known for their roles in such films as The Unholy Three (1925), Special Delivery (1927), the Laurel and Hardy short Sailor’s Beware(1927), and the cult classic Freaks (1932), the Doll family left the movie industry in favor of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus, where they were a popular and familiar feature until their retirement. Sadly, all four members of the family have passed away. Grace died in 1970, Daisy in 1980, Harry in 1985 and Tiny in 2004.
[L to R: Daisy, Grace, Tiny, Harry.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5zacdAHvK1qjgf7bo1_500.jpg)
The Doll Family, 4 of the most famous little people of all time, were, in actuality, three sisters and a brother. Grace, Harry, Daisy, and Tiny Doll were born Frieda, Kurt, Hilda, and Elly Schneider in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. in the 1910’s and 1920’s. Kurt and Frieda first started performing under the names Hans and Gretel, before eventually adopting the stage names Harry and Grace. Shortly after arriving in the U.S., they also “borrowed” the last name of the man who brought them here, Earles. When Hilda and Elly joined their brother and sister in the U.S., they also adopted the last name of Earles, and became known professionally as Daisy and Tiny. After the death of Mr Earles, the four siblings changed their stage name to Doll, which they would go by until their retirement in the mid 1950’s. Well known for their roles in such films as The Unholy Three (1925), Special Delivery (1927), the Laurel and Hardy short Sailor’s Beware(1927), and the cult classic Freaks (1932), the Doll family left the movie industry in favor of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus, where they were a popular and familiar feature until their retirement. Sadly, all four members of the family have passed away. Grace died in 1970, Daisy in 1980, Harry in 1985 and Tiny in 2004.
[L to R: Daisy, Grace, Tiny, Harry.]
The on-screen romance between Hans and Frieda was very subdued because the roles were being played by real life brother and sister Harry Earles and Daisy Earles.
