Episode 29 - Tod Browning’s Freaks

"Gooble gobble, one of us!" We accept you into the fascinating world of 1932's Freaks, an MGM film so controversial that it was banned in the UK for three decades.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
It's The Dearly Departed podcast, featuringyour host, historian Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. It's The Dearly DepartedPodcast. And I am Mike Dorsey and

(00:24):
I am Scott Michaels Hi, andtoday we're doing a film that is certainly
I think close to your heart,Scott Todd Browning's Freaks from nineteen thirty two.
Yes, yeah, it's it's.Um. I think I saw this
the first time in the early eightiesthat was, you know, so scandalous

(00:45):
and uh and I fell fell inlove with this movie because it's just so
bizarre and uh. Yeah, soI'm thrilled, thrilled. Yes, and
several people have recommended that we umthat we do this one and are excited
that we're doing it finally, SoI'm really excited for this conversation. Um,
Before we get into that, Iwanted to get into new news since

(01:07):
we did our last show, Newsof the Week. First of all,
you can you can buy the cryptthat is next to Marilyn Monroe right now,
the one is kind of between herand Hugh Hefner. I guess no,
I think it's I think it's belowher below her. Okay yea,

(01:32):
And it is being auctioned off.Starting bid is supposed to be two million
dollars. Yeah, that's what theysay. When Hugh Heffner bought next to
Maryland. Uh, he did thatlike in the nineties, I think,
and or even eighties, you know. And I was doing some research on
that just this week about that thepaper. The newspaper articles are vague because

(01:55):
they're saying it's like two spaces over, but there's it's her and Hugh in
a wall. There's no nothing,you know, neck between them. But
I believe it was Jerry Herman,the playwright, the musician, the composer,
playwright, and and he had itbelow her, but I think it
was two spaces below her. Soyeah, but that's the woman above.
I remember a couple of years agoshe was trying to sell it Puncher because

(02:17):
he's the one that was supposed tobe flipped upside down and facing on top
of Maryland. That did really happen, They really did do that, but
she was asking for some extortionate amountof money. But I don't think that
ever showed up. So who knowswhat's going to happen. But Jerry Herman
is buried in New York, sohe's not using it. Yeah, he
bought it. Um. He's Ithink most famous he for writing I believe

(02:40):
the score, composing the score forHello Dolly, one of his bigger musicals.
But he had bought it for seventyfive thousand back in nineteen ninety seven
because he tested he was HIV positiveand he I believe he was living in
la at the time, so hebought it and then he ended up living
to a ripe old age. Ithink he lived be like eighty eight and

(03:00):
you know by then, you know, his life had changed or whatever.
So he decided not to use it. He was buried on the East coast,
so um Wild bought it for seventyfive grand, you know, twenty
five years ago, twenty four yearsago, and now it's two million dollars
and he's not able to enjoy it. And he can't enjoy it exactly.
I wonder who you probably got aboyfriend or a husband or something at that

(03:22):
point. I would imagine who's gotwhoever the air was, Yeah, and
maybe they'll be buried together something backback east. Um, they a typical
crypt like this in that cemetery.If it was anywhere else is Pierce Brothers
Westwood Village typically would go for aboutone hundred and eighty grand. Um,
so a huge markup for being youknow, next to Maryland for sure.

(03:44):
For sure. Yeah, because asyeah, the cemetery would sell it at
that at that fee, the fairprice. But yeah, if you go
off off off the estate, yeah, or off of the private sale,
then you get you know, youcan make all that money. Geeze.
Imagine imagine spending two million dollars andthen her estate decides to move her,

(04:05):
yeah, somewhere else. That's whathappened to Judy Garland. You know,
people people from all over bought graves. A friend of mine bought a grave
in that cemetery because of Judy,and people were you know, spending a
fortune. And then yeah, theytook Judy out, and all those people,
um, you know who who aredead and are buried near Judy are

(04:25):
no longer. It's sort of sortof sad, but you know, I
would have a closet like if shemoves, you have to move me wherever
she yet if it meant that muchto me. Yeah, Um, the
Kurt Cobain death House where he wherehe committed suicide and uh is back just
sold again. I guess it's changedhands a couple of times since then.

(04:49):
They're Kurt and Courtney's house here inla is for sale right now too.
Oh really, yeah, where isand where is that one? That one's
up by high Tower? You knowthat crazy old tower right off the Highland
that you have to take the elevatorup to. But yeah, we hit
a house way up there and itwas I mean, if you go on
YouTube, a lot of people urbanexplored it. You know it was empty

(05:12):
and it was trash and maybe therewere squatters, but uh yeah, so
you could get you in pretty easily. Up until just a few weeks ago,
I think I was only aware ofhis the apartment that he had rented
for a time in the Fairfax District. They're just a near near Fairfax High
School, in that neighborhood where hewrote part of in Utero, their second
album. He wrote there in thatthis little it was really just a crash

(05:34):
pad. It wasn't anything fancy.Yeah, I've heard stories. I think
there's pictures available of that, andit was pretty it's pretty trashed. Yeah,
And he used to just wander overto Canters all the time. I
guess for to get food. Soit was you know, it's a few
blocks east of there Umu. TheDurst trial has started up finally, you

(05:59):
know, because it's why does itthink? Why do things take so long?
You know, I don't I don'tunderstand that how, you know,
like the Hollywood Ripper, the onewe covered for that E show. You
know, it was over twenty yearsand he's finally convicted for that. It's
like, what is that? Henever even had It wasn't like an appeal.
This is his first trial over twentyyears after the murderer. Just so

(06:19):
this Durst thing, I forget whatwas Susan burmant It was in the nineties,
wasn't it when she was shot inthe head. Yeah, but they
didn't but remember they didn't They didn'treally have a case until the Jinks came
out. And the Jink's documentary seriesis the one that kind of captured sort
of a confession, you might argue, Um, plus they found that,

(06:41):
they found that he plus they foundthat letter. M you know that well,
they had the letter that showed thesame handwriting and the same misspelling of
Beverly Hills. And I believe hehas now admitted that he wrote the letter
to the Beverly Hills Police Department that, you know, telling them that there
was a body a cadaver I thinkis the word he used at Burman's house.
So he I think he's admitted thathe wrote that, but he's claiming

(07:03):
that he found her already dead.Um, I mean she did. Her
father was big and organized crime wasn'tFor anyone that doesn't know we're talking about
this is this is a murder thathappened in Bennedict Canyon where she was shot
execution style. And this Durst guy, it's called The Jinks. It's an
amazing docuseries. He was cooperating completelyand then that one thing. He went

(07:25):
to the bathroom and said, sothey'll never catch me on Mike, which
so stupid, but I forget whatthe quote was. But anyway, he's
finally on trial and yeah, andhe's you know, she was an interesting
person. They were friends, butshe was involved with organized crime. You
know, she she was documenting orwrote a book about it, about the

(07:46):
mafia, or she was from aYeah, she was from kind of a
mafia family like her her dad orsomebody I believe it was involved in a
yeah, um, and and Ibelieve the suspected motive is that she you
know, his first wife disappeared andwas never found. And he's the heir
to this huge real estate fortune inManhattan that his brother actually operates because dirty,

(08:09):
you know, Derst is considered he'sjust always had kind of mental issues,
so he was not put in chargeof the family business. And his
wife disappeared and has never been found, and of course suspected that he did
something, but it's they've never justliked with all these other ones, they
were never able to build a caseon it. And uh, and so
that I believe they think the motivewas that this suit that Burman, who

(08:31):
had become a close friend and confident, may have threatened to go public or
to go to the police with whatshe knew about the wife's disappearance, and
that maybe that was his motive.So but that's you know, that's what
the courts are going to figure outnow, so hopefully interesting to the bottom
of it. Yeah, what akook, really, But I highly recommend

(08:52):
the Jinks if you haven't watched it, it's so good. Okay, So
greenblats the famous Delhi on Sunset Boulevardclosed down and it's utra is currently unknown.
Yeah, which is a big bummer. I was never a big Greenblats
person, but what a history ithas in this city, going back to
the thirties. You know, theywere the green Blacks. Was originally where

(09:15):
the laugh Factory is one door over, and I forgot what year was that
they moved, you know, overto where they are now or where they
were now. Sure that came outof nowhere. I mean that was Alison
Martino, our mutual friend who doesvintage Los Angeles. She um, yes,
she's posted I heard that green I'veheard that Green Blats is closing and
the boom it was the next dayit was. That was the last day.

(09:37):
So you know it's like they notifiedthe workers tomorrow we're closed. That's
it. Yeah, Yeah, it'ssad. It really isn't all these businesses.
You know the block where the ViperRoom is just going and with a
range over placed down at the farend of Beverly Hills or at the at
the far end of West Hollywood that'sbeing torn down. That was originally the
cock and Bowl where Jim Morrison usedto you know, run out into the

(09:58):
st eating wave down. The StandardSunset is closed down back in January,
and now people are trying to makesure that that building is protected enough.
The Standard. Really I didn't hearthat. Yeah, yeah, the Standard,
same thing. They you know,they jacked up the lease and it
just and right in the middle ofthe pandemic and they were like, we

(10:20):
can't do it. It's already astruggle enough, you know with the hotel
bookings down. This was back inJanuary. And yeah, so they closed
the doors, and the Standard indowntown LA, which is super famous filming
location. Their rooftop pool and bararea has been in a bunch of stuff.
They're also closed right now, butI think that's more temporary, Like
I think they're planning to reopen.But but the Sunset one, they're just

(10:43):
they're out, so I you know, hopefully, you know, whenever,
you hope that just not a precursorto you know, it was just jack
their rant up. So they moveout so you can tear the place down
and sell it for whatever it's worthnow, you know. Yeah. Yeah,
it's funny about that because that well, they used to be like a
motor lodge. It was like theSunset Motor Lodge in the fifties. But

(11:03):
across the street from it is thatwe're the little Cabo Cantina. That little
shack is still there, which hasa great history too, I mean the
old Source restaurant. I don't knowif he saw that documentary, but the
Source was a vegetarian restaurant but itwas a cult and it's a really good
documentary. And it's this role ricketyshack of a building that's still there.
All that new building around it,yet that little shack is still there.

(11:28):
And the Annie Hall filmed a wholescene there at the Source and that's where
he There used to be a dirtlotnext door to it. They built over
it a few years ago, butthat's what the dirt lot is where he
backs into the cop car when he'strying to leave and uh, and you
can see what is now this,you know, what became the Standard hotels
across the street under a different nameat the time, but you can see
it prominently as like the backdrop.So yeah, freak yeah, I don't

(11:52):
know how that place survived. Imean, they have lousy mrgaritas, at
least the ones I had it was. It's a cool plato. It's an
old La place, which is rareanymore, right, right, um,
but on the good news, Imean good news. I think anyways,
this kind of mixed some people.But Tarantino bought the Vista Theater, the
famous Vista, he bought that up, and and you know, I think

(12:15):
some people are concerned. You know, we already have the new Beverley,
you know, is he gonna justhave another new Beverley. I think he
said he's planning on just leaving itas you know, as he is.
I don't know, so the firstrun run house, yeah, that's always
been yeah, yeah, and he'sI don't know if he's gonna I think
it's digital. I don't want toknow what. He's such a purist about
stuff like that, so I don'tknow what. But yeah, it doesn't

(12:39):
sound like he's he's not doing anew another new Beverley. And even if
he was, so what you know, people are going to the movie.
At least it's not closing down andgetting torn yeah you know, yeah yeah,
And they have that that fantastic umlittle Walk of Fame out in front
of it with all the cult moviestars. You know, I love that.
It's like the cash from Dark Shadowsand Mary Warren off bud Court from

(13:01):
Harold and Maud, A little theCash from Poltergeist. It was just like
an alternate um uh grummins Chinese theater, Chinese theater. I love it.
I love that place. So forthat place, that alone, that should
be a historic marker on that place. I just love it. Just love
it. Um. I wanted totalk about have you watched the Val Kilmer

(13:22):
documentary yet? No? Yeah,I believe it's on I watched I think
on Amazon Prime. I think it'sstreaming on Amazon if you're a subscriber.
Um, it's really good. Ireally enjoyed it. You know, he
has not been able to really speaksince he had you know, throat cancer
surgery back in twenty fourteen, sohe has you know, kind of a

(13:43):
voice box type thing in his throat, so he Um. But it's really
really good. And what he endedup having having done is his son,
who sounds very much like him andas an actor, recorded the vo kind
of as him. So you know, Val wrote the voice over and then
had his son read it as him. It's really and you actually forget that

(14:05):
you're not listening to Val Kilmer whileyou're watching it. Um. I thought
it was really good. It wasvery introspective and um, I thought,
pretty honest, which is always important. It didn't feel like a fluff piece.
You know. Obviously it portrays himin mostly positive light, but it's
interesting. He owns up to alot of his mistakes in it. And
um, he's a deeper person thanwhat I ever thought he was, you

(14:26):
know what I mean. I alwaysthought it was kind of a pretty boy
type actor. Um. Talented,sure, but you know, but he
was very hardcore. He was theyoungest at the time, at least the
youngest person ever admitted to Juilliard asan acting student. Interesting. Um.
Yeah. And and coincidentally was therewith Kelly McGinnis, who ended up you
know who. They both ended upin Top Gun. So I recommend yeah,

(14:52):
yeah, yeah, yeah, youknow, I don't I wish I
did. She seems cool. Oh, I thought you is the one that
lived in the house, the coolhouse. I know, Kelly, that's
Kelly Lynch. Yeah, okay,sorry, I know Kelly. Sorry sorry,
Um yeah, val And it's agood documentary. I really recommend it.
Check it out. I was like, there's a lot of buzz about

(15:13):
that, but I'm like, likeyou said, I thought he was just
a pretty boy actor. He's inthe Doors. He's been in a couple
of movies I like, but notenough to I would never buy a big
biography about him or anything. SoI don't know. There's a healthy A
healthy, A healthy. Portion ofthe documentary is about the Door doing the
Doors movie too. It's really interestingand how he prepared for the role and

(15:33):
just listening to you know, Morrisonmusic NonStop and watching lots of footage of
Morrison to try and get his mannerismsdown and all that stuff. You mean,
he really you could see, reallydove into his part, into the
parts he was in. Um.I can also see how he was a
bit of a difficult actor too,so to work with, so you can
definitely see how he got that reputation. Um, is this something they're doing

(15:54):
while he's still here? You know, like when when they give the lifetime
achievement a war people, you know, it's usually you know what I mean,
Well, it sounds like he kindof produced it, So I don't
know, man, Maybe, Imean, you know, he almost died
from cancer. Maybe he did feellike it's time to do it and his
acting career is sort of over unlesshe can get his voice back. So

(16:18):
maybe he just felt like he Ithink he says kind of near the beginning,
he's kept so much stuff from hisfrom his career. I mean,
he even has all those old auditionsbecause he used to tape his auditions and
you know, send them to variousdirectors. He's kept all that stuff.
He's got it all on storage.I think he kind of felt like,
I have all these and he's avery creative person. He does he paints
and does collages and stuff, andI think he just felt like, what
do I do with all this stuff? Like yeah, you know, um,

(16:42):
and so it's kind of like,let's make a film with it.
So that's what he did. So, UM, I liked it. I
thought it was really good, reallywell done. UM. And I also
did not know he had a brotherwhom they they Funnily enough, they his
brother was wanted to be a directorand they to make little their own little
home movies, and they they wouldrecreate stuff, so like they recreated scenes

(17:04):
from Jaws together using like you know, eight millimeter camera and some other stuff.
And his brother was super He said, his brother was, you know,
more talented than he was. Andhis brother drowned when he was fifteen
in the family pool. He hadan epileptic seizure in the pool and drowned.
Wow, and so that and that'swhy he I believe he was at
Juilliard val was when that happened.So it was just this devastating obviously,

(17:29):
Yeah, you know, it permanentlyimpacted him. And even his brother's artwork
has appeared in at least one ofhis early films. They put it in
like the set decorations in the background. So that's kind of cool. But
yeah, I was just gonna say, whenever someone is as talented and successful
as Valez and he says, yeah, you know, my brother was even
better than I was, you wonderwhat that career could have been like.
You know. Yeah, for sure. He had also a relative that had

(17:53):
murdered a couple of people in WestHollywood stuck him in a trunk. Really
yeah, yeah, that didn't makeit into the documentary. I'm trying to
think of what the actual relation was. But that happened in uh what year
was that. It looks like anolder newspaper that I'm looking at. I
can't I can't pull up the date, but it looks like sixties or fifties,

(18:15):
but I think it might have todo well, here's let's see.
My friend Shannon Mead did all thisleg work on this and she sent the
information to me. It was fiftynine. But yeah, gunshot wound and
stuck in a truck of a carand it has a relation to to Val
Kilmer. I forget exactly what itwas and then killers. Yeah anyway,

(18:38):
so yeah, that that's an interestingthing. But anyway, that just stuck
in my mind. I wanted thataddressed that because that's a that's a nice
little bit of trivia and a family. Not nice, but you know,
Kilmer barely newer um. One lastthing I wanted to talk about in the

(19:00):
kind of News of a week.You made a cool post on Facebook and
I already knew this, but I'dnever heard it before. You were a
radio DJ at a country station incentral Michigan back in the eight early eighties,
right, and you dug up anold you dug up an old tape
of you doing your job, whichis amazing, Like DJ skills for the

(19:23):
very best a new country. Tuneinto the hit Bound Showdown weeknights at seven
oh five right here on the BigM every night. Will premiere two new
country songs. You tell us whichone you like best, and it may
become the hit Bound song of theweek the hit Bound Showdown only on your
country music station WMLM. I'm ScottMichaels be with you here till just about
six o'clock. We're gonna take youback now with the Statler Brothers. Yeah,

(19:47):
that's funny. It was funny,you know, I just I put
it up for giggles, and it'sfunny. I really like country music.
Guess what people are going, Ohmy god, my ears, it's awful
and I'm like, I don't know, I like it, but but yeah,
it was an interesting little chapter.And uh and that's you know,
there were like two things I keptfrom my education. It was typing in

(20:10):
high school and and voice work withwith the broadcasting that was Those are the
two things, right, and allof my education that I ever used.
I know. I went to businessschool and I learned a lot of important
things, but spy, the mostimportant I learned was learning how to use
Microsoft Word and Excel, like actualskills that you know you actually need in
your life. What could have beenwith your DJ career, Scott, It's

(20:36):
funny now, Troy said last night, because you're you're you, you're old.
Your Michigan accent is really pronounced.You know, he's really pronounced.
And as like, I don't knowif I had an accent. Apparently I
did, but I don't know.Apparently it's really obvious in the video,
didn't. I had somebody have topoint it out to me. Um and
our our mutual friend Kelly. Shewent to college near where you were DJ

(21:00):
at that time. She went toCentral Michigan. Oh right, Mount Pleasant,
it's like great above us, aboutabout forty minutes of chips. Yeah,
interesting, did Yeah, is thereany other news you wanted to No,
I would say August is here,and that's like I always called that
the holiday month and not you know, it's like Maryland. You've got the
Mandison thing, You've got Princess Diana, you've got the Menendez verse, and

(21:21):
and that's you know, it's ait's a pretty magical month as far as
all this all this stuff goes.I'll come and both our birthdays. Yeah,
yeah, when yours? Is thisyour birthday? Ohay? Is it
okay? So you'd like right beforeMaryland Day. Yeah, I was born
two weeks after Maryland died. Butuh uh and yeah, yeah, and

(21:44):
my birthday is the same birthday asRoman Polanski and Vincent Pouliosi. August eighteenth,
I have, um Barack Obama isthe big the biggest one that I
have. Um man, wait whatwhat? What day is yours? Eighteen?
Yeah? Because Elvis died on Augustsixteenth, and I have now outlived

(22:07):
I'm now older than Elvis was whenhe died. I have outlived him by
a year. Now. I thinkI am Humphrey Bogart's age right now that
he died. Oh really you so, do you get any hate mail or
anything? Oh? Heye mail,um, hate mail? This is okay.

(22:30):
Troy saves these six for me becauseI can't. Oh, you know,
I told him the Patreon video thatthe Janet Lee story about you know,
my bringing a knife to her herbook signing, and one of them,
one of the comments, it's justkind of a funny one, she
goes, and that's funny. Whata childish moron. Unsubscribing Immediately, it's

(22:51):
like, well it's childish, nodoubt about it. Um, You're like,
you are following the wrong person ifyou're not amused by that story.
And there was one about Oh here'sone. This was interesting. This is
regarding the Anthony Burdaine thing that Ihad when he when he took the tour,
and it was we recorded it.My friend Jane recorded it and I
uploaded it. So she writes,this is my first time viewing this video.

(23:15):
What disturbs me the most is theman talking saying that what happened to
the black Dahlia was spectacular, whichit was. I mean, you know,
they look up the definition. Imean it's like it's it's crazy right.
And you are seriously a creep becausewhat was done to her was absolutely
butcher, absolutely butchery. Men likeyou have no heart, no soul.

(23:36):
And Anthony Burdain, God rest hissoul. He will be missed. This
is the guy who's talking about autoeroticasphyxiation and all the murders. But he's
God rest his soul. He willbe missed. But to the creep interviewer
of this video, be careful whatyou're saying, because you seem to be
a sadist. That truly disturbed meand it should be to others, including
that lady in the van. Mustbe my friend Jane. Men run the

(23:56):
world and women are preyed on.This creep who think the brutal murder of
a beautiful woman human being was spectacular, You should go to jail for that
period. The Black Jail is infamous, amongst other sad Hollywood celebrity stories are
ip But but I looked at youknow, I talked to the about the

(24:18):
Manson murders, and I said thatthey were fantastic. And if you look
up the definition of fantastic, theywere spectacular. I did look this up.
It says, you know, anelaborate show or display pertaining through the
nature of a show or a spectaclemarked characterizes a great display. And the
black tellus to whomever did it,you know, that was that was set
up. What they did to herwas a creation. And that's what I

(24:38):
meant by that. It was itwasn't like, wow, it was so
cool. It wasn't like that.It wasn't cool. It was spectacular.
It's like, fantastic is not youknow, necessarily oh my god, it's
so wonderful. It's like, youknow, the word exciting. Bad things
can also be exciting. Yeah,yeah, exactly. So it doesn't mean,
you know, it's just kind offunny that all that thought went into

(24:59):
it. Um, it was like, all right, whatever, but Block,
you know, Troy Block shows andhe saves me the best, sends
the best for this. But theother the piece of email I got that
was interesting that it should you know, we don't. We talked about Zack
selling the zach Begans sold to LaBianca House and apparently it's slated for demolition
now so uh so that will happen. Yeah, it is so um,

(25:26):
which is what would have likely happenedanyways. So you know, him buying
at a guest kept it alive fora couple more years, but you know
it's kind of inevitable. Yeah,yeah, it's la. We got some
nice notes on Patreon. Deborah toldus you guys rock keep up all the
good work. Thank you, Deborah, and Jonathan said he'd been a Jonathan

(25:48):
said he's been a fan of thesince the website and on to six degrees.
I love what you do and proudto support you. Keep up the
great work. And we also gotsome nice Patreon notes from Becca and Elaine.
So, um, we do havea Patreon page where you can get
advanced Um, look at these episodeswhen they come out, Seeing before everybody
else does. And we also doan extra mini show, which are usually

(26:11):
you know, in that forty fiveminute to an hour range. Um,
so we call mini shows, butthey're actually gotten to be pretty long.
And we also post those to Patreon, so those are Paton exclusive. Yeah,
and you can get access to thatfor as little as two bucks a
month. So check out our PatreonDearly Departed podcast on Patreon. Go check
it out. We just recorded anew episode for Patreon just before we did

(26:34):
this one, so um, andwe really appreciate everybody for supporting us over
there. So main feature, yes, let's talk about it. Yeah,
it's Todd Browning's Freaks. It's timefor the main feature. Google gobble,
Google gobble. We accept her oneof us. I had never actually watched

(26:59):
this movie. It had been onmy list for ever and ever, and
I finally watched it this past weekbecause we wanted to do this episode,
and I freaking loved it. It'sso good. It exceeded my expectations.
To be honest, I thought itwas really really brilliant filmmaking, and the
story behind it is equally as fascinatingas the story was of the film itself,

(27:21):
I thought. But for people whodon't know it's about sideshow acts otherwise,
you know, referred to his freaksand it's based on them, you
know, with this a circus ora carnival, right, Yeah, it's
a traveling side show. Yeah.Yeah. Made in nineteen thirty two and

(27:41):
Todd Browning, the director, heactually had originally worked in as he had
actually worked as a carnival He hadbeen a contortionist and was a carnival barker
for years starting when he was ateenager before he began his film career.
So it's interesting he had wanted todo this story, which was adapted from
a short story called Spurs, foryears and years. He'd been trying to

(28:03):
get MGM to do it, goingback to the twenties during the Silent era,
and finally they finally did it.It's fascinating that MGM produced it.
And there's the stories about the castof The Wizard of Oz going to the
commissary and everyone, you know,they were so freaked out about how outrageous
their costumes were during the filming ofThe Wizard of Oz and then the Freaks

(28:26):
thing, they just had to givethem their own place because nobody could deal
with being in the room with them, you know, the Siamese twins and
and the half Man and all thatstuff. It was just too much.
And it's shocking that MGM made themovie. It really is shocking that they
made this movie because it doesn't seemlike something MGM would do. Back then,

(28:48):
they were very prestigious, you knowwhat, more stars than in the
Heavens or whatever their their tagline wasat the time. And and what's also
just thing was Todd Browning had justdone Dracula for Universal the year before and
which kicked off, you know,Universal's whole monster craze in the thirties,
and I'm really surprised that he didn'tjust do this there makes I don't know

(29:10):
the whole story about why it wentto MGM Universal, but yeah, that's
interesting. And maybe they just gavehim say you come here, you come
here, and we will you coulddo whatever you want, We'll give you
a movie. And he's like,oh, you mentioned Louis Mayer going what
they kept the sideshow acts like intheir own the actors in their own tent

(29:30):
on, you know, the lotum to keep from disturbing the other people
on the lot and and they hadthey had their own commissary and everything,
so they were really kept separate,almost kind of like when you know the
Munchkins being kept down the street inthe hotel. Yeah yeah, yeah,
over every day. It was suchan interesting movie because they gave everyone at

(29:52):
those side chow performers their own momentto shine. You know. They had
their a little like um, thethe half Man half woman, uh you
know, literally not like a transperson was literally down the middle half man
he would just talk and he talkand then to both sides and then uh
you know, Johnny Yak had histhing where he climbed the ladder. This

(30:15):
is the half Man, and uhyeah, they all had a chance.
If Prince Randian, you know,mate full who had no arms and no
legs, would full roll a cigarettein his mouth. You know, they
let him do that, a littlespiel, you know, they got to
got to do it. So it'sit's also, i mean, despite the
kind of derogatory title, it's gottena lot of credit over the years for

(30:37):
showing um these circus performance as realpeople. Yeah yeah, and it was.
It's also it's considered derogatory derogatory nowadays, but that's the term they embraced
themselves so I, you know,be an UNPC for this, I don't
care. You know, they calledthemselves that, they embraced it and uh
so, and it's still the nameof the movie. So I I it's

(31:00):
just it wasn't disrespectful at all tothese people. In fact, if anything
else, it was respectful to thesepeople because it showed how loyal they were
to themselves. And uh and Ithink that that was that that sort of
code of honor that they had.You know, you mess with one,
you mess with all kind of athing, but the whole one of us,

(31:22):
you know, we accept you.I mean that was a big deal.
When when during the wedding and theuh in the in the film what
a what a sinister movie is fascinating, just sinister. It was such a
controversial film when it came out.It did not do well. It was
you know, it was it wasfinancially a loss. Um. The UK
banned it for like thirty years.You believe that, Yeah, yeah,

(31:47):
I do. That was we talkedabout this before. They banned A Clockwork
Orange until the nineties. Uh.The extrascist too, they were all they
couldn't you couldn't watch them there,you couldn't you couldn't get them. Freaks
came out in nineteen thirty two,and you couldn't see it in the UK
until the sixties. And and youknow it, so Irving Thalberg, who
we've talked about a lot. I'veread one of his big biographies. I'm

(32:10):
a big fan of, you know, his life. He was the head
of production for MGM at the timeThe Boy Wonder and the original running time
was about ninety minutes long, andhe's the one that basically took the film
away, which was common at thattime. He took it away from Todd
Browning and chopped it up, choppedit down to about I think sixty four
minutes, and the original full lengthversion is considered lost. So um,

(32:35):
and I would love to see thefull version because you definitely can feel this
kind of ham fisted intro and ending. It would kind of slapped onto an
otherwise really great film. Did youI noticed I saw on YouTube there's a
couple of alternative endings that were actuallyfilmed. Oh and I've never seen anyone.
I haven't seen this movie yet.I mean, you're these are gonna

(32:58):
be spoilers all over the place,but um, you know, so if
you haven't seen the movie, youshould probably stop now and before we where
we talk about it because and thenwatch it and come back because speaking of
spoilers, that final scene in therain is so brilliantly done. It's so
good. It's so good, allshot at low level, you know,
kind of under with the wagon wheels, under the wagons, with everybody in

(33:19):
this chase through the mud. It'sso so interesting, and it just gets
cut It just gets cut off almostin the middle of it. It feels
like, I guess before they catchup with her an attacker. I guess
that was too shocking maybe for thefor audiences. Yeah, just there's a
quick dissolve back to these the scenethat would the film opens with, right,
I mean, yeah, to toclarify the stories about the sideshow freaks,

(33:45):
and I meant there's also the strongMan and the trapeze artist woman and
the t and they find out thatone of the freaks, one of the
little people, Harry Doll, hadmoney. So the strong Man and the
trapeze artists, uh I, figureout up plan for her to fake being
in love with Harry Dhal and getmarried to him, and then she tries

(34:05):
to poison him and the other freaksfind out about it, and that's the
spectacular ending. So, yeah,the revenge and see especially Prince Randy and
the guy they called the caterpillar man. Uh, you know, crawling through
the mud like a like a likea caterpillar. And it was with a
knife in his hand, in hismouth. You know, I know what
he's going to do with it,either have arms or legs, but uh,

(34:27):
it's just so and you know,just crawling through the mud. And
yeah, it was really really reallysomething to see. And uh, but
that's a code of code of codeof honor, you know, for them.
Yeah, and Thalberg was no.One of his innovations was test screenings,
which is common practice now, butyou would take at early edited the

(34:50):
film and you would screen it fora test audience, engage their reaction,
and then you would go and makechanges if you felt like I needed it.
And apparently at these test screenings,people were running out of the thea
at the site of some of theseperformers back then. Yeah, for sure,
I can understand that. I rememberwhen about in the nineties I saw

(35:12):
several times the Jim Rose circuside show, I guess, and he sort of
revived it, but it was allgeeks. I mean, there's freaks who
are physically different, you know,they were born differently. The Siamese twins,
the man with you know uh,you know, short arms or something
like that. They were physical youknow, what they would call deformities.

(35:34):
Geeks are the people that create themselves. You know, the tattooed guy,
the pierced guy, eating animal,eating bugs, you know that kind of
thing. And Jim Rose, Jimro Circuside show was is all geeks and
there was the one guy called thePlunger and it was just acts. But
people were puking watching this stuff.And this is in the nineties. Mister

(35:57):
Lyfto who who had a pierced nipplesand peers penish and he was you know,
picking up like big weights and swingingaround on his nipples and you know,
people just couldn't cope with that.So that was a small level of
what what freaks was like for people. I mean they you know, they
reacted very differently back then and andyeah, call it exploitation. So so
what you know, they were born, they found their their their tribe and

(36:22):
uh and they all loved each otherand they and it's how they and it's
how they made their living. It'swhat they weren't doing side shows. They
were performing in you know, whatfilms they could get. So yeah,
yeah, it was interesting to readabout how, um some of them were
in different films, you know,you know, portraying Johnny Act the Halfman

(36:43):
and SCHLITZI was in was in afew different films too. It's just interesting
because you just think freaks is allthey ever did. But uh, and
what an impact that made. Imean, I remember when I was a
kid, in the back of magazinesthere were always these ads for uh,
you know, the Three Legs goodMan and the very it was called Very
Special People was the first book thatwas made, probably in the seventies about

(37:07):
these people, and I couldn't Icould not stop looking at that. The
Guinness Book of World Records came out, and there was another one that was
that man, it was so bighe had to be buried in a piano
case. You know. It wasjust stuff like that was just so fascinating
to me and and still is.And that's why that's why, you know,
I love all this stuff. Whenrecently Troy and I were in Florida

(37:30):
and we went to Gibsonton and GiBOr GiB towns where all those circus performers
would go on the off season.And it started with Jeannie and Altmany.
Altomani was like eight petal and GeanieTooMany was like eighteen inches. She was
a half lady. And they gotmarried and just decided to create this place
where these carnies could go on theoff season and they put they created what

(37:53):
was called the Giants Camp and itwas all these little little houses, little
tiny little cabin that they had andthey were they had a bait store,
and Gibson was just this vocal pointfor all of these people place they could
go. And you know they haveeven the post office, like the counter
of the post office is only liketwo feet so little people could use it.

(38:14):
I mean, it was really accommodatingto UH to to those people because
that's there was a tribe and that'swhere the UH showed. It was Showtown
Bar, Showman's Bar, where youknow these people, well a lot of
them did do pretty hardcore drinking andUH and you know you would just see
these unusual people sitting at the barand you know, just amongst each other.

(38:37):
It's fascinating. It's not like thatanymore. I mean, Gibsonton is
sort of one of those places Idescribed it as a place where people end
up. Uh now, you knowbefore it was, it's not. It's
not a glamorous place like I'd hopethey don't embrace nowadays that sort of culture.
Yeah, the Barn of Museums inSarasota not far away, and it's
still the showman's sort of union andthat's there. But there's not much tribute

(39:01):
to to those people that made itwell known. It's not really a tourist
destination. Although there was bar onebar there that we went to. It
was called the Alafia Brewing Company,and we went on a Friday night and
they did a proper show inside withthe posters like this. They had the
Fiji Mermaid and they had uh,you know, the twenty foot Boa Constrictor

(39:22):
and you know, the little boycame out pressing his face into glass.
That was neat to see because Iwas a genuine nod to the old Gibsons
in But yeah, it was stilla neat place to to visit most definitely.
Um So, do you want toget into the the actors? Sure?

(39:43):
Sure, sure, sure, um. I was going to mention,
uh wallace Ford, who was thekind of one of the main good guys
that was kind of befriended the circusperformers in real life. In real life,
he was a World War One veteran, and I thought it was interesting

(40:04):
his background. He was born SamuelGrundy Jones, and where he got the
name wallace Ford is interesting and alsoa tragic. His childhood friend, I
believe they were kind of riding therails and you know, hitchhiking around and
whatever, and his childhood friend hadan accident with one of the trains and
fell, I think, and wasrun over or something like or crushed and

(40:25):
died. So when wallace Ford beganhis showbiz career, he took on that
name of his friend. His friendwas named wallace Ford, so he changed
his name from Samuel Jones to wallaceFord as kind of a tribute to his
friend. And that's that's that becamehis stage name. Wow. Interesting.
He was a really likable, areally likable guy in the movie. I

(40:46):
love that. There's a memorable scenewith him in Schlitze. That's so sweet.
Yeah, just a friend to theunusual people. Yeah, and he
had a long Hollywood career in stagecareer, and he had supporting role also
in The Last Patrol and Shoutow ofa Doubt, spell Bound Um. And
he passed away on June eleventh,nineteen sixty six. He was sixty eight.

(41:09):
He had a heart failure. Um. He passed away at what the
Motion Picture Country Home, the kindof retirement community that's in Woodland Hills.
Yeah, okay, well, yeah, a lot of them did die out
there. That was a cool place. And then his kind of and then
his kind of fellow sort of protagonistand friend to to to the sideshow acts,

(41:30):
Leila Hyams. She played Venus Umand she passed away on December fourth,
nineteen seventy seven, at seventy twofrom also from natural causes. Yeah,
she was my friend. Gary Sweeneydid a ton of research on her.
I guess he's he's going to tryto get a book off the ground
about her. But she was Imean again, they were the two likable

(41:53):
you know that were quote unquote normalin the movie. And her name was
Venus in the movies. She wasn'towner the Lost Souls too, but that
was like the long ago one.She was in silent movies and stuff.
But but yeah, very and shewas she was. Yeah, she died
in seventy seven, was scattered atsea from from helicopter, as I understand.

(42:14):
But uh, but um and thenuh Olga back Lanova, who was
the unlikable person in this in thisfilm, Yeah, Cleopatra really the antagonist.
She's the one that schemes uh toto to you know, fake being
in love with this little person soshe can get his money. She had
a really interesting life. She wasborn in Moscow to kind of a showbiz

(42:36):
family there and ultimately immigrated to theUS and became a citizen here. Um.
And she passed away on September sixth, nineteen seventy four. She was
eighty one. Um. And Ibelieve she passed away in Switzerland. And
there was a I saw somewhere thatshe may have had Alzheimer's, but it's
unconfirmed. Yeah, I've heard thatshe died in some sort of retirement community.
So it makes sense. Uh,she was, you know, there

(43:00):
was I don't know. I wasreading something about kudos for her acting.
I was there. She was chewingup the scenery in this movie. I
mean it was just like you know, it was. There was nothing subtle
about that performance. And when shewas laughing, it wasn't like ah,
it was like you know, soit was so over the top. So
I love her drunk brooding though inthe big you know, the big dinner

(43:22):
scene. Oh and then she startsmocking and yeah, yeah that is um,
yeah she was. But you know, it's it's it's a poor movie.
I think none of those people wereexcept for those two leads were good
actors. You know, they're noone. They're probably the only real actors
in the movie. The uh LilaHaimes and um and Wallace Ford, but

(43:45):
the others are were all not reallygood actors. The other and the the
side show people were not actors atall. Surprisingly, they carried themselves,
but like Violet and Daisy Hilton,you know, they got they got to
walk by and you know, ohno, and that was the end.
It was like they had twenty minutesof filmmak. You know. But I
really I got to say that theDoll family, Daisy Earls and Harry Earls,

(44:07):
they really grew on me on thisfilm. I thought that that for
being not professional trained actors, Ithought they did a really good job.
Um. I don't know if thatwas Browning getting a good performance out of
them or or what it was,but I liked them in it. Yeah.
It's kind of a love story witha brother and a sister. It's
kind of interesting that kind of creepssome people out right brother and sister in

(44:30):
real life. Yeah. Um,and in you know Schlitzi, who probably
I don't think really had the mentalcapacity to act, is you know,
really act act Um. It's interestingwatching him in these scenes because, um,
it's almost like you're getting his realreactions to what's happening in a way.
Yeah. Yeah, you know what. I loved love performing and loved

(44:52):
being the center of attention and lovedaffection. Uh. And yeah, it
was clear. I guess Schlitze couldthey say she could one of her well
to him, Uh, one ofher big one of her big tricks,
you say her because Schltzi was billedas a woman. You know, let's
see the female, you know,the Aztec will girl or whatever what the
princess Princess Haja was and uh,but you know, just referred to as

(45:17):
a female because the dresses that theyput on her, a little bow in
her hair, but it was actuallya male but he was incontinent, which
is why the the war. Whatwhat she wore? And um, she
wore dresses born with microcephaly um,which means she she she had a small
cranium basically and so uh, whichalso meant, you know, a smaller

(45:39):
brain, and so it affected youknow, mentally affected if so physically affected
and mentally affected. Um. Iwas wondering. I was going to ask
you about this. You know.Of course, the Ramolans had their one
of their big hits which was calledpinhead um, which was about schlitzy uh.
And they turned you know, googlegobble, which was what the freaks
in the show moved we say,they turned that into Gabba Gabba hey,

(46:01):
which I thought was interesting. Wasnow you, of course we're a big
Ramones fan or the Ramones your entrytoo, freaks? Was it because of
the song Pinhead? No, notat all. No, In fact,
there wasn't until many years later Irealized Gabba Gabba was a play on the
freaks google Gobble. I didn't knowit for years. So Pinhead I didn't
get that. I mean, therewas Zippy the Pinhead, but I was

(46:22):
never a fan of that comic basedon Schletzee and but I, um,
but no, I didn't know aboutthe that I knew the song. But
I was telling story last night.It's like I listened to songs. I
can sing songs, but I don'tprocess what they're about, you know.
So then you got the weeks aptewweeks after one of us, and you
know, I don't want to bea pinhead no more. I just wanted

(46:43):
Yeah, it's just uh, Ididn't really process that it was about being
a freak in their own interpretation ofit. But uh, but chlet's see.
And it's funny because schlet's See livedat the end of her life on
Santa Monica Boulevard at just a coupleof streets m east of Western, right
by the one on one where youknow the Tiki theater, that Porno theater.

(47:07):
So I almost right across the streetfrom there. And uh and schlet's
See apparently had a sister. Iwas watching this guy called Wayne Kaiser on
YouTube and he did a really extensivebiography. I didn't know a lot of
the stuff that he had, buthe it slically was born with a sister
named Anthelia. And uh, andno one knows really what happened to the

(47:27):
sister, but like most of them, were sold like a lot of these
children at a young age that wereborn unusual, different shaped and etc.
Were sold off by their parents andto the circus and technically not technically not
legal, but kind of people justturned and looked the other way when it
happened back then, I guess,yeah, yeah, everywhere. Yeah,

(47:51):
So Schlitzy went by the name SimonMetz. Then it was Schlitzee Sertise,
you know, at all to dowith with with his guardians, and at
the end of his life, anotherguy by the name I guess, after
they were dumbish let's see, droppedher off at a hospital because they know
what to do with her and uh, and they were going to give a
psychiatric evaluation and the colors she wouldn'tbe able to support herself. And then

(48:15):
apparently this person who worked at thehospital recognized let's see and got in touch
with a guy who was running aside show. At this point, Schletsy
was in her sixties and and thisguy convinced the hospital to let him adopt
her and put her up in thislittle apartment and it would take her out
to you know, Hollywood Boulevard orGriffith Park, MacArthur Park and would just

(48:37):
just dance around and perform for peopleand just a kind Although it's interesting because
Tiny Doll, whom I'll show you, I got some of my freak stuff
out here, but I don't knowwhat's showing. But Tiny Doll was the
youngest of the Doll family. Therewas Harry, Daisy, Gracie and Tiny
and Tiny autographed this for me.This is her with the cast of Freaks,

(48:59):
but she was actually in the movie. And it's funny because her brother
and sister. There's Daisy. Idon't think Harry is in this, but
there's Prince Randian and it's it's almostthe entire cast. And there's Todd Browning
back there too. But you shouldbring that you bring it over to the
camera. Yeah, I can seeif I could do it without the reflection
of yeah, there it is.Wow. So if you're watching the video

(49:23):
version of this, we can seethis. There's the there's Daisy, Yeah,
there's Daisy Dolls there, the Hiltonsisters co joined twins. There's schlit
see Zip and Pip, Johnny eckHugo will forget his name, but that's
crazy. Wait, that's must bedaisy. No, that's tiny right there,
say I'm looking at it backwards,and Todd Browning is um back here,

(49:44):
I think, and um, butyeah, this but the point when
it's tiny doll. When asked aboutSchlitze, it is the only person I've
ever heard anything say neck and shesaid that. She said, she said
Schlitzy was ferocious, so they bitepeople and attack people. Yeah, so
maybe it was when she was provokedor so, I'd look at their schtze

(50:05):
behind me. It kind of lookslike me. I'd rather that's funny,
because all the stories I've ever heardwas that he was very she was a
very sweet person, and you know, yeah, like you said, like
being the center of attention and likeperforming and um, couldn't could not speak
very well, could only speak mainlyin monosyllabic words, but could form sentences.

(50:28):
But they said they got the sensethat she could understand most of what
was being said to her, evenif she couldn't verbalize back as well.
Mhmm. Yeah. They said youwere one of her big tricks, which
she could count to ten, butshe could never say the word seven.
I think it was I don't knowit was two syllables. I don't know,
but uh, but I loved Iloved Shu. In fact, when

(50:49):
I turned forty, as it wastwenty years ago, now, that's when
I realized I was never going tohave a legitimate job. So that's when
I got my schlitz Eat tattoo.It's so fun amazing, Yeah, that
was. I was thrilled with that. So so when after Schlitzy died,
you know, she's buried in agrave. It couldn't heaven cemetery out in

(51:10):
Roland Heights and unmarked, and thatwas I was gonna say. That was.
She passed away on September twenty fourth, nineteen seventy one, seventy years
old, and they think possibly itwas pneumonia. Yeah, brochioll Pneumonia is
the cause of death. And shedied in a nursing home right on um
Fountain and just off Western. Yeah, it's called a Fountain View, a

(51:32):
nursing home or something, and that'swhere she ended up passing away and was
buried in an unmarked grave. Andmy friend Ceci found out about that and
let me know, and I'm like, you know, at that point,
we hadn't been marking people's graves yetwe haven't done any of that stuff yet,
so I just let it go.And then they started talking about on
the Finding Death message board. Andthen Shelley litch Off, another friend of

(51:54):
mine, said well, let's starta fundraiser and she got in touch with
the cemetery and they said, well, the one thing that was wrong is
that they didn't pay the bill forthe team stone, So we just raised
whatever Shelley did. The fundraiser raisedthe money and we're gonna have the ceremony.
This is a funny part funny ina bizarre way that things work out.
So we contacted the cemetery, madethe arrangements, the stone was going

(52:16):
to be, the stone was goingto be placed, and we decided to
have the ceremony and Verne Langdon wasthis guy who had a big Carney history
and he came along and did aeulogy. We contacted the cemetery and said,
we want to do this thing,and they said, well we can.
We can give you a priest,but we're gonna have to charge you
three hundred dollars for the priest tocome out and do this. So we're

(52:37):
like, no, you know,we just we just Uh, no,
you're not gonna pay for this.I mean, it's a priest. You
should be able to, you know, give me five minutes and do a
blessing, how you know, ina Catholic cemetery. Anyway, we got
our own priest, a gentleman bythe name of Brian, stepped up and
said, I'll do it. I'ma minister, and he put together this

(52:57):
lovely eulogy. We took a busout there, about a dozen of us
and and Brian gave this eulogy thatwas non denominational, and it was just
a really lovely, touching eulogy.And we unveiled the gravestone, the tombstone,
the grave marker, and I puta pink hat on it with a
big feather, because that's what theline was in Freaks. You know,

(53:17):
we're gonna get your big with abig feather on it. And we put
that on the grave. So thenlater on we find out that Brian,
who's a buddy of mine, andI got permission to talk about this from
him because I didn't want to bedisrespectful to anybody. But it's like like
Brian, who was a minister inthe Church of Satan, No, he

(53:37):
never specified. So so we gotto talking, I mean night it is
really funny the way we're talk asatanism. You know, there's a lot
of stigma attachment. It's more aboutatheism really, you know, it's just
about it's just about being your bestlife to yourself and not worrying about what's

(54:02):
going to happen afterwards. But itgoes under this. It's like Anton Lavay,
it's show business. That's what itis. It's just show business is
punk rock. And it's like itwas more to free people out than for
a lot of people. But Brian, again I had no idea. It
was a lovely ceremony the Catholic,yeah, and the church wouldn't do it,

(54:24):
so we got another guy. Andit's just ironic that the you know,
he's not like a blood, there'snone of that. I mean,
Brian's just a decent, funny eyewho's an artist and uh and uh.
But it was just you know,a fascinating little twist to the to the
story, which is, uh,it's funny, funny. It's funny how

(54:47):
things work out. But I havea buddy named Steve Bellgard who's been working
on the SCHLITZI documentary for years iscalled One of Us and I reached out
because the pandemic and everything kind ofput a kabash on stuff. And they're
working on the animation staff, whichis nice because he's albing to read you
what he wrote me about is said, we're editing it, and I told

(55:08):
and the animation will be finished.Principal photography has done, Andrew Luke Oldham
already did the narration. Uh,Steve's daughter Emma is composing the score and
all they're doing is just have toput it all together, so in twenty
twenty two. But it's interesting isthat the young adults who are working on
this are on the autism spectrum andthe people doing the animation and his daughter

(55:29):
Emma is also on the autism spectrum. So it's an inclusive documentary about this
lovely character that everyone knows but doesn'treally know what Schlitze was all about.
And yeah, it's a it's afunny story. I love that, love
that story and uh and and alsoSchlitzi is uh a friend, well friend,

(55:52):
an acquaintance. Naomi Grossman portrays Schlitzeaka Pepper in American Horror Story and
it's a recurring character or a pinhead. When they did the institutional Um I
forget that was called the one withthe really dark season. Everyone loves it,
just really bothered makes it so dark. But Pepper the Pinhead is played

(56:13):
by Naomi Grossman and is based onSchlitzian freak show. Freak Show the whole
season. Did you watch that Americanhorror story season I'm not. I'm not
a big horror fans. No,I have not. I haven't really watched
that show much. It's with thewhole season was about Jessica Lang running a
very much like Olga. You know, maybe the character might have been slightly

(56:35):
based on her. Um ran thistraveling side show and they used actual you
know people and the who were bornwith disabilities. And my friend Matt Fraser
who was a friend, was aPhilidamite. Uh you know, Matt was
born with short arms, very shortlike like to hear and uh. And
it was from a drug that wasgiven to people in England for while they

(56:59):
are pregnant. It to um tohelp with morning sickness and ended up creating
these what they call birth defects.Back then on what the Home, it
was a huge scandal. It's oneof the biggest scandals in history of when
it comes to that UM. Ican't remember what it was called, but
I remember reading about it years agoand it was a huge hoot. I
think someone had brought me the possibilityof doing even doing a documentary about the

(57:20):
whole I'm sure. Yeah. Themad generation had affected almost He was Matt,
Matt Fraser's his name, and Ihelped him when I was living in
England with his first show called Celo, and it was about Seal the Seal
Boy, who had the same Itwasn't through the same cause of of of
the Philidamite drug, but he wasalso born with that. So Matt's first

(57:42):
show UH was about Celo, andthen Matt features quite heavily in this UH.
In that season of American Horror Story, which is really good, they
had the Princess, the little umfrom East India, she's she's it's the
littlest person in the world, andthey had and they made Um the young
lead I forget his name, belike Lobster Boy, who will talk about

(58:05):
in a little bit. So itwas fascinating. The whole season was based
on real freak show performers and alot of them were actually in this movie,
I love that Matt just embraces that. You know, he's like a
black belt. I mean, man, Matt's Matt Rocks and he's awesome.
But he um. And he helpedon a show, another show that we
may call freak Out. Uh thatthat was that was on in England.

(58:27):
There was a eurotrash and another showI worked on, but freak freak Out
was a good show. And Uh, anyway, it's a people out and
about embracing it, you know,just owning it. Uh, you know,
being stared at your whole life andpeople you know, here's like I
don't know, it kind of gotover that a long time ago, where
if I see somebody with you know, and and it's appropriate and I'll say,

(58:47):
so what's up with that? Youknow what did you you know?
What what? Uh? What's thestory instead of pretending it's not there.
Yeah, I was in an elevatornot that long ago with a woman with
only one leg and it does thatrecent that just happened or you know,
it's just it's like it's right there. I think they people would appreciate the
honesty or the you know, justthe you want to know ask you know,

(59:09):
they can they can say pissed off. So um, but ninety percent
of the time whenever I've done that, I've never had a problem with it.
So we'll just say one hundred percentof the time I've done that,
people have been really receptive to talkingabout stuff like that. So rest in
peace, Schlitzy. We love hey. Yeah, at Queen of Heaven Cemetery
and thanks to the nice people thatfind a death for him, it's done.

(59:31):
She has a gravestone. It's great. It's a good story. And
now you that's a tradition for you. You you guys do fundraisers for various
for unmarked graves of various celebrities andpeople that have kind of you know,
died in obscurity or or died withoutmoney and have been buried in unmarked graves.
I think it's really cool. Yeah, when we were in Gibsonton,

(59:53):
we went to find a couple ofpeople's graves. We found the Tomainies,
Hell and Jeanie, the Little eightyand the Giant and we were in a
cemetery and of course it was closedthe gates, I mean, the office
was closed because of COVID, butthere were two people in it that.
We spent hours, Troy and Idid, going up and down every aisle
to try to find these people.One of them was Gracie Doll, of

(01:00:15):
the of the Doll sisters, andthe other guy was one of the munchkins
too. Well, all the Dollswere were munchkins in the Wizard of Oz.
All four of them were. Uh. And there were three Lollipop kids.
We know who Jerry Marin was whopassed away not that long ago,
and uh, and then Harry Dollwas the other one of the Doll family

(01:00:37):
was the other Lollipop kid. Andthere was one other guy and i'll um
with he was in that cemetery withGracie Doll. Jackie Gerlick was his name.
But we had no luck. Wehad no luck finding him. But
a lot of those people, nowit was I didn't want to get into
all that yet. Sorry, I'llstop, I gotta stop talking for a
second. Well, we're talking aboutthe Doll family. So they were German

(01:01:02):
dwarfs who immigrated to the US andthen all four of them went on to
act in films and working on youknow, various circus acts. Um,
that's how they made their living.And you know, we talked earlier about
how sometimes these performers would take onthe name last names of whoever their guardians
were or whatever. And Daisy andHarry went under the names Earls for a

(01:01:24):
time because that was the name oftheir manager when they came to the US,
and then I think after their auntmanager died, they then changed it
back again. But for a time. You know two of the dolls where
I had the last name of Earls. Um, so I thought that was
kind of an interesting tradition back then. Um yeah, they changed back to
Doll after their manager died. Ithink they were they yeah, they were

(01:01:45):
born Schneider, then Earls. Theytook the name Earls, and then they
went to the dolls. I don'tknow if they ever well, their death
certificate says Earls on it, butin parenthesis somebody did write, you know,
Harry Doll Daisy Doll on it.So so yeah, and they went
into the day and Stay and Harrywere both they were both three foot three,

(01:02:06):
that's lit. Yeah, and theyhad to do well, I mean,
they really had to do some realacting. I mean they had to
do real scenes. They had tocarry you know, they had to hold
their own um. They weren't youknow in the background. Um and I
don't know. I I liked.I thought they both did really find performances
for not being you know, professionallysuper professionally trained actors. That's not what

(01:02:29):
they did for a living generally.You know, Daisy was better than Harry,
I think. But but yeah,coming out of nowhere, coming out
of nowhere to give these guys leadsin a movie, Um, yeah,
something they they didn't. In fact, they weren't. I don't think they
did the freak show circuit. Ithink they were with the circus, so
they were you know, of courseaccentuated for their height, uh, you

(01:02:52):
know, riding around him little poniesand stuff like that. And they were
hired by Yeah, they were withRingling Brothers and Barnum Bailey. But they
never went the of the side show. As far as I know, they
didn't there. That's another interesting thingabout these people is that they would you
know, some people just wouldn't doit. You know. Robert Wadlow will
talk about him, the tall guy. You know, he was with the

(01:03:13):
circus, but he would not goto a side show. He was a
man who was looked at because ofhis height, took advantage of that and
made a career out of it,but wouldn't go the freak route. And
I think the Dolls were like thattoo. Yeah, I can see that.
Daisy Earls passed away on March fifteenth, nineteen seventy two, and Harry
Earls or Doll, passed away onMay fourth, nineteen eighty five, five

(01:03:36):
years later, and he was eightythree. And I don't have causes of
death. Yeah they well, Imean natural causes. I'm sure was nothing.
I know that Tiny Dollars was thelast of them, died in two
thousand and four. But yeah,and they're all cremated except for Gracie,
who's supposedly in that cemetery. Butuh, you know, we had no

(01:03:58):
luck. But it was like findinga needle in a haystack there. But
yeah, they lived in a littlehome, all four of them together in
the house. And they all diedin that house in Sarasota. And sweet,
sweet, my little oh, Itold you my friend Sadie. She
was four foot two. But shewould do again. She would do nothing.
She'll do a lot of you know, so go in animal costumes,

(01:04:20):
but she'll never do a circus.And that was just their their kind of
thing. Yeah, as opposed todwarves, because the dwarves are a whole
different a whole different thing. BecauseI saw Willy Wonka this week. It
was a fiftieth anniversary, so Iwent to the movies to see it,
and I thought it was going tobe this like amazing digital print. It
wasn't. It was a nice print, but it was, you know,

(01:04:41):
obviously it was not remastered visually,but it was interesting to see the Umpa
Loopa's on the big screen again andthe famous dwarves, Herve Biliche of course,
um Tattoo Vern Troyer, Tony Cox, who's still alive. I saw
him my CBS lately, the guythat the black guy in um in Bad

(01:05:02):
Santa and Okay, yeah, yeah, Kenny Baker, Billy Bartie, David
Rappaport, Zelda Rubinstein from Poldergeist,Peter Dinklich from ELF. We talked about
it in the UH in the otherpodcast. Um Johnny Eck, Johnny Ech,
the half Man who had the halfMan he had no no lower half

(01:05:24):
from the waist down basically are andum uh And I thought this is interesting.
Apparently DiCaprio has been wanting to doa film about his life since the
nineties. Uh. And there's ascreenplay written by the screenwriter who wrote Edward
Scissor Hands. Uh And supposedly thescreenplay is amazing. And but I mean
trying for probably you know, thirtyyears now almost to get a film made,

(01:05:48):
um and for whatever reason hasn't happenedyet. But if that that would
be really fascinating. Yeah, hewas an interesting man. Um. Yeah,
I did realized he had a twinbrother. I didn't know that until
recently. They were they were andthey would do that magic act where they
would he saw somebody in half andJohnny would get out and run around.

(01:06:09):
You know, there's a few peoplethat have been doing that if you've seen
them recent on YouTube, those prankswhere there's a couple of other people that
do that on the beach on VeniceBeach. Oh my god, it's hilarious
to it. But I mean Iread that like people would run screaming from
the tent or wherever it was theywere doing that performance that because it was
a saw in half act. Andyeah, and the brother would be the

(01:06:31):
legs and you know, Harry Echof course would be the top half and
they would start chasing after his legsbasically, and people would run screaming from
from the building. Men would abandonwomen, like just run for their lives.
Look them up on YouTube. There'sa couple of prank videos like that
where somebody does that on Venice Beachand it's terrifying because you think somebody's literally

(01:06:53):
caught half and I he'd run torun faster on his feet, on his
hands, and most people can intheir feet, and he would just run
after people. It was just,oh my god, you'd lose your mind.
But apparently he had um. Hehad he had legs, apparently,
and we had him like tucked up. He didn't want his legs, you
know, he didn't. I meanthey were probably not very big. But

(01:07:14):
he apparently did have legs, andhe and uh and uh someono tucked into
his clothing. At least that's whatin one of the documentaries I saw mentions
that and uh but they were Yeah, he was born to fraternal twins,
and that he lived and died inthe same house and born and died in
the same house. He could run, He could do um tight rope.

(01:07:36):
He could his trick was like goingup on down on the ladder and uh.
And there's a famous picture him andhim on a bicycle, a double
bike and Johnny, you know,the half man is on one side and
then the other guy who has noarms is with his peddling and Johnny's stirring.
It's a great picture. Wow,But yeah, he was. It's

(01:07:59):
interesting because I literally just found thisguy. His name was Jeffrey Pratt Gordon,
and I saw he did a littleinterview about Johnny eck on YouTube,
so I reached out on Facebook andwe've been corresponding, and I asked him
about the house he bought, JohnnyX house and he's like a Johnny K
historian. There's Johnny I think JohnnyK Museum dot com is what it's called

(01:08:20):
his website, and he sells likeJohnny ac t shirts and stuff like that.
But he bought the house that hesays. The house was built in
eighteen ninety six. The Eckhart wasthere in Eckhart as he shortened it to
eck They bought it in nineteen osix. John Senior, Amelia, their
mother, and their older sister Carolyn. Both parents died in the home in

(01:08:41):
thirty nine, a month apart fromeach other. They were set up for
viewing in the living room parlor,thus the name parlor for funeral homes.
And uh and he says, yeah, I still owned the house. He
and his brother were born in thesecond floor on August twenty seventh, nineteen
eleven. Johnny died directly below thatroom on j New or fifth, nineteen
ninety one. His brother passed awayin ninety five at at Church Home Hospital

(01:09:05):
and was the only This was theironly home they ever knew. That's kind
of neat that somebody who had areal respect and an honor for these for
Johnny ex because he was an accomplishedhe could act. He's a good looking
guy. He uh, he was. He would paint and you know,
there's a thing and I think it'sa Baltimore thing where they paint on screens

(01:09:29):
and there you could see John johnnyx artwork on this on this website.
It's He's an interesting man, veryinteresting man, and a very kind man.
I've heard only nice things about him. We had, you know,
another really fascinating story were the Siamesetwins, Violet and Daisy Hilton. You
know, the term Siamese twins camecome from the original ones that were Changanang

(01:09:50):
Bunker, and who were the youknow, they were born in what was
then Siam and then it now isThailand. But they're the ones very famously
you know, fathered twenty one childrenand they were the original Siamese twins and
that just became the term for cojoined twins. So Violet and Daisy Hilton

(01:10:11):
were actually born in Britain and soldand exploited and uh and they actually escaped
their manager. I guess this womanat bottom was really nasty, beat them
and put them on display. Andthen when she died, someone else inherited
these two girls and the same abuse. So somehow they came to America.
Somehow they got to an attorney andyou gotta help us, you got to

(01:10:33):
get us out of here, anduh and this guy did and freed them
from from their their their you know, abusive guardians. Legal they were purchased.
You know, it's so sad,but they were both they had a
combined weight of one hundred and sixtysix pounds to Hilton sisters. They stood

(01:10:54):
four foot nine and they you know, they toured with Bob Hope and yeah,
yeah they were legit. I meanthey're you know, to to to
to know them. If they werestanding next to each other, they had
an odd little angle, but noone knew there. A lot of people
didn't even know they were connected.They would walk very smoothly, get in

(01:11:14):
and out of cars really easy,you know. So they but they had
to have their dresses specially made ormodified because they had to be connected.
And they were connected by um,let's see, their lower spines and hips
were fused. They had the sameblood circulation and uh and the same with
the Bunkers. And uh. Therewas a movie they did on their own

(01:11:36):
after Freaks called UM Change for Life, about this love affair that they were
having and how they would uh theirtheir respective partners and uh and I think
one was but they represented that onewould kiss and the other one would feel

(01:11:56):
it. So it was just Idon't know, I don't think that was
true that get really happened that way. But they retired. They moved to
Charlotte, North Carolina, and theyworked in a supermarket together and Violet or
Daisy would run the cash register andthe sister who was sitting next to her
obviously because they were connected, wouldyou know, like weigh the produce or

(01:12:19):
something. And the people that workedin the supermarket and they went theredn't didn't
even know. They were like Siamesetwins and they lived a little horse and
uh yeah, it is interesting theywere. They were imagine, imagine not
spending a minute by yourself, youknow, connected from birth and never having

(01:12:40):
a moment to yourself. There wasanother pair of twins, Ronnie and Donnie
gay Galleon, who would you know, brothers that were just they would beat
the ship out of each other,you know, and they were connected.
They couldn't go anywhere, you know. It's like, you know, just
a whole life of compromises is whatthey'd have to do. You know,
just the ire life is a compromise. It's fascinating. But yeah, so

(01:13:05):
they were. They had a colorfullife, and they ended up, you
know, being out of the picturecompletely. Didn't want to do any of
that stuff anymore. I think theydid show Freaks once at their home in
Charlotte or that. I don't knowif they went to it or they asked
them to go. I don't knowif they ever did show up on it,
but they passed away in an interestingway. You probably have that too,

(01:13:27):
because I don't the date. Ithink, well, one of them
died. They had influenza pneumonia,died of pneumonia, and they say one
of them died and it was severalhours later before the other one died,
which has got to be just terrifying. Well, that's what happened to the
Bunkers, you know, the originalSiamese twins. They had different lives and
they could I think it was Houdinitaught them or was at the Hilton sisters

(01:13:51):
taught them how to separate their brains, you know, from the other one,
how they could put themselves in somesort of trance to dismiss the other
one completely. So when they wantto, you know, have marital relations
and stuff, because what they wouldlike the Bunkers, they were both married,
so they would spend a week atthis house and then spend a week

(01:14:12):
at that house, so they couldall have their own you know, their
own deal and h but he wasagain Chang and ang um. One of
them became a heavy drinker and theother one was one of them had a
stroke and one of their legs wasparalyzed. Imagine being connected and they're having
a a you know, a legthat didn't work anymore, and they contracted

(01:14:34):
bronchitis. And one of them,Uh, they were sitting at because they
want to sleep because they had congestionissues. So they slept in a chair
in front of the fire and oneof them died and and so you know,
they found him and the other onesays, well, I'm going to
it's like two hours later he diedtoo. But I think they could have
been fairly simple operations to nowadays toseparate them. But they didn't want to

(01:14:58):
do it, you know, sowhat they knew, and the Hiltons were
that way too, the Hilton sisters, they just didn't want to do it.
And uh, and you have youseen um they're called the Chappelle sisters,
Lorie and Dorry Chappelle. Uh.They're connected by the head. And
they showed up on Mari and theyshowed up on Jerry and one of them

(01:15:19):
has spina bifida and you know,it's like on a tray and the other
one can can you know, movepretty well on her own and uh and
then Dorry, who was the oneon the tray, um became country singer
called changed her name to rebut sotouring on a tray with her sisters all

(01:15:43):
and her around the whole time ashis country singer called rebut and now identifies
as a male goes by George soSo and also Lorie. The other one
is a trophy winning bowler, whichis something that I find fascinating. But
by Changan Aang Bunker, by theway, when they died, um they

(01:16:03):
have they still have family reunions ofall their ancestors, of all their descendants.
And there's the last one was intwo thousand and six, fifteen hundred
descendants of Chang and Yang Bunker andHarry mount Airy, North Carolina Mount.
Yeah mount Airy. So um andthat interesting, Well that's wild. And

(01:16:25):
then just I got in a deepdive for a moment about twins, and
yeah, all these other people weretwins. You know Nelson, Ricky Nelson's
kids, Jerry Hall, Linda Hamilton, Mary Lew Henner, Scarlett Johansson,
Corey Kennedy, Liberaci had a twinthat died of as an infant. Elvis
had a twin that died as aninfant, the Olsen twins, and Aaron

(01:16:48):
Murphy and Diane Murphy was tabith onbe which all these people had a b
Davis was a twin. Isn't itinteresting? And but you know they made
on the Brady Bunch Alice sure sureum. Also Aston Kutcher. Oh really,
I didn't know that as interesting.Giovanni Rubisi too is another one.

(01:17:09):
But it's a fasting. Yeah yeah. And some of them, you know,
it's known because like the like withthem the Olsen twins that you know,
we always knew they were twins becausethey worked as child actors and and
Hollywood productions like working with child actorswho have twins because of labor laws,
um and you know, limits withhow many hours a day they're allowed to
work. So if you have twins, you can just rotate them in and

(01:17:30):
out, um without overworking anyone twins. So it's interesting when they when it
a celebrity becomes famous, not asa child actress, so you don't know
that they have a twin because youknow they became famous later in life.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,it's very interesting. And I know that
sometimes like one change is appearance quitedrastically and they had to you know,

(01:17:51):
stick with one fax ended. Thatwas the way with the with the Tabitha
Zombie which Aaron and Diane Murphy anduh and they then it just went down
to you know Aaron Murphy as theTabitha for the rest of it. You
know, it was just the waythings ended up. But anyway, so
yeah, famous Twins the co joinedtwins Violet, Daisy, Chang and Yang.

(01:18:14):
So um, how about what's different? This is? This is this
is like epic. This thing isa really long podcast. Uh. Robert
Wadlow was another one. He wasn'tin Freaks, but he was a very
famous man. He was the tallestman in the world eight foot eleven twenty
two eight and he would he didn'tstop growing. There was no sign of

(01:18:35):
him stopping. Uh. And uh, I forget what why? Why?
They what? They he had aninfection or something. Well, actually,
no, I know how he died. He was traveling with a shoe company
and he was like he was likehe would show up at shoe stores and
open them or whatever. He waslike twenty something, right, yeah,

(01:18:56):
yeah, And and he had aby all accounts, a really nice guy.
We were when Jordan and I wenton that trip recently, we stopped
and in Illinois to go to hismuseum, which was closed because of COVID,
but going to his grave and wentto his house and all that stuff,
and that was pretty cool. Buthe was in Manistee, Michigan,
doing a shoe store in a shoestore promotion that they had hired him to

(01:19:21):
do, and he wore ankle bracesbecause he was so big he needed the
support, and one became irritated andinfected and they couldn't take him to the
hospital because they couldn't accommodate him.So they stayed in the hotel room for
like ten days, put two orthree beds together so he could be comfortable.

(01:19:43):
But he ended up passing away therein Michigan and Manistee, Michigan,
and shipped back to Illinois twelve Paulbearers and eight assistants. They said the
coffin was ten foot by nine footand weighed over a thousand pounds. Robert
Wadlow is one of those famous attractions. If you go to Ripley's, believe

(01:20:05):
it or not, there's almost alwaysa Robert Wadlow statue on the outside of
it, which is which is neat. But I did a lot of research.
I love Robert Wadlow on him andI'm gonna be doing something about that.
We got into his school and itwas neat. It was neat to
tell there. I liked him alot. It was neat. But um,
we can there's a couple of onesthat you know, they don't have

(01:20:28):
much of a history to them asso much as uh, I don't know
much about him. I mean,the Prince Randian was a fascinating one to
look at. We mentioned him earlier, who was armless and legless and would
wear like this wool kind of garmentaround him. It just looked like a
potato sack really, And and hecould His talent was he could roll cigarettes

(01:20:49):
with his mouth only and he couldshave himself too, So that's what he
would do for his entertainment portion ofof the side show, for his little
feature. And he was actually bornin Guyana, spoke five languages, fathered
five children that I'm really curious about. And he had it was called Tetramelia

(01:21:15):
where he was born without limbs.But um, yeah, And he died
December nineteenth, nineteen thirty four,New Jersey, was sixty three years old.
A spontaneous rupture of the heart andmy heart attack basically. Yeah.
Then up to the Tomaani's Genie andAltomany. We mentioned them a little while

(01:21:35):
ago. They're the ones to startat Gibsonton where all these lovely, wonderful
people were able to to live andnot be bothered by others, and opened
up their Giants fishing camp. Theyadopted two kids. He was eight foot
four, she was he was worthtwenty six shoe and uh and opened up

(01:21:59):
their little restaurant and Jeannie TooMany stayedthere until she passed away. Uh and
uh and their their old giants camp. It's they've kept one of the cottages
and there is a statue of Altomani'sboot in front of it. But it's
like on a busy road and ifyou literally, if you don't look,
you wouldn't you wouldn't see it.And it's it's sad because these people were

(01:22:23):
important at that for the whole townand for the community. And she said,
she she said, you know,people always looked at this oddly because
she was the half girl. Ofcourse they were going to look at her
oddly. She goes, When Iwas young, I had a ball,
she said. I loved the attention. And uh so taking these you know,
lemons and making lemonade as it weresure they were the world's strangest married

(01:22:45):
couple. And uh and uh,Yeah, and they're and they're forever and
Gibsons in two they're buried in thesame cemetery, although a little bit further
from each other. But uh,yeah said, but lovely, lovely people
from all account and then, uh, I'll just do a little brief thing
on Grady Styles. I did aYouTube video about him and his murder.

(01:23:08):
They called him the lobster Boy.He was extraductively was what I think it
was called, where he was bornwith it with his fingers fused together and
his arms. And he came froma family that did that on purpose to
be in the side show, youknow, like they purposely made more lobster
babies so they could carry on thisfamily tradition. There was a book that

(01:23:29):
was really big in the nineties calledGeek Love, and it was about that
sort of that was one of themain parts as his family were creating their
own quote unquote freaks, so tocontinue that family tradition. It um,
it's fascinating, it's fascinating. AndGrady Styles was a nasty drunk, mean
drunk would beat people, strangle people, had butt people, and his wife

(01:23:54):
basically took a contract out on him. And it's it's it's a fascinating story
because he had a lobster child andas two lobster children and then um,
but the woman, the mother who'sbeating, the wife who married him twice,
was married to him for a secondtime, who and her her son
from a different relationship, the humanblockhead who would pound nails into his head.

(01:24:16):
She told her son, I gotto get out of this relationship.
So blockhead hired another guy to killhim and uh and did for like fifteen
hundred dollars and uh, they youknow, it was done in a minute.
They rolled in a minute when thepolice are doing the investigations. But
yeah, it's a fascinating story.Greedy Styles and it's on my YouTube channel
if you wanted to, uh tofind out more about it. Just h

(01:24:41):
and Greedy Styles the Third. He'sstill around there. Remember for a while
there was that freak show in Venice. It just closed like three years ago,
and they had Greedy Styles the Thirdthere and it was it was mostly
geeks, you know, and peopleshoving nails into their faces and swallowing sword
swallowers and say, there were veryfew I think, uh, you know,
proper what they would call physical sideshowattractions and um and uh yeah,

(01:25:06):
but that was that was a freakshow. A lot of little people.
And and Grady the Third, Idon't know where he is anymore, but
he's still around. I guess he'sactive on Facebook. I haven't looked.
Huh. There's just one other pointI wanted to make is that modern day
freak shows. I think it's onPC and they would never let it happen
now, But have you turned onTLC, you know, the Learning the

(01:25:30):
Learning Channel, it's my six hundredpound life. It's the world's fattest people,
but it's the hoarders, it's thelittle families, and it is like
the you know, they're they're goingunder the under the umbrella of being the
Learning Channel and almost being educational,but they are just doing the freak shows,

(01:25:51):
you know, and and it's undera different guys. But I just
found that. I found that interesting. It still exists and they're masking it
as this educational television, but it'sreally exploitation in its own way. Yeah.
But so we wanted to talk aboutTodd Browning and when you read something,
Yeah, so I had a coupleof guys I wanted to talk about

(01:26:14):
Todd Robbins, who was the authorwho wrote the short story Spurs that Freaks
was based on. So when Browningwanted to make Freaks, he optioned the
rights or bought the rights to theSpurs short story. And Spurs was based
actually in France and when a Frenchtraveling carnival or circus, and most of
the story of course was thrown out. Very little of it survived into the

(01:26:39):
screenplay. I think the big dinnerscene was the main thing that and I
think one other scene were the twomain things that stayed. And I believe
the overall the kind of plot ofthe scheming trapeze artist, you know,
trying to get the guy's money,I think that was taken from that,
you know, the short story.But I think everything else, of course
was changed, and of course wasmoved from France to the US the setting.

(01:27:02):
But Todd Robbins was an interesting guy. He was born into a wealthy
family in the northeast US and um, yes, the author of the short
story today. Sorry, So ToddRobbins had an interesting life. He was
born into wealth, he was born, you know, up in the northeast,

(01:27:23):
and his dad died when he wasfairly I think still a young man,
Robbins was so he inherited you know, so much wealth at that age.
He really didn't need to work anymore. Um, And he became an
author and he eventually immigrated to theFrench riviera and was there when World War
two started, and he had everyopportunity to leave. He could have gone
back to the UK, or hecould have even gone back to the US

(01:27:45):
to we're kind of right out thewar, but he was kind of like
defiant and he refused to leave France. So he ended up being sent to
a concentration camp that was in France, um you know by that in Germans
when they invaded and it was notum, not that there were any good
concentration camps. It was not likea death camp or something horrible like that,
but it was where um, alot of them you know, Americans

(01:28:06):
and Brits that were caught, youknow, civilians that were you know,
became part of occupied you know,France. It's where they were sent um.
And so he went through that experienceand they don't they don't know which
camp he was in. He neverwrote about it, but he was.
But they've kind of guessed at whichone he probably was sent to and then
uh, and then he eventually,you know, he survived and he got
through the war and he passed awaythere in the French Riviera in nineteen forty

(01:28:30):
nine on May tenth, and hewas sixty years old. But he had
a crazy he had a crazy onecrazy story that I really liked was he
was when he was in college inAmerica. They went to some he and
some buddies went out for a nightout and they ended up in some theater.
Uh. And it was there wasa boxing event going on, and
there was this frenchman in the ringwho was touting himself as like the champion

(01:28:53):
boxer of France, and they hadthey had a fight in the guy won,
and then they challenged anybody in thein the audience that wanted to fight
this guy. If they won,they would be crowned, you know,
the boxing champion of France. Theywould become the new guy. And so
Todd Robbins friends goaded him into doingit. I guess he was a pretty
athletic guy. And when he gotin the ring, the French fighter looked

(01:29:15):
at him, was like no,and and left and so he so he
unofficially, by default, Todd Robbinsbecame the you know, the unofficial so
called you know, champion boxer ofFrance. Um, he was just be
getting of the ring and it turnedout that this this boxer was actually this
Frenchman was actually just an actor andhe was just trying to get money to

(01:29:36):
go home. So it was all, you know, wow set up.
But yeah, it was really afascinating story. So he probably Spurs that
was The Freaks was based on.It's probably the biggest most famous work he
did, right, I mean,yeah, yeah he had other um he
was published if if he had afew other books published, I believe,
full length novels and stuff. Butyeah, I think Spurs is probably what

(01:29:57):
he's bost best known for because OddBrowning you know, took on Yeah,
and I thought it was interesting sinceTodd Browning himself had a history with you
know, carnivals and circuses working withthem, that he would take on this
film. And it's almost like hewas the right person to tell the story
because he showed all these performers asreal human beings and showed them with some
compassion, which another director that didn'thave that background might not have done or

(01:30:21):
probably wouldn't have done. So it'salmost like, you know, like they
did today, they would call thatrepresentation. You know, representation matters.
Having this director that probably, youknow, I'm sure had befriended performers like
this when he worked and that circuithimself had a much more sympathetic eye towards
those characters than someone else might havehad, I think. Um. But

(01:30:44):
Todd Browning, uh, he madehis became a famous director in the silent
era, and was most famous becausehe did ten films with Lon Cheney and
when he went on to make Draculain nineteen thirty one, he wanted Cheney,
but Chaney died and so he gotas he kind of put it,
he kind of got stuck with BellaDaghossi was not his first choice, but
of course Bello Legossi, you know, made the role famous, and Todd

(01:31:09):
Browning's Dracula with Bella Legossi as amajor, major milestone in the history of
horror film production and kicked off,as we said earlier, Universal's whole monster
movie horror run in nineteen thirties.It's so famous. Yeah, yeah,
so he had also Browning had alsopreviously done another film, a silent film
about circus carnival performers that he madein nineteen twenty seven called the Show.

(01:31:31):
So it wasn't even the first timehe'd done this subject matter before. But
here's the interesting story that I reallywanted to tell. So in nineteen fifteen,
Todd Browning was not yet a famous, established director yet, he was
just kind of in early stages ofhis career. And he was driving at

(01:31:54):
night with two other people, bothin the show biz and one of them
was Elmer Booth, who at thattime had some fame as a silent film
actor. And there's two versions ofevents. One is that Browning was driving
drunk, and the other one wasthat it was foggy and visibility was bad.
It may have been a combination ofthe two. But he ran into
a train, into like a flatcar on a train, and it was

(01:32:18):
carrying rails and it was you know, it instantly killed Elmer Booth from you
know, severe head trauma from runninginto the rails, and Todd Browning and
the other passenger were seriously seriously injured, broken bones, lacerations to their face,
and it apparently took him quite along time, quite a few months

(01:32:39):
to recover from this accident. Sohere's where it gets interesting. I went
back and read the original stories.You know, in the old stories,
they would actually print the people's addressesin the newspaper. And the address that
they gave for Todd Browning was fortyfive hundred Sunset Boulevard, which was where
d W. Griffith Studio was basedat that time. And d W.

(01:33:00):
Griffith was getting ready to make Intolerancehis big epic, and Elmer Booth was
actually slated he was going to geta role in that film, and Browning
was ended up working as an assistantdirector on Intolerance. He was one of
the many assistant directors they had workingon because it was such a huge production.
So Elmer Booth dies and d W. Griffith feels bad for Booth's family.

(01:33:20):
And Elmer Booth had a younger sisternamed Margaret Booth, and d W.
Griffith hired her as what they didn'tused to call cutters, which were
now called film editors, and acutter literally because they would take scissors and
razorblades physically cut the film to editit all together. So Margaret Booth gets
hired almost kind of out of sympathyfor her family by dBW Griffiths, because

(01:33:44):
you know, they lost their breadwinnerand Elmer Booth when her brother died.
So Margaret Booth starts working as acutter. So fast forward to nineteen thirty
two and Freaks has been made,and as we talked about earlier, Irving
Alberg took the movie away from Browningand chopped almost a third of it off.
Yeah, yeah, and guess whowas the supervising editor at MGM by

(01:34:13):
this point Margaret No kidding, yep, Margaret Booth was the supervising editor at
MGM, and she was made supervisingeditor in nineteen thirty two. She'd been
an editor there for several years.She had become good friends with Irving Thalberg.
In fact, Irving Thalberg, asthe legend goes, coined the term
film editor it never existed before,and bestowed it upon Margaret Booth. She

(01:34:36):
was disposedly, as legend goes,the first person to be given the film
editor title in the twenties, andso she'd been an editor at MGM for
years by this point, gets madethe supervising editor, and she never forgave
Todd Browning for the death of herbrother and Irving Thalberg and MGM takes his

(01:34:58):
movie away from him and edit thehell out of it and cuts in.
I don't know if she ever hadanything to do with Freak. She's not
credited on it. But they alsosaid that when she became supervising editor for
the next thirty years, there wasn'ta project that came out of MGM that
she didn't have oversight over as aneditor. Wow. So it's interesting whether

(01:35:18):
or not, you know, ifshe had anything to do with it getting
chopped down over this, you know. And she had no love for the
guy obviously because she for the deathof her brother. So I don't know.
And she ended up having one ofthe most prolific careers. She's a
very, very famous editor in filmhistory, not just because she's, you
know, supposedly the first person toget the title, but she had a

(01:35:41):
seventy year career in post production inHollywood. She edited Annie in nineteen eighty
two. She was in her eighties, that's how long her career went.
She also edited A Goodbye Girl.She edited Mutiny on the Bounty back in
the thirties. I mean, shewas in the middle of it. What
a what a life and and andin its part because her brother died and
she got offered that job. Andat that time, in the early years,

(01:36:04):
most of the cutters were women.Most of the film editors were female.
Um, in those early years,really, I didn't know that.
And there a story and in oneof the seasons of American Horror Story there
was a character named Margaret Booth,which I assume maybe is connect. It

(01:36:24):
wasn't based on her in any way. I don't think the character was like
her, but it was she wasnamed Margaret Booth. Yeah, yeah,
I'm going to look that up becausethat's symbolic of something, you know,
it's got to be. So maybeit is the Freak Show season, I
wonder. Hum. And then ofcourse there's a six degrees of Manson connection,
because there always is. Uh.One of her early film credits was

(01:36:48):
in nineteen twenty three was a filmcalled The Wanters, and this is a
year before MGM got formed, butit was for Louis B. Mayer,
his original production company, and whichalso featured Norma Shoe, who was Irving
Thalberg's went on to be Irving Thalberg'swife and the queen of MGM in the
thirties. Um and Uh, thewriter of the Wanters was Paul Byrne Oh

(01:37:13):
my gosh, okay, and ofcourse Paul Burne, you know, built
the house that eventually Jay seburn livedin when at the time of the murders,
of the Manson murders, when hebecame when he was killed. That's
good, that's good. It's likeone of the sixty years ago we gotta
do this, he gotta figure itout. You did it. It's really
good. There's got to be areference in there somewhere. There has to

(01:37:33):
be, man, I know somepeople get annoyed. It very very good.
Yeah. I didn't know that untilI was reading a little bit about
it that he is an uncredited ToddBrownie was an uncredited writer on um Intolerance
did w griwth movie interest. That'sinteresting and they it's kind of newsy now

(01:37:56):
because um, you know, Intolerancewas the largest movie show ever if you
look it up, it's insane theamount of extras that were in this thing,
Intolerances of I thought it was kindof a hard movie to sit through,
but uh, but it's a silentmovie and epic huge sets that were
actually they said one of the firsttourist attractions in Hollywood. People came here

(01:38:16):
because they didn't tear them down throughit. Yeah, that was right.
So we talked about the Vista Theater. We talked about the Vista Theater earlier,
and that's where basically the set waskind of in that block of streets
there, which was right next towhere dd Wig Griffith studios were, and
they remained standing of a set.There's a picture of the set being built
and you can still match up thehouses that are still there. It's it's

(01:38:39):
all still there. So um.Margaret Booth died in two thousand and two
at the age of one hundred andfour. She lived in three different centuries.
No, kid, I was bornin eighteen ninety eight, so she
lived in the eighteen hundreds, thenineteen hundreds and to two thousands' is that
crazy? Um? And then youknow Todd rounding his career kind of faded

(01:39:02):
throughout over the thirties. He didsome more films, but by nineteen thirty
nine reportedly he felt like, youknow, the industry had kind of passed
him on the sensibilities of the audienceas had changed from the types of films
that he made, and so hebasically virtually retired by the end of the
nineteen thirties, and then he wentin he became a recluse. He had
a home in Malibu and he justdisappeared into the home. And his wife

(01:39:26):
died in nineteen forty four, andhe had been become he'd become such a
recluse by then. That apparently thatone of the bigger bituaries reported that he
had died then, not not hiswife. There was confusion, and then
he you know, he kind oflived in an alcoholic, reclusive lifestyle and
died himself on October sixth, nineteensixty two, and the cause was unknown,

(01:39:48):
but he had been treated for cancerover those last few years of his
life, and of course he hadyears of alcohol abuse, so I know
that he had. Oh there wasa story, did you did you see
read that story about the guy showingup at at his grave at his funeral
with a case of Coors Beer.I don't know where I already if I'm

(01:40:11):
finding that, but yeah, here'sthe story I got. It was he
was he was embalmed by Gates,Kingsley Gates. They're the people whom they're
in Santa Monica still after visiting hours, a gentleman only known as Lucky sat
with Browning's corpse and polished off acase of Coors beer. He knew nothing
of Browning's life, Hollywood life,but the two were drinking buddies and the

(01:40:34):
pact was made while Todd was stillalive. So, um, that's an
interesting story. There was a thingabout Todd Browning had a parrot and the
only thing it knew how to sayit was worse Dorothy. Okay, that's

(01:40:54):
hilarious. Oh yeah, and Iforget who he was with, because he
kind of chummed up with a bunchof people. But he's buried in this
little place with his wife Alice,and these other people called Houghton h o
U G h t O N anda little column barry him. Is the
most unassuming little place. Um.Yeah, his wife was probably like,

(01:41:14):
who the hell is Dorothy? Yeah, the parent saying some other woman's name.
It was the League Wizard of Ozfans here. That must be it
must be it. Um. Butum, I think so did we do
freakes? I think we're done withfreaks. Um. I wanted to give
a I wanted to give a quickshout out. We talked earlier about you

(01:41:38):
know, you mentioned some documentaries,Uh, related to some of these characters,
and that reminded me that, um, you know our mutual acquaintance friend,
Jeffrey Schwartz. Uh, he's adocumentary filmmaker. He did Divine,
a Divine documentary, and tab HunterConfidential and Alan Carr really really good showbiz
docs. Um. And he hasa new one coming out called Boulevard,

(01:41:59):
a Hollywoo story that's all about howGlorious Swanson tried to get a Sunset Boulevard
musical off the ground. Um.Maybe you know she was trying to do
it herself. And I did thisstory, and yeah, it's amazing.
It's a story I knew nothing about, and apparently I m I AMDB it
popped up. I got a specialthanks credit for it, which is really

(01:42:19):
nice. Nice. I don't know, I don't remember what I did,
but I'm I appreciate it always andI'm freaking fascinated by this story just reading
about it, and um, itapparently premiered it out fast this past this
month, and hopefully we'll be out, you know, for people to watch
and rent soon. I don't knowwhat the release plan for it is,

(01:42:41):
but I'm sure distribution and you know, be out in the next few months
hopefully. So it is fascinating.I mean, Glorious Swanson was a smart
lady and she bought the rights toa musical version of Sunset Boulevard in the
sixties. She was going to getthis thing out the ground. I think
she may even got the rights inthe fifties, but but she was working
with these guys. She got thepermission from Paramount Studios to do this,

(01:43:02):
and then Paramounts started backing off onit, and they started saying, well,
you know, we can't we don'twant it to uh take away from
the actual movie itself. And Iknow they really jerked her around because she
spent a lot of money on it. She hired these two guys that were
composing the music, and and Paramountreally jerked her around on it. It's

(01:43:26):
it's it's very interesting. Yeah,I'm like, I'm looking forward to this
documentary because she ended up. Yeah, it's probably one of the biggest disappointments
of her life, if there wasone, was that this thing didn't get
off the ground, because it wasa real passionate project for her. So
I'm excited to see it. Iguess Andrew Lloyd Webber got one off the
ground in the nineties, but that'snot the same It wasn't the same project

(01:43:46):
that she was. Correct, Yeah, thank you before we wrap, well
for people watching the video version,what is the big banner behind you?
By the way, that we referenceda couple of times this was I had
this made actually, Uh so Ihad a customed done for me and uh
it was just grady, But yeah, I had this done. I don't

(01:44:09):
know. It was the last timeI got an income tax refund, so
it had to be in early twothousands. And this is what I this
is what I spent the money on. So it's genuine, like it's a
tart. It's done, you know, it's like a real proper tar carembus,
and it's got the groments that youhanging on Johnny act. These are
my three favorites. And uh andthank you for asking about it, Mike,
because I'm putting this up on eBaybecause yeah, so after this thing,

(01:44:33):
after this thing airs, it's nota little commercial. Now I'm putting
this up on eBay, so becauseI can't use it anymore and it's just
too big. I got no spacefor it. And I love it.
And I think it's heavy. It'sheavy duty. So anyway, you're welcome.
We're now like the home shopping Networksuddenly no, yeah, three for

(01:44:56):
three, low low payments. Butyeah, that was fun. Now it
was exhausting. It was a lotof information about a lot of different people.
And the video version is probably goingto be you know, a little
bit more. We'll put the imagesup so people are gonna know who we're
talking about. You know, wecan throw pictures up there and of who
these people were in the movie.And yeah, but they are all so

(01:45:17):
interesting. They're all, like thebooks, are very special people. And
uh and I agree, I agreethat they were, and they're still we're
still talking about them. Yep.Absolutely. Um, all right, well,
thanks everybody. Thanks to everybody forlistening. Thanks again to all of
our Patreon supporters and uh and everybodyelse that listens to our show. We
appreciate everyone, and we have funand you know, during these times especially,

(01:45:43):
I listened to podcasts a nice escape, and hopefully you know, we're
doing the same. Oh you knowwhat, somebody, Alison Martino texted me
yesterday, there's a new documentary aboutthat murder house in Los Felish woman put
Yeah, it's like a seven episodepodcast about and for those who don't know,
there's this old house up in lessFields neighborhood in La up in the
hills by by Griffith Park. Andthis house has been sitting here empty for

(01:46:06):
decades and you look inside and allthese old you know, gift of Christmas
gifts and things like that are stillthere from the fifties because the family that
lived there, the father killed thewife, tried to kill the daughter with
a hammer, uh and uh,and he ended up being he killed himself.
He drank sinaide and in this houseand so this but it's always been

(01:46:26):
kind of a strange story. Butthis woman actually did put it together.
And apparently there was another death inthat house she was being vague about.
Of course, she wants people towatch the Yeah, the home. The
home stayed vacant for decades and decadesum. And you could even look in
through the windows and see old Christmasdecorations from yeah, you know, from
back of then. It kind ofwas left untouched and I think kind of

(01:46:48):
was used as storage basically by theestate over the years a friend of mine,
because it was inherited. Yeah,sorry, I think I think there
it was inherited by their landscaper orsomething, and then the landscaper died and
the Sun got it, and theSun is the one who had it.
Now he's dead and that's why Iwent for sale again. It's called um

(01:47:09):
los Feeless Murder Mansion podcast and thefamily. What's interesting now because you talk
about the Christmas presents, the familywas perils and their Jews, so it's
it's interesting. So there's it's there'sa lot of confusion about that story,
and this podcast is supposed to beaddressing that. That's interesting. A friend

(01:47:29):
of mine who's the producer I has, I believe he has the film rights
to that, to the house andthe story. Oh nice, and I
think trying to get something going.So that's really I'm almost positive at the
los Field's Murder House. Yeah,so that's really interesting. I wonder if
he knows that that podcast is comingup, maybe something could happen. Who
knows, Maybe it'd be a goodepisode of American Horse. Oh actually the

(01:47:49):
first one is that already The MurderMansion, right, but um, but
yeah, well thanks freaks, yeah, thanks freak good Google Google Goggle,
Google Google Goggle. One of uswill accept you one of us. Yeah,
we accept you. We accept you. So you're one of us listeners

(01:48:09):
and we'll see you on the nextone. Thank you, Take care.
This has been an episode of theDearly Departed podcast. Dig up more episodes
at Dearly departedpod dot com and oniTunes and Google Play. See you next time.