Speaker 1: Todd was nervous. He hadn't been enthusiastic about the project
Speaker 1: that Universal Studios had handed him, but it paid the bills.
Speaker 1: Truth be told, he was just glad to have a job.
Speaker 1: The nineteen thirties might have been the golden age of Hollywood,
Speaker 1: but that was partly because America was in the throes
Speaker 1: of the Great Depression. Escapism was becoming a favorite American pastime.
Speaker 1: Theaters opened across the country, and the film industry thrived
Speaker 1: during the economic collapse. But Todd was also a superstitious man,
Speaker 1: so when he learned that the Roxy Theater in New
Speaker 1: York City wanted to release his film on Friday, he
Speaker 1: urged them to change the date. In the end, the
Speaker 1: Roxy granted Todd his wish. On Thursday, February twelfth of
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, movie goers packed sidewalks outside of the theater,
Speaker 1: hoping to snag tickets to his latest creation. For eighty
Speaker 1: five minutes that night, the audience found themselves transported to
Speaker 1: a mountaintop in Europe. They were immersed in a powerful
Speaker 1: visual spectacle, complete with clever cinematography, haunting soundscapes, and Bella
Speaker 1: Lagosi's legendary method acting how legendary you ask, Well, when
Speaker 1: he died, he was buried in a black silk cape,
Speaker 1: just like his character in the film. And of course,
Speaker 1: Dracula was a smashing success. The film forever changed the
Speaker 1: movies and the monsters we see there. It's reported, in fact,
Speaker 1: that numerous people in the opening night audience fainted from fright.
Speaker 1: While it's hard to imagine now, scary movies were major
Speaker 1: risks for studios back then, but in large part due
Speaker 1: to dracula success, movie makers realized something important. Fear makes money.
Speaker 1: It was true then and it's still true today. The
Speaker 1: psychological effects of fight or flights can be intoxicating, after all,
Speaker 1: and who doesn't love a good adrenaline and dopamine brain cocktail, right,
Speaker 1: It's a trick of evolution. We like to be scared
Speaker 1: in tightly controlled settings. That is. In two thousand, Dracula
Speaker 1: was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library
Speaker 1: of Congress. This was not, however, Todd Browning's first film
Speaker 1: to be given that honor. A much more controversial flick
Speaker 1: of his was given the same treatment, a movie that
Speaker 1: featured a very special individual, a crossover actor who bridged
Speaker 1: both the world of the side Show and the world
Speaker 1: of the silver screen. A much beloved man who went
Speaker 1: by a single name, Schlitze. I'm Aaron Manky, and welcome
Speaker 1: to this side show. Everyone has gaps in their history,
Speaker 1: moments they can't recall, or other pieces of time that
Speaker 1: they've chosen to forget. I do, and you do, whether
Speaker 1: you are consciously aware of it or not. These have
Speaker 1: been left on the cutting room floor of our lives.
Speaker 1: So resurrecting other people's stories, especially when they're long gone,
Speaker 1: creates a very particular kind of challenge. Sometimes all that's
Speaker 1: left of them is a fragment of a diary or
Speaker 1: an unset letter. Other times we can trace their names
Speaker 1: to a passenger list or a guest book at a hotel,
Speaker 1: or maybe we have an old photo album with missing
Speaker 1: images or a few stray pieces of celluloid. And we
Speaker 1: never know the complete story of what was happening outside
Speaker 1: of this frame, but we can guess. What we do
Speaker 1: know is this, Like many of the performers who fell
Speaker 1: into the gravitational pull of the American Side Show, a
Speaker 1: great deal of Schlitze's life is undocumented. Those early years,
Speaker 1: it seems, have held tightly to their secrets. One theory
Speaker 1: tells us that he was born to a prominent Texan
Speaker 1: family and then kept in their attic for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Another says he hailed from New Mexico. More than likely, though,
Speaker 1: he was born in the Bronx in New York in
Speaker 1: nineteen o one, and if the sleuths are correct, he
Speaker 1: had another name first, Simon Metz. We also know something else.
Speaker 1: He was born with a severe case of microcephaly, a
Speaker 1: neurodevelopmental disorder that gave his skull a pointed shape. He
Speaker 1: had a limited cognitive capacity and a sunny nature. We
Speaker 1: like to think that his first few years were relatively happy,
Speaker 1: and we'd hope for this for any kid, but it's
Speaker 1: in his childhood. Historians believe that he was sold to
Speaker 1: the side show. It seems the old joke of selling
Speaker 1: your little brother to the circus has very deep and
Speaker 1: very dark real life roots, but it wasn't uncommon. In fact,
Speaker 1: sideshow managers often recruited new acts from vulnerable families. They
Speaker 1: made it seem like they were doing the family a
Speaker 1: favor or acting in their best interest, and there may
Speaker 1: have been some truth to this. At a time when
Speaker 1: social services to poor families were limited, and those with
Speaker 1: a typical neurological functions had fewer resources. Living was hard.
Speaker 1: There's an argument to be made that for some the
Speaker 1: side show was a saving grace. Simon began his life
Speaker 1: on the road with Stephen and Augusta Mills in nineteen
Speaker 1: o nine. It's here that he became someone totally new.
Speaker 1: His first incarnation would be Schlitzy the Aztec. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: was dressed as a girl. At other times he wore
Speaker 1: a fur body suit posed as a half human half monkey,
Speaker 1: one of nature's honest experiments with the brain the size
Speaker 1: of a golf ball. He was marketed as savage and
Speaker 1: would sometimes be displayed behind bars. Part of Schlitze's act
Speaker 1: was answering questions posed by the showman. He did simple
Speaker 1: math and card tricks. He was billed as wild so
Speaker 1: that those feats would seem even more impressive. At the time,
Speaker 1: America was still fascinated by ideas of evolution and the
Speaker 1: search for the missing link, a favorite trope of Barnum's,
Speaker 1: and the legacy that he left behind, Let's See quickly
Speaker 1: gained the adoration of his fellow performers. While his work
Speaker 1: largely consisted of him being jeered at. It was also
Speaker 1: on the side show circuit that he found his chosen family,
Speaker 1: and even though his speech was limited, he gave that
Speaker 1: love back in kind. In schlets was sold to a
Speaker 1: man named Ted Metz no relation that we know of,
Speaker 1: who operated the Frequatorium at the Dreamland side show at
Speaker 1: Coney Island. There, he and a fellow performer who had
Speaker 1: also been born with microcephaly, a fellow by the name
Speaker 1: of Zip, performed a musical duet together. But schlet See
Speaker 1: wouldn't stay on the East Coast for long. You see,
Speaker 1: his manager was based in California and soon decided that
Speaker 1: they were going to take their show to that side
Speaker 1: of the country. It seems the Coney Island boardwalks weren't
Speaker 1: big enough for him. No, he was going to go
Speaker 1: west to Hollywood, in fact, because Schlitze wanted to become
Speaker 1: a star. Todd Browning had once been a living corpse.
Speaker 1: When he was sixteen, he fell in love and joined
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Fair and Carnival Company. He worked as a
Speaker 1: snake eater and escape artist, a clown, and even a contortionist.
Speaker 1: His famous corpse act, though involved him being buried alive,
Speaker 1: for up to forty eight hours at a time. It's
Speaker 1: fair to say that he had done it all. So
Speaker 1: after Dracula's commercial success and critical acclaim, Todd Browning decided
Speaker 1: that he would work on something a bit closer to home.
Speaker 1: He had an idea that he'd been thinking about for
Speaker 1: a long time, and when he pitched it to MGM,
Speaker 1: they gave him their blessing. But they wanted him to
Speaker 1: film his concept as a horror movie, so that's what
Speaker 1: they were going to get. It would be a movie
Speaker 1: about seduction, murder, and revenge, all set upon the backdrop
Speaker 1: of the side show, and Todd wanted real performers in
Speaker 1: his cast. I think it's safe to say that he
Speaker 1: had good intentions, but that, as they say, is what
Speaker 1: the road to Hell is paved with. It was through
Speaker 1: Hollywood Small Network that Todd met Schlitze and they took
Speaker 1: a liking to each other immediately. He was cast alongside
Speaker 1: sideshow performers from across the country, Johnny Eck the Half Boy,
Speaker 1: Prince Randy and the Human Caterpillar, Pete Robinson the Living Skeleton,
Speaker 1: Olga the Bearded Woman, and Cuckoo the bird Girl. The
Speaker 1: movie was named Freaks and it was the first Hollywood
Speaker 1: production for many of the performers involved. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: that title is a word that has certainly fallen out
Speaker 1: of fashion since then. Scholars believe that it comes from
Speaker 1: an old English word meaning something unusual or fancy. But
Speaker 1: by the mid eighteen hundreds, the phrase freak of nature
Speaker 1: had become a popular advertising slogan within side shows. In fact,
Speaker 1: many in the community at the time, the term freak
Speaker 1: was worn as a badge of honor. For a lot
Speaker 1: of these performers. Their shows allowed them to make an
Speaker 1: honorable living. It gave them a chance to travel, to
Speaker 1: be employed, and to find family. But as we'll see,
Speaker 1: Todd's film in many ways helped us cement the word
Speaker 1: as something a bit more sinister in mainstream America. As
Speaker 1: filming began in November of nine, the side show performers
Speaker 1: came to the set. Several MGM employees and actors, having
Speaker 1: never seen folks with such a spectrum of physical conditions,
Speaker 1: were overwhelmed nauseated. Even among this weak, stomached group was
Speaker 1: none other than f Scott Fitzgerald, who, while also drinking heavily,
Speaker 1: apparently vomited after seeing conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton
Speaker 1: in the studios dining hall. After this, the side show
Speaker 1: performers were banished to an outside table. The film had
Speaker 1: a remarkably quick production schedule. It wrapped in just a
Speaker 1: month and prom mirrored a little over a month after
Speaker 1: that to a tittering crowd in San Diego. But just
Speaker 1: halfway through the preview people got up and ran out.
Speaker 1: You might be asking why, Well, one newspaper wrote, and
Speaker 1: I quote for pure sensationalism, freaks tops any picture yet produced.
Speaker 1: It's more fantastic and grotesque than any shocker ever written.
Speaker 1: One woman in the audience, who had been pregnant at
Speaker 1: the time, apparently threatened to sue MGM, claiming the film
Speaker 1: had induced a miscarriage and the film was indeed violent.
Speaker 1: So the studio decided to recut it as an attempt
Speaker 1: to salvage it. But these new editorial decisions meant to
Speaker 1: rectify the problem, ended up creating a new monster because
Speaker 1: it fundamentally changed the story and the message. You see,
Speaker 1: Todd's goal had been to critique social intolerance, the exact
Speaker 1: kind of social intolerance that had played out on his set.
Speaker 1: That in the widely distributed recut. Moments that let the
Speaker 1: freaks shine and showcase their humanity were lost, and scenes
Speaker 1: where the quote normal humans revealed themselves to be disgusting
Speaker 1: creatures were similarly removed. The studio even tried to counter
Speaker 1: the revulsion felt by the public with a new advertising blitz,
Speaker 1: What about abnormal people? Their posters asked, they have lives too.
Speaker 1: In the end, MGM resorted the old tricks of the
Speaker 1: side show trade. They published new show bills that emphasized
Speaker 1: the incredible strangeness of the characters, and even included some
Speaker 1: of the same warnings that Barnum and his contemporaries had used.
Speaker 1: Warning the ad said children positively not admitted adults not
Speaker 1: in normal health are advised not to see this picture.
Speaker 1: Offended reviewers responded by voicing their complaints. Major outlets called
Speaker 1: the film unkind and brutal, loathsome obscene, grotesque, and bizarre.
Speaker 1: One review even said that anyone who considers this entertainment
Speaker 1: should be placed in the pathological ward in some hospital.
Speaker 1: It is not fit to be shown anywhere. In the end,
Speaker 1: the film was a complete and total flop. It recorded
Speaker 1: a loss that would amount to almost three million dollars today.
Speaker 1: But looking back, we can glimpse the canary in the
Speaker 1: coal mine. It seems that maybe, just maybe, the times
Speaker 1: were changing, and Schlitze was that the center of it all.
Speaker 1: Freaks had failed in the theaters, but it succeeded in
Speaker 1: getting people talking. Schlitz thankfully had the benefit of a
Speaker 1: career beyond Hollywood. He took to the road once more,
Speaker 1: covering territory that certainly makes me envious, criss crossing North America,
Speaker 1: writing the rails and finding friends and good fortune along
Speaker 1: the way. He had witnessed the popularity of sideshows peak
Speaker 1: in his lifetime, but he would also get mixed up
Speaker 1: in the institution's demise. In nineteen thirty six, Schlitze's manager,
Speaker 1: Ted Mets, took over management for the side show of
Speaker 1: a New Circus, and it was during his year's touring
Speaker 1: with them that Schlitze men a man named George Surtees.
Speaker 1: That same year, George and his wife Dottie became Schlitze's
Speaker 1: legal guardians, becoming in effect both Schlitze's parents and managers,
Speaker 1: and he continued to tour with them well into the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, joining a group of performers that included the
Speaker 1: Three Legged Frank Lentini and Grady Styles the Lobster Boy.
Speaker 1: By the mid nineteen fifties, other carnival companies began exhibiting
Speaker 1: Schlitzi lookalikes, at times even giving their knockoffs the exact
Speaker 1: same name. Honestly, the practice was true side show energy.
Speaker 1: If ever, there was some elements were added to Schlitze's
Speaker 1: act along the way, because, as you know by now,
Speaker 1: part of the side show game was to stay relevant.
Speaker 1: In one advertisement from July of nineteen sixty two, Schlitze
Speaker 1: was billed as the oldest human side show attraction in America.
Speaker 1: The article even claimed that he was first exhibited at
Speaker 1: the Buffalo World's Fair in nineteen o one, when President
Speaker 1: McKinley was assassinated. By this time, though, attitudes towards sideshow
Speaker 1: acts and human oddities in particular, we're changing. In March
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty two, officials in San Bernardino County, California,
Speaker 1: closed down two different side show exhibits at the National
Speaker 1: Orange Show. Police cited a law from the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: that prohibited exhibiting deformed persons for profits, and Schlitze's act
Speaker 1: became collateral damage during that same decade, Schlitze was exhibited
Speaker 1: as the last of the Aztecs. The problem, of course,
Speaker 1: was that the Bakersfield area of California, where Schlitzy was
Speaker 1: spending time on the carnival circuit, was home to a
Speaker 1: significant population of Mexican Americans who strongly objected to Schlitze's
Speaker 1: as tech title. More and more, it was becoming increasingly
Speaker 1: difficult for human oddity acts to get permission to perform,
Speaker 1: and there was a general growing distaste for such shows
Speaker 1: even when they were permitted. Some side shows eliminated these
Speaker 1: acts altogether and focused instead on the self made freaks,
Speaker 1: the snake charmers, the knife throwers, and the flame eaters.
Speaker 1: Others made the switch to pictures of human oddities, including Schlitze,
Speaker 1: instead of the real thing. The tectonic plates of culture
Speaker 1: were shifting. The only world Schlitze had ever known was
Speaker 1: slowly being taken away from him, his friends, his chosen family,
Speaker 1: even his ability to make a living. He was in
Speaker 1: his sixties at this point, but he wasn't ready to quit,
Speaker 1: at least not willingly. In April of nineteen sixty, George died,
Speaker 1: leaving his daughter legally in charge of Schlitze. She had
Speaker 1: always disliked him, maybe the only person who had, it seems,
Speaker 1: and she didn't know how to care for someone with
Speaker 1: his special needs, so she decided to put him away,
Speaker 1: having him institutionalized at the Los Angeles County Hospital. And
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how hard this must have been for him.
Speaker 1: Schlitze was a deeply social person who had spent his
Speaker 1: life around other people on stage and among friends, and
Speaker 1: now he was all alone. But in a small world
Speaker 1: twist of fate, it just so happened that Bill Unk's
Speaker 1: sword swallower worked as an orderly at the very same
Speaker 1: hospital during the off season, and one day, as Unks
Speaker 1: was cleaning a hallway, he heard a familiar catchphrase, someone
Speaker 1: repeating over and over you see, you see, and he
Speaker 1: recognized the voice and the phrase immediately as Schlitze, and
Speaker 1: when Unks found him, he was nearly catatonic. Unks quickly
Speaker 1: discovered that his friend had been there for seven months.
Speaker 1: He wanted to help, and figured the only way to
Speaker 1: do so was to get Schlitze out of the hospital
Speaker 1: and back onto the circuit. With Unk's help, he was
Speaker 1: able to leave and returned to the side show in
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixty and with that, finally he was back
Speaker 1: among family, which brings us full circle. I think you see.
Speaker 1: While there are valid critiques to be made about the
Speaker 1: inherent dehumanization of the formers in quote Freak Shows, there
Speaker 1: is also a complicated tension in Schlitzey's life story that
Speaker 1: calls for a closer, more nuanced look, because when his
Speaker 1: parents sold him to the side show, they quite possibly
Speaker 1: provided him with the happiest and most independent life possible
Speaker 1: for someone like him at the time. It was that
Speaker 1: same lack of options that led George's daughter to institutionalize Schlitze,
Speaker 1: an option that ended up making him deeply unhappy. Even
Speaker 1: the doctors of the hospital knew that if he stayed
Speaker 1: there rather than being released, it's possible that he would
Speaker 1: have died from heartbreak. But thankfully that's not where we're
Speaker 1: going to leave him today. Picture this. We're in MacArthur
Speaker 1: Park in Los Angeles, sitting on a bench in the
Speaker 1: setting sun. The sky has that golden pink glow broken
Speaker 1: up by rows of palm trees, and the air is warm.
Speaker 1: It's nineteen seventy and schlitze now lives close by with
Speaker 1: his caretaker. As the sun sets on his life, and
Speaker 1: it's there that he could be found feeding the animals
Speaker 1: with handful of sunflower seeds. All of the ducks, according
Speaker 1: to him, were named tam Robert, and all of the pigeons,
Speaker 1: he said, were called Alan bar Allen. The Spanish speaking
Speaker 1: locals of the park called him raton Cito, a pet
Speaker 1: name meaning little mouse. Sometimes they would even buy him
Speaker 1: a treat. And it's there, in a place where he
Speaker 1: was loved and happy, that he would live out the
Speaker 1: rest of his days. Schlitzi passed away quietly in his
Speaker 1: old age, but today he lives on in Hollywood. As
Speaker 1: the decades ticked by the same impulse that brought folks
Speaker 1: to the side show was now driving them to the theater.
Speaker 1: Movie attendants increased with every passing decade, and it's easy
Speaker 1: to see why people didn't have to wait for circus
Speaker 1: trains to roll through town anymore. In the same way
Speaker 1: that Barnum and his cronies had constantly reinvented their acts,
Speaker 1: Hollywood had begun making money by churning out news stories
Speaker 1: with the same actors again and again and again. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, Freaks was screened at the Venice Film Festival,
Speaker 1: but this time to highly critical reviews. Enough had changed
Speaker 1: culturally in those thirty intervening years that new audiences were
Speaker 1: able to see the film in a fresh light. As
Speaker 1: the kids say these days, it hit just a bit differently.
Speaker 1: Looking back, critics now recognized the film and its early
Speaker 1: reception as a cultural touchstone, a snapshot of a moment
Speaker 1: in time, and freaks reappearance also meant a resurgence of
Speaker 1: interest in and appreciation for Schltzie and cemented him within
Speaker 1: the broader consciousness of pop culture. In Freaks was selected
Speaker 1: by the National Film Registry as one of the most
Speaker 1: influential films of all time, six years before Dracula was
Speaker 1: given the same honor, which is somewhat ironic, and that
Speaker 1: it was the success of Dracula that made it possible
Speaker 1: for Todd Brown to make Freaks in the first place.
Speaker 1: In return, Freaks had more or less ruined his career,
Speaker 1: but thankfully notch Letsie's. We hope you've enjoyed this little
Speaker 1: bit of movie history so far. It's fascinating just how
Speaker 1: connected today's world of entertainment is to the side shows
Speaker 1: of the past, for better or for worse. But we're
Speaker 1: not done just yet. Stick around through this brief sponsor
Speaker 1: break to hear one more tale of the side show.
Speaker 1: It was their smallest Sunday crowd yet, roughly a quarter
Speaker 1: of a million people. Coney Island had opened to the
Speaker 1: public just two years before in and the subway line
Speaker 1: had finally extended far enough to bring the Maths out
Speaker 1: of the city. Sometimes more than a million people might
Speaker 1: show up to lounge in the sun. Seven year old
Speaker 1: Irene Reynolds was one of those people. She and her
Speaker 1: family had planned to take full advantage of their beach day.
Speaker 1: Even though the skies above were gray. It was going
Speaker 1: to be a chance for everyone to kick their feet up,
Speaker 1: to relax, to play. Irene never intended to drown. According
Speaker 1: to eyewitness accounts, The wave that came for her was
Speaker 1: huge and quick. It crested and slammed, sweeping her off
Speaker 1: her feet and dragging her under, allowing only a moment
Speaker 1: for her screams to escape, and when Zip heard them,
Speaker 1: he turned and he began to run. Zip, who was
Speaker 1: born William Henry Johnson, was a local celebrity. He was
Speaker 1: a fixture at Coney Island's Dreamland side Show that year,
Speaker 1: and just like let's see, he had been born with microcephaly.
Speaker 1: He was a small man. During his time with P. T. Barnum,
Speaker 1: he was often marketed as the missing Link. He later
Speaker 1: made his way to Coney Island and his character evolved
Speaker 1: there Over the years. It's been said that he never spoke,
Speaker 1: and that his careful adherence to his vow of silence
Speaker 1: helped prolong his career. But on this day, words didn't matter,
Speaker 1: only speed. He quickly made it to the shoreline and
Speaker 1: into the water, diving through the waves to reach Irene.
Speaker 1: He grabbed her and he pulled her back onto the sand.
Speaker 1: Within a few moments she had come to coughing and
Speaker 1: sputtering and convulsive, back to life. If Zip hadn't already
Speaker 1: been a local hero, he sure was now. Zip, the
Speaker 1: newspapers reported, almost wilted under the cheers of the crowd,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I can't blame him. Years later, it would
Speaker 1: be estimated that he had been seen in person by
Speaker 1: more people than anyone else who would ever lived, close
Speaker 1: to one hundred million folks. By some accounts, his career
Speaker 1: was long and illustrious and highly successful. In fact, Zip
Speaker 1: will go on to perform well into his sixties, his
Speaker 1: hallmark silence was one of the things that set him
Speaker 1: apart from everyone else. But some Starcus veterans believe that
Speaker 1: this was a creation of Barnum's, but one that Zip
Speaker 1: stuck to for his whole life. So who was he really?
Speaker 1: Was he a man who had been exploited for six
Speaker 1: decades or was he a true method actor, committed to
Speaker 1: his form and to always staying in character. Did he
Speaker 1: have a deep understanding of how to market himself and
Speaker 1: what it would take for him to be a rousing
Speaker 1: success us. A year after Irene's rescue, Zip died at
Speaker 1: New York's Bellevue Hospital. As a story goes, his sister
Speaker 1: was at his bedside as he lay dying, and in
Speaker 1: his final moments he turned to her. He had something
Speaker 1: to say. Well, he told her, we fooled them for
Speaker 1: a long time. Huh. Side Show was written by Robin
Speaker 1: Minat with narration by me Aaron Mankey research for the
Speaker 1: series was by Robin Minator, Taylor Haggard Dorn, and Sam Alberty,
Speaker 1: with production assistants from Josh Thayne, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick Grim and Mile Presents was created in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. You can learn more about
Speaker 1: this show and everything else from Grim and mild Over
Speaker 1: at Grim and mild dot com, and, as always, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Boo old old