Oofty goofty

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Leonard Borchardt (1900)

Oofty Goofty , actually Leonard ("Leon") Borchardt (born April 26, 1862 in Berlin ; † unknown), was an American eccentric and self-promoter who appeared in sideshows , variety theaters and public sports events in California at the end of the 19th century . Although not endowed with significant artistic and athletic talents, his bizarre activities made him a legendary figure in the American states of California and Texas .

Life

According to his own statements, Borchardt, born in Prussia , was of Jewish descent. According to a later interview, he spoke English with a heavy accent all his life. When he was 14, he signed on to the SS Fresia emigrant ship to earn the crossing to America, and crossed the Atlantic several times with the ship. He then went to Detroit , enlisted in the United States Army and joined a cavalry regiment stationed in the Jefferson barracks near St. Louis . When his unit was to be used against the Indians in Washington Territory , he sold his rifle and horse to a farmer and deserted because he - as Borchardt later said - did not want to be scalped.

"Hairy Wild Man," February 1884

Borchardt went to California in the early 1880s. His own account from 1897 that he worked in the circus as a child in San Francisco is incorrect. But Borchardt got a job there in 1884 in a Dime Museum , a mixture of Tingeltangelvarieté and freak show that was very popular at the time , where he had to portray the “hairy wild man from Borneo”. He sat, smeared with glue and hung with fur, tied up in a cage and fed raw meat. According to Goofty's later accounts, his name is said to have originated from the fact that he kept shouting "Oofty goofty". His job ended when he got sick and had to be hospitalized.

In June 1885, the now unemployed Oofty Goofty was arrested on charges of defamation for alleging someone had offered him $ 200 to burn down his house. The defendant, described as "simple-minded" by the Sacramento Daily Record-Union newspaper, was admitted to an alcoholic home for a mental examination and then acquitted. Instead, he was arrested as a deserter immediately afterwards. According to Goofty, he was sentenced to three years of forced labor as a result. But he mutilated himself and was released early.

Back in San Francisco, Oofty Goofty set out to break a record in July 1886 by rolling a wheelbarrow to New York in 320 days . The attempt ended in the village of Pinole , 36 kilometers away , when he frightened a coachman with a load of hay on a bridge, crashing his cart into the river and Oofty Goofty sprained his arm. He then auctioned his wheelbarrow for $ 5. For an insignificant sum of money, Goofty also had it packed in a transport box and shipped to Sacramento as a “Christmas present”. Unfortunately, the box was not delivered immediately, but stayed in a warehouse over the weekend.

"Big Bertha" (around 1880)
Event announcement 1891
John L. Sullivan Beats Oofty Goofty (drawing 1897)

For several years the skinny goofty appeared as "Professor Hardess", the man who knows no pain. Legend has it that Goofty discovered this ability when he tried to perform as a singer and dancer at Bottle Koenig's Barbary Coast Dance Hall , but was instead thrown onto the street by the crowd. From there, Goofty allowed himself to be beaten publicly by anyone willing to pay. A simple punch with a fist cost 10 cents and a blow with an ordinary walking stick 25 cents. Slightly more expensive, 50 cents, was the hit with a baseball bat. According to his own account, he also hired himself as a mascot for a baseball team . If they won, Goofty got $ 20; if they lost, he was beaten by the team. He also acted as a human cone in Woodward's Garden : anyone who hit him with a baseball won a cigar. His reputation as a “man without pain” got a crack when in August 1887 the drunk Goofty was approached at two o'clock at night by a man described in the hospital report as a “brute” about a loan of 50 cents. According to the local press report, the man's bold demand led Goofty to “contort his face with an expression of the strongest horror”, whereupon the supplicant hit him with a derrick pole . The open head wound had to be sewn.

In 1888, the heavyweight Bertha Stanley alias Karko alias Heyman alias Schlesinger appeared in San Francisco , a fraudster who was active throughout America as "Big Bertha, the Confidence Queen" and who was convicted several times. Between her sentences Big Bertha was hired several times by the professional player, show organizer and swindler Ned Foster for the variety theaters The Bush and Bella Union Theater , which he operated , although she could neither sing nor act. Her first program was a burlesque with the telling title “La Tosca , or: The Fate of a Wart”. Together with Oofty Goofty, she appeared in the Bella Union as Romeo and Juliet . The famous balcony scene was played, although Goofty had to stand on the balcony due to Bertha's weight problems. But in the first week he was fired because, according to Bertha, he was acting "too hot-blooded". In addition, Big Bertha toured as a wrestler and boxer . Oofty Goofty was her partner in the ring and was knocked out by her. Other boxers also used it as a human sandbag in show events .

Between 1889 and 1891 Goofty was also a participant in numerous other sporting events in which he performed the function of clown to entertain the audience. So at the beginning of 1891 he took part in a roller skate race without any prior knowledge . The goofty, who appeared in a tight silk dress, came last. In February and May 1889 he took part in two long-distance walking competitions ("Go-as-you-please-races") in California. Big bets were made on the early retirement of the goofty, starting with starting number 13 and wearing a “bad luck” hat on his head and a walking stick in his hand, but he quickly became a crowd favorite. When cocky youths threw sticks at him, they were immediately arrested for "malicious nonsense". To the great surprise of the public, Goofty finished the two races in respectable places 10 and 6. He then appeared with the other participants in advertisements as an advertising medium for a tonic water . Finally, in November 1891, he was discussed as a member of an all-boxer football team.

Goofty's activities peaked in late 1891 when world boxing champion and heavy drinker John L. Sullivan appeared in one of the San Francisco variety theaters after his heavyweight fight with Paddy Ryan and smashed a pool cue on Goofty's back. Later the cue became a much more dangerous baseball bat. The allegation, occasionally widespread in later representations, that Oofty Goofty was seriously injured by Sullivan and that he may have died as a result of the long-term effects of this blow is not confirmed by any contemporary representation. Oofty Goofty himself declared in 1900 that he simply turned around after the blow and laughed at Sullivan. It is noticeable, however, that after 1891 no sporting activities by Goofty have survived.

Oofty Goofty later moved west. Stranded in Butte (Montana) , he met a rhinestone diamond dealer and got into the business. In early 1896 he moved to Texas, first to San Antonio and Fort Worth , then to Dallas . There Oofty Goofty introduced himself with a competition in which he ate thirty quails for $ 100 within thirty days , although it is unclear what was so extraordinary about this achievement. It was probably a promotion for the hotel where he was staying. The announcement that he would now eat one cow a day instead of quail turned out to be false. Finally, he ate two extra quails, watched by several hundred spectators, and performed one of his standard numbers: within six minutes he drank eight glasses of beer with the help of a bar spoon and smoked a cigar. Oofty then explained to Goofty that he wanted to fast for thirty days.

The news spread in January 1897 by the Memphis Commercial Appeal that Oofty was under discussion for the post of US Secretary of the Interior was immediately denied. The rumor that began in 1898 that he was going to be the next governor of Tennessee turned out to be false. In August 1897 it was also reported that Oofty was en route to the Klondyke goldfields with a pair of mules . He couldn't have stayed there for long, because in the following years Borchardt lived as a dealer in imitation gemstones in Houston , where he quickly became one of the “bizarre eccentrics” of the city. In January 1899 he repeated his quailless contest and the subsequent month of fasting in Houston. After that, he only appeared occasionally at charity events.

Nothing is known about his further life and death. In California, however, he was so well remembered by the public that he got a vote in the election of the District Attorney in 1909 , even though he was not a candidate.

Identity and other namesake

Gus Phillips

Based on the English Wikipedia, the identity of a certain Joshua Marks (or Marx ) with Oofty Goofty is claimed on numerous websites . In contemporary journalism, on the other hand, there is no evidence of the existence of a person with this name in what was then San Francisco and therefore no evidence of his identity with Goofty.

Even before Borchardt, the well-known German-born New York dialect comedian Augustus ("Gus") Phillips (1838-1893) appeared under the stage name Oofty Gooft or Goofty . In addition to his stage appearances, he caused a stir because his lover, the actress Mary D. Hooper , shot him in January 1879 and his death was already reported. Phillips later married the shooter. Around 1900 a second-rate boxer named Ed Wiley took over Borchardt's battle name and his role as a “human punching bag”. The Texas marathon dancer Herbert Christopher also used the name Oofty Goofty in the 1920s. Also in the 1920s, Oofty Goofty was the name of a character on the newspaper comic strip Us Boys . And in Racine (Wisconsin) lived the travel agent Oofty Goofty Bowman , born around 1880 , whom his parents named after the actor.

Public reception

Oofty Goofty is featured in all major San Francisco cultural and historical works and in several autobiographies. In August 1940, a 30-minute episode about him was broadcast on the Death Valley Days radio series on NBC , New York . The story of Oofty and Sullivan is also told in issue 43 of the Black Diamond Western comic series (1952). Oofty is also mentioned in Bill Pronzini's Sherlock Holmes story "The Bughouse Caper" (2004). In addition, a beer called Oofty Goofty Barleywine ™ is brewed in San Francisco and advertised with the slogan Like a bat to the head .

swell

There is no reputable book publication about Oofty Goofty's life. All representations are incomplete and do not distinguish between facts and legends. Widespread are:

  • Herbert Asbury: The Barbary Coast. An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld. Knopf, New York 1933, pp. 133-136. (Reprint: 1989 ISBN 0-88029-429-9 )
  • Carl Sifakis: American Eccentrics. Facts on File, New York 1984, pp. 175f. Reprint: Great American Eccentrics. BBS Publishing Corporation, Edison NJ 1994, ISBN 0-88365-864-X
  • Russell W. Estlack: The Legend of Oofty Goofty and Other Strange Tales. RW Estlack, St. George UT 2006, ISBN 0-97106-967-0 . (on-line)

Contemporary interviews with Oofty Goofty:

  • Oofty goofty. In: San Antonio Light, March 1, 1896.
  • Oofty Goofty Off For the Klondyke. In: The New York Press, August 22, 1897 ( PDF ).
  • Odd Characters in Houston (No. 4): Oofty-Goofty. In: The Houston Daily Post, August 10, 1900 ( PDF ).

Web links

Commons : Oofty Goofty  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Oofty Goofty. In: San Antonio Light, March 1, 1896, p. 7.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Odd Characters in Houston (No. 4): Oofty-Goofty. In: The Houston Daily Post, August 10, 1900 ( PDF ); Oofty-goofty. In: The Houston Daily Post, January 10, 1897 ( PDF ).
  3. ↑ s. a. the spellings in Sacramento Daily Record-Union of June 10, 1885 (Leonard Burkhardt) , Sacramento Daily Record-Union of June 15, 1885 (Leonard Burchard) , Daily Alta California of June 28, 1885 (Lenoir Bochart) , Daily Alta California of August 1, 1887 (Leonard Burchett) .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Oofty Goofty Off For the Klondyke. In: The New York Press, August 22, 1897 ( PDF ).
  5. ↑ a b s. a. Sam Breach: Leonard Borchardt's “Oofty Goofty” on sfcityguides.org (accessed January 10, 2011).
  6. ^ Sacramento Daily Record-Union June 15, 1885; Daily Alta California of September 18, 1885; The Houston Daily Post August 10, 1900.
  7. ^ A b Edward A. Morphy: San Francisco's Thoroughfares. Published in the San Francisco Chronicle from January, 1919 to July, 1920. (Vol. I). o. O. o. J. [1920], pp. 20-22.
  8. ^ Sacramento Daily Record-Union of June 10, 15 and 20, 1885; Not insane but a deserter. In: Daily Alta California, June 28, 1885.
  9. ^ Daily Alta California, July 13, 14, and 20, 1886; Sacramento Daily Record-Union of July 14-16, 1886.
  10. ↑ a b Downed By A Derrick Pole. In: Daily Alta California, August 1, 1887.
  11. ^ Edward A. Morphy: San Francisco's Thoroughfares. Published in the San Francisco Chronicle from January, 1919 to July, 1920. (Vol. I). o. O. o. J. [1920], p. 4.
  12. ^ A b Herbert Asbury: The Barbary Coast. An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld. New York 1933, pp. 133-136.
  13. ↑ to Bertha Heyman see a. Benjamin P. Eldridge, William B. Watts: Our Rival the Rascal. Boston 1897, pp. 368f .; Arthur Griffiths: Mysteries of Police and Crime. Vol. 1. London a. loc. cit. [1898], pp. 463f.
  14. ↑ on Foster s. San Francisco Call December 29, 1900.
  15. ^ Daily Alta California June 13-19, 1888.
  16. ^ Edward A. Morphy: San Francisco's Thoroughfares. Published in the San Francisco Chronicle from January, 1919 to July, 1920. (Vol. I). o. O. o. J. [1920], pp. 21f .; Ettore Rella: A History of Burlesque. (San Francisco Theater Research; XIV.) San Francisco 1940, p. 212f.
  17. ↑ Big Bertha. In: San Francisco Call, October 7, 1893; All-round sport. In: San Francisco Call, August 27, 1891.
  18. ^ Daily Alta California, January 2, 1891; The Morning Call of January 2nd and 3rd, 1891.
  19. ↑ Daily Alta California from 2., 20. – 28. February and 6-16 May 1889.
  20. ^ Advertisement e.g. in The Hawaiian Gazette of February 17, 1891.
  21. ^ San Francisco Call, November 29, 1891.
  22. ^ The Morning Call of December 2, 1891.
  23. ^ The Quail Eating Test. In: The Daily Herald (Brownsville TX) January 16, 1897; Dallas Morning News, January 2, 1897; The Houston Daily Post , January 10-13, 1897; Brenham Weekly Banner January 21, 1897.
  24. ↑ Dallas Morning News of January 10, 1897 and June 28, 1898.
  25. ↑ The Houston Daily Post, January 14, 1899 ( PDF ), January 25, 1899, and January 29, 1899; San Antonio Daily Light January 11, 1899, February 25, 1899, and July 14, 1902.
  26. ^ The article by William AS Douglas: The End of Oofty Goofty. In: The American Mercury 19 (1930), pp. 299-306, gives no references; The bizarre newspaper article by Arthur P. Watts: The Amazing Exploits of Oofty Goofty was not available because it is subject to a fee . In: Dallas Morning News, October 5, 1930.
  27. ^ San Francisco Call October 15, 1909.
  28. ^ The New York Times. dated April 9, 1893.
  29. ^ The San Francisco Call of November 16, 1900.
  30. ^ Dallas Morning News. of April 11, 13 and 20, 1929.
  31. ↑ People. In: Time Magazine. dated November 30, 1936; Oofty Goofty is Real Name; Sticks to It. In: Salt Lake Telegram, November 20, 1936.
  32. ↑ z. B. Samuel Dickson: Tales of San Francisco. University of Stanford Press, Stanford CA 1947, etc .; Benjamin A. Botkin (Ed.): Sidewalks of America. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis IN 1954; Sol Bloom: The Autobiography of Sol Bloom. Vol. 1. Putnam's, New York 1948.
  33. ↑ Death Valley Days ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at otrrpedia.net. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.otrrpedia.net
  34. ↑ in: Michael Kurland (Ed.): Sherlock Holmes - The Hidden Years. New York 2004.
  35. ^ Website of the San Francisco Brewing Company.
personal data
SURNAME Goofty, Oofty
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Borchardt, Leonard; Borchardt, Leon; Burkhardt, Leonard; Burchard, Leonard; Burchett, Leonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American eccentric and self-promoter
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 20th century