Schlitzie

Schlitzie also called Schlitze , Shlitze the Pinhead or Simon Metz ; captured die documented as Shlitze Surtees (* 10. September 1901 in New York City ; † 24. September 1971 in Los Angeles ) was an American , mentally disabled actor who because of a malformed as so-called head Sideshow -Attraction was presented or Zirkuskuriosität and became known to a wider audience through the 1932 horror film Freaks by Tod Browning .

Life

Origin and youth

Schlitzie, whose history is just as unknown as his parents or exact life dates, was born with microcephaly . He had a conical skull, almond eyes, and dysmorphic features. The cause of his malformations is not yet known. Throughout his life Schlitzie remained at the level of intellectual development of a three-year-old child, which is why he was often dependent on outside help for everyday things and was incapable of conversation except for an imitative mimic talent. The public mostly thought he was a woman because he usually wore a simple dress called “ muʻumuʻu ” in Hawaiian . Often Schlitzie was referred to as "he" or "she". Legend has it that he was the child of a prominent family from Santa Fe , New Mexico , and had a similarly disabled sister named Athelia , who was also a sideshow attraction . Probably Schlitzie was simply sold by the parents to traveling people and, according to the customs of the traveling circuses of that time , it was simply "property" of showmen.

Career

Between 1924/25 Schlitzie first appeared with the Congress Of Freaks in the program of PT Barnum's Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in New York's Madison Square Garden . Other actors were the " Koo-Koo the Bird Girl " and the dwarf "Harry Doll" aka Harry Earles , who later also had roles in Browning's feature film.

In 1928 Schlitzie was passed on to the amusement parks on Coney Island and the Playland at the Beach in San Francisco and appeared in the silent film The Sideshow by Erle C. Kenton . In 1932, the MGM- produced Tod Browning film Freaks followed. Schlitzie was then passed around in the film studios and appeared as a creature accessory in short supporting roles until the mid-1930s, including as animal man in the Alder C. Kenton film Island of Lost Souls with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi at Paramount and in 1934 as a “ cameo ” in Tomorrow's Children , a state-subsidized “educational film” in science fiction style that melodramatizes the subject of eugenics .

From 1936 to 1937, Schlitzie appeared in several Tom Metz sideshow shows that were shown as part of the Tom Mix Circus supporting program . On that show there was again a chimpanzee dressage performed by the animal dealer and carnival handler George Surtees; presumably Schlitzie "changed" the supervisor at this time, which resulted in the later surname of the now "state legalized" guardian Surtees, which was entered in the California death certificate. A newspaper photographer present at the time later identified him as “Schlitzie Metz”, but the origin of the name “Simon Metz” is unclear.

In the following years Schlitzie appeared in various traveling circuses and shows such as the Clyde Beatty Circus , Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey , Cole Bros. , Vanteen & Lee Circus Sideshow , the Dobritsch International Circus as well as the Combined Shows and West Coast Shows by Foley & Burke .

In the arena, Schlitzie's skills were limited to public amusement and simple clowning with small singing and dancing interludes, counting to “10” or running through the audience raving antics and shaking hands. Otherwise it was shown to onlookers whether its grotesque appearance or marketed on photo cards as Shlitze The Pinhead , Last Of The Aztecs , Last Of The Incas , Slitzy The Monkey Girl or Julius The Missing Link .

End and afterlife

In the early 1960s, George Surtees and his wife Dolores died. The daughter, who was not in the show business, did not want to take over the guardianship. She put Schlitzie in touch with a friendly couple of showmen, who for many years marketed him as a local attraction at fairs and tingeltang events and who peddled his pictures and souvenirs. Schlitzie is believed to have died of pneumonia at the age of 70 and was buried in an anonymous grave in Queen Of Heaven Cemetery in Rowland Heights , California. In 2008, through a collection in an Internet forum, enough money was raised to acquire the 'rights' to Schlitzie's grave (required in such a case in the USA) and thus to be able to erect a tombstone. Since he has to share the grave with two other deceased (common in the USA for poor graves ) and he was last in the grave, his name had to be written on the stone at the bottom, in case relatives of the other deceased should report later.

Years after his death, the character "Schlitzie" was marketed in many forms: for example, as a Halloween mask, as a motif on T-shirts and many other Hollywood devotional objects, and as a comic figure Zippy the Pinhead in a comic strip of the same name by US cartoonist Bill Griffith .

Movies

• 1932: Freaks (1932)
• 1934: Tomorrow's Children (1934)
• 1941: Meet Boston Blackie (1941)

Web links

• Schlitzie in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Schlitzie in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Bill Griffith: Still asking, "Are we having fun yet?" (English)

Remarks

1. ↑ The Internet Movie Database According Schlitzie in was Yucatan , Mexico born; in older records of the IMDb entry, the life dates 1881–1961 were given. The comic artist Bill Griffith , however, dates from 1892 to 1977. URL: http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v1_2/griffith/