David Wallechinsky - The Book of Lists

Laloo was a Muslim born in Oovonin, Oudh, India. He had an extra set of arms, legs and sex organs from a headless twin attached to his body at the neck. He, too, travelled with carnivals and circuses in the US and Europe and was written up in many medical textbooks. He married in Philadelphia in 1894 and his wife travelled with him. His ‘parasitic twin’ was male, but the circuses liked to advertise it as female to add to Laloo’s strangeness.

For years acknowledged as the ‘King of Freaks’, Frank Lentini had three legs, two sets of genital organs, four feet and sixteen toes. In order to counter his depression at being deformed, Lentini’s parents took him to an institution for handicapped children, where he saw boys and girls who were far worse off than he was. ‘From that time to this,’ he would later recall, ‘I’ve never complained. I think life is beautiful and I enjoy living it.’ He could use the third leg, which grew out of the base of his spine, as a stool. In his circus act he used it to kick a football the length of the sideshow tent. Born in Rosolini, Sicily, he moved to the US at the age of nine. He married and raised four children.

‘The Man with Two Bodies’ was born in Rome. He travelled with several circuses displaying his miniature ‘twin’, named Jacques. Jacques had hips, thighs, arms and legs. A German doctor using X-rays found a rudimentary structure resembling a head inside Jean’s body. Jean covered Jacques with a cape when he went out. Walking with his wife and four children he looked just like any other family man.

Known as ‘La Dame á Quatre Jambes’ (‘the lady with four legs’), Louise was born in France. Attached to her pelvis was a second, rudimentary pelvis from which grew two atrophied legs. There were two rudimentary breasts where the legs joined her body. In spite of this handicap, Louise not only married but gave birth to two healthy daughters.

A young woman from Karnataka, India, Shivshankari has a third leg with nine toes growing out of the middle of her body. She views her anomaly as a divine blessing and supports her family by exhibiting herself locally.

Betty Lou Williams was the daughter of poor black sharecroppers. She looked pretty and shapely in her two-piece bathing suit on the sideshow stage — but growing out of her left side was the bottom half of a body, with two legs and one misplaced arm. Betty, who died at the age of 23, made a good living during the Depression. Her friends say she died of a broken heart, jilted by a man she loved. However, the more probable cause of her death was complications from an asthma attack, aggravated by the second head inside her body.

According to one historian of anatomy, Rudolf ‘had so large a nose that no artist would ever paint its full dimension’.

Michelangelo’s nose was so squashed against his face that, in the words of one historian, ‘his forehead almost overhangs the nose’. As a boy, Michelangelo had mercilessly teased the painter Pietro Torrigiano while Torrigiano was trying to study some art inside a church. Angered, Torrigiano turned on young Michelangelo and, in his own words, ‘dealt him such a blow on the nose that I felt the bone and the cartilage yield under my fist as if they had been made of crisp wafer. And so he’ll go with my mark on him to his dying day’.

Matthew Parker’s name entered the English language as ‘Nosey’ Parker — meaning someone who pokes his nose into other people’s business. Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth I. Though shy and modest, he was over-inquisitive about Church matters, and his enemies began to call him ‘Nosey’ Parker.

Brahe lost the bridge of his nose in a swordfight when he was 20 and replaced it with a silver one.

He really was a living person. He is said to have fought 1,000 duels over insults concerning his enormous nose.

Wedders had the longest-known nose of any human being in history. It measured 7½ inches in length. He was exhibited throughout England and was said to be mentally retarded.

Nicknamed ‘The Bohemian’, Mysliveček was known for his operas Armida and Il Bellerofonte , and for the fact that he had no nose. In 1777, suffering from a venereal disease, he went to a third-rate doctor who told him that the only way to cure the disease was to remove his nose. So off it came. This led to the collapse of his career and he died in poverty.

In addition to the more familiar (and more respectful) nickname of ‘The Iron Duke’, Wellington was also called ‘Old Nosey’ by many of his soldiers because of his prominent nose. During the Peninsular War, Wellington was riding near the frontlines when he was challenged by a sentry. Unfortunately, he had forgotten the day’s password. Fortunately, the sentry recognised his nose. ‘God bless your crooked nose, sir,’ the soldier is said to have remarked. ‘I would rather see it than 10,000 men.’

Elder was famous in the Wild West as ‘Big Nose’ Kate. Her nose was of the bulbous variety. She ran a house of ill repute in Dodge City, Kansas, and was the mistress of bad man Doc Holliday. Once when Holliday, in an argument over a poker hand, slit his opponent’s throat and was about to be arrested, ‘Big Nose’ Kate set the livery stable afire, creating a distraction that allowed her lover to escape.

Ozyurek is the only two-time winner of the Longest Nose competition in Rise, Turkey. Proudly displaying his 3½-inch nose, he won the inaugural contest in 1997 and then regained the title in 2000.

As the President browsed in a Broadway shop, a servant of the Irving family spotted him from the street and hustled inside with six-year-old Washington Irving in tow. Informed that the lad had been named after him, the Chief Executive stroked the head that later would conjure up Rip Van Winkle and wished the boy well. Note : This pat on the head has been passed on through generations of Americans to the present-day recipient. An older Washington Irving bestowed it upon his publisher, George Putnam, who in turn gave it to young Allan Nevins, the future Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. Years later, at an informal gathering at the Irving Wallace home, Nevins conferred the historic pat on 10-year-old Amy Wallace saying, ‘Amy, I pat you on behalf of General George Washington.’ Amy refused to wash her hair for a week afterwards. As The Book of Lists was going to print, she bestowed the historic pat upon baby Daniel, son of the owners of Clementines, one of Los Angeles’ most popular restaurants.