Horace Ridler

Horace Leonard Ridler (26 March 1892 – 1969 https://www.tattooarchive.com/history/omi_great.php) was a professional freak and sideshow performer, a tattooed man exhibiting himself as The Great Omi or The Zebra Man.

Though there is some uncertainty due to the characteristic embroidering of sideshow performers' stories, by his own account Horace Leonard Ridler was born into an upper-class family living outside London, and enjoyed a relatively privileged childhood, marked by travel, private schooling and comfort. There are two competing theories about his young life. In one version he is said to have gone on to Oxford or Cambridge, graduating with honours. In the second version, he instead pursued a career in the army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Soon after receiving his commission, his father died, leaving him a substantial inheritance. But (again according to the second version) he rapidly frittered his inheritance away on parties, gambling, entertainment and poor investments; and these and other circumstances led to his resigning his commission.

When World War I began, Ridler, now 22, enlisted and was decorated for his outstanding conduct and gallantry when serving in Mesopotamia. On 9 September 1915 he was promoted from Lance sergeant to second lieutenant according to the London Gazette of 27 September 1915. Demobilized at the end of the war with the rank of major, with a small pension and few prospects, but willing to take chances, he decided to become an act at the Odditorium. In 1922 he received his first few pictorial tattoos, and began exhibiting himself in small sideshows. This afforded him a meager living, but was not the success he had hoped for.

At some point between 1927 and 1934, while living in Mitcham, a few miles south of London, Ridler took steps to improve his career as a sideshow act. Contacting tattooist George Burchett, he inquired about having himself "tattooed all over". Burchett performed more than 150 hours of tattooing on Ridler with a pattern of curved black stripes, often described as zebra-like, masking the earlier tattoos. He later claimed he spent $10,000 for the procedure, although Burchett said it was only $3,000 and that he was never paid in full.

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