Johnny Eck
| Johnny Eck | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
John Eckhardt, Jr. August 27, 1911 Baltimore, Maryland, USA |
| Died | January 5, 1991 (aged 79) Baltimore, Maryland, USA |
| Years active | 1932–1941 |
Johnny Eck, (born John Eckhardt, Jr. , August 27, 1911 – January 5, 1991) was an American freak show performer in side shows and a film actor. Born without the lower half of his torso, Eck is best known today for his role in Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic film Freaks and his appearances as a bird creature in several Tarzan films. He was often billed as "The Amazing Half-Boy", "King of the Freaks" and "The Most Remarkable Man Alive".
Besides being a sideshow performer and actor, the multi-talented Eck was also an artist, musician, photographer, illusionist, penny arcade owner, Punch and Judy operator, and expert model-maker.
John Eckhardt, Jr. was born on August 27, 1911 to Emilia (b,circa 1876) and John Eckhardt, Sr.(b, 1874) in Baltimore, Maryland, as a fraternal twin. His brother Robert Eckhardt was also a performer and he had an older sister named Caroline Laura Echhardt. Eck was born with a truncated torso due to sacral agenesis. Though Eck would sometimes describe himself as "snapped off at the waist", he had unusable, underdeveloped legs and feet that he would hide under custom-made clothing. At birth, Eck weighed two pounds (0.9 kg) and was less than eight inches (20 cm) in length. He would eventually reach a height of eighteen inches (45 cm). Though Eck capitalized on the resemblance between himself and Robert, the twins were fraternal. Aside from the sacral agenesis, Eck was healthy.
Eck was walking on his hands before his brother was standing when he was a year old. Both of the Eckhardt twins could read by the age of four. The twins had an older sister named Caroline who educated Eck at home until he and his brother enrolled in public school at age seven. He recalled that larger students would "fight each other for the 'honor' or 'privilege' of lifting [him] up the stone steps" to school, and that school windows were blacked out to discourage throngs of curious onlookers from peering in at Eck during his studies. In spite of the scrutiny, Eck remained consistently upbeat about his birth defect. When asked if he wished he had legs, he quipped, "Why would I want those? Then I'd have pants to press." He challenged those who did have legs by asking, "What can you do that I can't do, except tread water?"
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