Miss 'em All - The Long, Short And Tall Of Sideshow Alley
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday January 19, 1996
If anyone knows whatever became of Zimmy the Legless Wonder, veteran showman Bill Dwyer would dearly like to know.
He remembers how Zimmy would astound Showground audiences by walking on his hands along a board before diving into a tankful of water where he would eat a banana, drink a bottle of soft drink and appear to smoke a cigar.
He recalls, too, a "spot of bother" with the police in the late 1930s when the stuntman announced plans to leap from the newly completed Harbour Bridge.
The jump was banned. But after that?
"No. Sorry. Got me, there," says Bill, who at 81 is one of the few survivors of those more curious, less politically correct times when one of the main attractions of country and city shows was the human exhibit. Or freak.
"Not that we'd ever call them freaks," Bill said. "To us, they were ordinary people who made the best of their lives despite their physical peculiarities."
The Fat Lady, Mexican Rose. "A lovely, lovely person" who weighed 343 kilograms and sat displayed on a hardwood throne. "Took three men just to lift the throne, it did."
The Human Pencil. "Bill Barlow, the Skeleton Man. Remarkable chap. Could tie himself up in knots."
Zanadu, another Legless Wonder. "Used to walk in on his hands. But, you know, he played the steel guitar beautifully and spoke well. Could tell a great tale."
Ubangi the Savage. "A Pygmy fellow, he was, from Central Africa. Wonderful little worker he was. Used to carry a spear and dress in a little, frilly skirt. Just as the show was coming to an end he would run towards the children brandishing his spear. Cleared the tent in no time, that did."
And The First Man-Woman. "Anna John Budd, he, er, she was called. Quite spicy for those days. I mean, you couldn't get away with saying 'sex' in public. So Man-Woman would dress half-and-half-like, down the middle of the body. And would talk in high and low voices, and pull aside a bit of dress or raise a trouser leg and the crowd would ooh and ah."
Many of these and other attractions, such as Pinhead Chinaman, Chan the Tail Boy and Abdulla the Indian were imported from the United States and Asia by a fellow showman, Arthur Greenhalgh.
"Arthur really looked after his people," Bill said. "When war came, he and his partner bought a pub in Newcastle, the old Beach Hotel, where everyone was given somewhere to live and work. You know, the Pygmy was put in the cellar.
"A giant, Dennis O'Duffy, did the heavy work. He was so tall he could reach up and push the hands on the clock back 10 minutes when it was getting near closing time at six. Give us more drinking time.
"You can imagine, when word got around about the attractions, it became a popular sort of place," says Bill, a contributor to The Showies, a new book about Australia's men and women of the sideshows.
He began working the tents, rides and games in 1934 when, after several years trying to dodge the Depression, he went to the Royal Easter Show with a gadget called a magic converter. "Like a little laundry mangle, it was, with a spindle and paper rollers."
Parchment or greaseproof paper was put in one end and out the other popped a 10-bob note. A licence to print money, it was not. Print quality was poor; the machines were, at two bob, overpriced; and, Bill was "stuck in bloody Siberia", the quietest part of the Showground.
Instead of making a mint, he wandered the alleys - aloud with spruikers, alive with stalls, games and rides - meeting showmen such as the ingenious Greenhalgh ("then showing lions not Pygmies"), the Daredevil Durkins, who operated a Wall of Death, and Jimmy Sharman, whose boxing booths were part of Sydney shows until the 1970s.
Within days, Bill Dwyer was hooked for life. For the next 60-odd years he criss-crossed Australia, first as a spruiker, but soon as an operator.
"Funny thing. I never got into the freaks, human or animal. Not my number, really. But I had all the games - roll-them-downs, guess-the-weights, laughing clowns. And rides - horses, chairplanes, razzle-dazzles. And a set of those distorting mirrors - Gigglesville, I called it.
"With another bloke, I did have a go at illusions. A combination act: Indian rope trick and floating lady. First the bloke climbed the rope, then the lady was levitated on the point of it."
A founder member of the Showmen's Guild in 1938, Bill still travels to big shows from his home at Charlestown, in Newcastle. He admitted that high-technology and, more especially, television, long ago robbed the tents of much of their mystique.
"Back before the war, people were far more naive," Bill said. "They didn't travel. They were happy to be amazed by showmen who'd say: 'Come now with us to Cairo or to Casablanca or to Central Africa, the deepest, darkest place you can imagine.'
"Then, along comes television, and the first thing people see is a BBC documentary about little Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert. I mean, after that, who's going to pay sixpence to see a Pygmy in a tent?"
The Showies is available from the its editor and publisher, Bob Morgan, PO Box 392, Mitcham, Victoria 3132. Price $29 including postage.
© 1996 Sydney Morning Herald