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This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “giant”.

Robert Wadlow was a relatively normal eight pounds six ounces at his birth in 1918, however an overactive pituitary gland would soon change the course of his life.

By eighteen months, Robert weighed sixty-two pounds and by the age of eight, he was 6 feet 2 inches tall. By eighteen, Robert was 8 feet 4 inches tall. His clothes required three times the amount of material as those worn by his peers. He found it difficult to find comfortable shoes and needed them custom-made for one hundred dollars per pair — a huge amount of money in the early part of the twentieth century.

When he turned 20, Robert signed a contract with the International Shoe Company. In exchange for a lifetime of free footwear, Robert would travel the country promoting the company and their products. He, along with his father, visited 41 states and his quiet and friendly demeanor earned him the nickname “The Gentle Giant”.  Robert’s father needed to modify a car, removing the front passenger seat, so Robert could sit in the back seat and stretch out his long legs. Although he required leg braces to walk, and had little feeling in his legs and feet, Robert was always cheerful and delighted to meet so many people.

During a July 4 appearance at a National Forest Festival, an ill-fitting leg brace caused an irritation and subsequent infection on Robert’s leg. He was confined to a hotel bed while doctor’s worked frantically to lower his fever and treat his ailment. Despite a blood transfusion and emergency surgery, Robert died in his sleep on July 15, 1940 at the age of 22. He had reached a height of 8 feet 11.1 inches.

Approximately 40,000 people attended Robert’s funeral. He was buried in a half-ton coffin that required twelve pallbearers to carry. It was interred in a vault made of solid concrete, as Robert’s family were concerned that his remains would be the target of grave-robbers with exploitative plans. His family also destroyed most of his belongings to deter memorabilia-seeking collectors.

Robert was the tallest person who ever lived and one of only eleven people who ever reached a height of over eight feet. He has been honored and memorialized with life-size statues at Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine and six Ripley’s Believe it or Not  Museums throughout the world.

After making his Broadway debut in 1939, Richard Quine was a hit in the play My Sister Eileen and made a handful of motion pictures before entering the Coast Guard in World War Two.

After his discharge from the service, he married Susan Peters, a promising young actress. Fresh off her Academy Award nominated performance in 1942’s Random Harvest, the couple vacationed in Southern California on a hunting trip with Richard’s cousin. During the trip, a .22 caliber rifle accidentally discharged as Susan picked it up. The bullet lodged in her spine, rendering her paralyzed from the waist down. The accident essentially ended her acting career, as she appeared in one more film, The Sign of The Ram in 1948, playing the paranoid wheelchair-bound matriarch of a family, and brief soap opera in the early 50s. The couple adopted a son in 1946, but divorced soon after. Susan passed away from complication of anorexia in 1952. After the divorce, Richard was romantically linked to actresses Judy Holiday and Natalie Wood, but he repeatedly lamented, “I will always hear that shot.”

After the war, Richard embarked on a career as a director and became quite successful. He helmed mostly light romance and screwball comedies, although he often campaigned for projects with deeper substance. His most popular films were The Solid Gold Cadillac, Operation Mad Ball  and a remake of My Sister Eileen.

In the early 1950s, Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn gave Richard the task of turning the pretty former Thor-refrigerators spokesgirl Kim Novak into a star. He cast Novak in a cheap redo of Double Indemnity  called Pushover. Richard became infatuated by the mysterious Novak. He not only featured her in several more of his movies, the two were engaged to be married. Columbia Pictures built a house in Malibu Beach. The house would be used as a set for Richard’s upcoming movie, Strangers When We Meet, and, after filming, it would be a wedding gift for the new bride and groom. However, the marriage never materialized.

Richard was married three more time, including twenty-four years to actress-singer-Playboy model Fran Jeffries. Fran was featured in 1964’s Sex and The Single Girl  in which she sang the hit title song and a year later she appeared opposite Elvis Presley in Harum Scarum.

Richard remained an active director throughout the 70’s. He directed Peter Sellers’ last film and directed some episodic television. But, amid failing health, depression and a career-long creative battle with movie studios, Richard took his own life by gunshot in 1989.

Pushed into acting as a teenager, Veronica Lake, the former Connie Ockelman, picked up some early roles which led to a contract at Paramount Pictures in 1941. Veronica’s roles became bigger and eventually she starred in a string of hits including Sullivan’s Travels, This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key, and So Proudly We Hail!. Her most popular film, I Married a Witch, became the basis for the TV sitcom Bewitched 22 years later. Veronica became the number one female box-office draw and enchanted audiences worldwide with her mysterious good looks coyly hidden behind a lock of golden blond hair that perpetually hung over her right eye. Women everywhere began copying Veronica’s iconic style. Although attractive, the hairstyle was causing problems in factories as women, helping out in the war effort, were getting their hair caught in machinery. She was asked to change her hairstyle and make public service messages requesting extra care be taken to insure a safe working environment.

She found steady work with Alan Ladd, since his short stature of just over five feet made it difficult to find compatible actresses with which to work. Veronica, at four-foot-eleven inches, was a perfect match and they made four films together. However, Veronica gained to the reputation of being a diva on the set and most co-stars found her impossible to work with.

In the mid-1940s, the events in Veronica’s life began to turn. Her second child died within days of birth, several of her films received poor reviews, her peers refused to work with her and she began to drink heavily. Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948.

A fickle public caused her popularity to dwindle and by the early 1950s Veronica had made two films — Slattery’s Hurricane and Stronghold— both forgettable. The IRS seized a portion of her assets for past unpaid taxes. After breaking her ankle in 1959, Veronica was unable to continue working as an actress. She drifted between cheap hotels in New York City and was arrested several times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. A New York Post reporter found her working as a barmaid at an all-women’s hotel in Manhattan. At first, Veronica claimed that she was a guest at the hotel and covering for a friend, although she finally admitted that she was an employee. She filmed one last movie, Flesh Feast, a low-budget horror film with a convoluted Nazi theme. Although filmed in 1967, it was not released until 1970.

Despite her physical and mental health declining steadily, Veronica published her autobiography in 1972, followed by a promotional appearance on Dick Cavett’s talk show. She divorced husband number four in 1973. Shortly afterwards, a greatly debilitated Veronica was admitted to the hospital. In July 1973, she passed away at the age of fifty from acute renal failure, complicated by alcoholism.

The character of Jessica Rabbit in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?  was patterned after Veronica Lake.

Because of her straight-laced upbringing, Linda Boreman earned herself the nickname “Miss Holy Holy” at her strict Catholic high school. Later, in the “free love” times of the 1960s, Linda gave birth to a son. Her mother insisted the boy be given up for adoption to spare humiliation and preserve the family’s good name. Soon after that, Linda was involved in a car crash that almost claimed her life. It would be the cause of a lifetime of health problems.

While recuperating from the accident at her parents’ home in Florida, Linda became involved with Chuck Traynor, a controlling and manipulative sleazebag twelve years her senior. Traynor threatened and beat the impressionable Linda into having sex with strangers and performing in pornographic “loop reels” for his own financial gain and pleasure. Using a loaded M-16 rifle aimed at her head as persuasion, Traynor forced Linda to make the infamous pornographic short film Dog Fucker  in 1971. In 1972, on a budget of around $22,500, Traynor (acting as production manager) and his rifle, “insisted” that Linda, using the name “Linda Lovelace”, participate in Deep Throat. The film was shot over a period of six days in a hotel in Miami, Florida. During the filming, Linda was subjected to regular beatings at the hands of Traynor. Bruises are noticeable on Linda’s legs in various scenes of Deep Throat.

Upon its release, Deep Throat  surprisingly acquired a mainstream audience and became a huge hit among the art film world, with supporters like Jack Nicholson, Johnny Carson and Barbara Walters. Linda was paid $1200 for her work, all of which Traynor took. In 1974, Linda left Traynor and became a fervent anti-pornography advocate. She claimed that she had not consented to any sex act depicted in the film and did so under threats from Traynor.

Linda contracted hepatitis from a blood transfusion after her car accident and received a liver transplant in 1987. In April 2002, Linda was involved in another car accident in which she sustained massive head trauma. After nineteen days in a coma, Linda was taken off life support and died at age 53.

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Marilyn Ann Briggs aspired to be a model. At 16, she often forged her mother’s signature to get out of school to attend auditions. She was given several modeling jobs and even got a small role in the Barbra Streisand film, The Owl and The Pussycat, using the name Evelyn Lang. Biding her time as a Los Angeles topless dancer, Marilyn’s big break came when she landed a modeling job as a young mother fawning over her baby on the box of Procter & Gamble’s Ivory Snow detergent. Filled with confidence, she answered an ad for a casting call and but expressed disinterest when she discovered it was for a pornographic film. The film’s producers, the notorious adult film pioneers The Mitchell Brothers, noted her resemblance to popular actress Cybill Shepherd. Flattered, she told the Mitchells that she was “The Ivory Snow Girl” and they flipped, realizing the marketing potential. They told her that the film they had in mind for her would “sell a hell of a lot of soap for Procter & Gamble.” She negotiated the terms of her own contract to appear in the film — $25,000 salary, plus a percentage of the profits. When the low-budget film, 1972’s Behind the Green Door, ended up earning fifty million dollars, it proved to be a shrewd forethought for 19 year-old Marilyn. Of course, Procter & Gamble dropped her as their product representative, although the famous Ivory Snow box subtly appeared in nearly every one of Marilyn’s films.

Behind the Green Door  was a ground-breaking achievement in the world of X-rated films. It was the first feature-length pornographic film to feature an interracial couple. It caused a huge uproar, even among the adult film industry. Additionally, it made Marilyn Chambers (the former Marilyn Ann Briggs) a star, even though she spoke no lines of dialogue. She went on to star in thirty more films over the next four decades, sometimes crossing over into non-adult, mainstream movies working with directors such as horror wiz David Cronenberg. Not fully satisfied with her career in acting, the ever-ambitious Marilyn pursued a brief venture into singing, recording a disco hit in 1976, and later entered the political arena by running for vice-president in 2004 on the Personal Choice Party ticket, supporting presidential candidate Charles Jay. 

Marilyn was married three times, including eleven years to Svengali-like Chuck Traynor, who served as her manger until their divorce in 1985.

On April 12, 2009, 17 year-old McKenna came home to find her mother, Marilyn Chambers, dead. She had succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage and aneurysm at the age of 56.

In 1958, Lana Turner was between husband number five and husband number six when she entered into a torrid and volatile relationship with Johnny Stompanato. Johnny was the bodyguard for notorious gangster Mickey Cohen. Lana didn’t care about Johnny’s connections. She was content with his dark good looks and expertise as a lover. So, he had a temper and he was possessive. Lana took the good with the bad.

Lana’s teenage daughter, Cheryl Crane, was leery of Johnny. Although she never actually saw Johnny hit her mother, Cheryl was aware of the welts and bruises Lana often displayed. Cheryl threatened to expose Johnny’s ways to her father (Lana’s second husband, international restauranteur Joseph Crane). Lana pleaded to keep the beatings a secret and Cheryl reluctantly complied.

One night in April 1958, Lana and Johnny were having a particularly heated arguement behind the closed door or Lana’s Beverly Hills bedroom. Cheryl heard the yelling through the walls of her own room. She became worried for her mother’s well-being. An anxious Cheryl hurried downstairs searching for something to use to defend herself and her mother. She grabbed the first thing she saw in the kitchen — a large knife.

Cheryl returned to the second floor and stood outside her mother’s bedroom, knife poised in her hand. Suddenly, the door flew open and Johnny, still screaming, stormed out of the room. He was still facing the interior of the room as he exited and walked right into waiting knife blade. Johnny fell to the floor dead.

Lana Turner’s testimony at the subsequent trial was believed by many to have been the greatest acting performance. Cheryl took full responsibilty for the stabbing, although she claimed self-defense. Public opinion was that Cheryl was taking the fall for her mother, knowing that, as a minor, she would serve a sentence that would be far less severe. Cheryl, found guilty of justifiable homicide, was ordered by the court to spend two years in a facility as a ward of the state. A facility from which she escaped after a year.

In her 1988 autobiography, in addition to coming out as a lesbian and revealing that, as a child, she had been repeatedly molested by Lana Turner’s fourth husband actor Lex Baker, Cheryl Crane again confirmed the true story of Johnny Stompanato’s death.

The current Illustration Friday challenge word is “paisley”.


Gerome Ragni performed in several small theatre productions until he collaborated with fellow actor James Rado on the first Broadway musical to celebrate hippie culture — Hair. Hair  was unlike anything that was previously presented on the Great White Way. Audiences were assaulted and enraptured by free-form dancing, strange and wild staging, offbeat and topical rock songs, psychedelic and paisley-patterned costumes and nudity for nudity’s sake. It opened on April 29, 1968 and ran for 1750 performances. Gerome Ragni played the lead role of counter-culture tribe leader Berger.

When I was seven years-old, I discovered the original Broadway cast recording of Hair  in a stack of records at my Aunt Claire’s house. I popped the disk onto the turntable of her hi-fi and dropped the needle. I was hooked. I played that record over and over and over again. I dragged that record out on every visit to my aunt’s house. I finally bought the record myself and repeated the ritual at my own house. I knew every word to every song. I knew the dirty song lyrics, too, even if I didn’t know their meaning. I sang along when The Fifth Dimensions’ version of “Aquarius” or The Cowsills’ take on “Hair” came on the radio, and I pointed out when they altered the lyrics slightly from the original. In 1969, the touring company of Hair  came to the Schubert Theater (now the Merriam) in Philadelphia. My mom allowed me to skip third grade for a day and took me to a matinee performance. As we walked up Broad Street toward the theater, we noticed a commotion outside. A dozen or so people — men and women — were marching in a circle on the sidewalk in front of the theater’s entrance. They held signs and chanted, trying to discourage people from seeing the show. With tickets firmly in one hand and my  little hand firmly in the other, my mom cut through the line of protesters. One stern-looking woman yelled at my mother, “How dare  you take that young child in to see this smut!”  My mother shot back, “Have you seen it?” “Oh my goodness! NO!”, the woman protester replied, outraged at my mother’s insinuation. “Well, after I see it, I’ll let you know how it is.”, my mother called back over her shoulder, as she and I walked through the theater doors. I stuck my tongue out at the lady as the door shut behind me.

The Broadway production of Hair  was a traumatic experience for Gerome Ragni. The show’s immediate popularity made him very wealthy very quickly and he had a difficult time dealing with the instant fame. His marriage broke up and he disappeared from mainstream society. He joined a religious cult and contributed money to the Black Panther Party and Yippie causes. His belabored follow-up to Hair, a show called Dude, opened on Broadway in 1972 and closed after sixteen performances. Gerome was working on a new musical when he passed away in 1991 at the age of 55.

Eighteen-year old Meredith Hunter, known to his friends as “Murdock”, picked up his girlfriend Patty Bredahoff early on December 6, 1969. Meredith, a flashy dresser with a large Afro, was decked out in a lime green suit and matching derby hat. His destination was an all-day concert at Altamont Speedway featuring some of the top performers of the day — Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — and culminating with the legendary Rolling Stones. The concert was his destination, but his destiny was very different.

The Stones had hired infamous Southern California motorcycle club Hell’s Angels for security at the concert. As part of their payment, the Angels were provided with $500 worth of beer. The burly Angels created a human barrier between the performers on the unusually low stage and the increasingly unruly crowd. As the day progressed and as the audience and security crew became more intoxicated, the situation grew violent — so violent in fact, that The Grateful Dead refused to take the stage moments before their scheduled performance time.

The Angels were drunk. The crowd was stoned on amphetamines and LSD. Sporadic fights erupted throughout the confluence . Projectiles flew towards the stage. The Hell’s Angels retaliated by swinging pool cues and motorcycle chains and hurling full cans of beer at the crowd. In the early evening, The Rolling Stones took the stage, led by a visibly shaken Mick Jagger. Jagger pleaded with the crowd to “Just be cool down in the front there, don’t push around.” The Stones began their set. During their third song — “Under My Thumb” — Meredith Hunter made the decision to climb on stage. He met the full resistance of Hell’s Angels. One of the Angels punched Meredith in the head. He fell and disappeared in to the swelling crowd. Seconds later, Meredith resurfaced with a murderous and vengeful look in his eye. And, this time he was pointing the long barrel of a silver handgun at the stage. As Meredith pulled the trigger, Hells Angel Alan Passaro knocked the gun from his hand. Then, Passaro thrust a knife into Meredith’s back. Passaro stabbed Meredith several more times as other Angels stomped and kicked the eighteen-year old while he lay on the ground.

Passaro was arrested and charged with Meredith’s murder, but was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense after the jury viewed the footage from the concert showing Meredith drawing the revolver and pointing it toward the stage. An autopsy revealed that Meredith had been heavily intoxicated on methamphetamine.

Shortly after the incident, Meredith’s mother requested that Altamont Speedway be turned into a public park to “prevent any more wrongful deaths”. Alameda County officials allowed the Altamont to still host races, but barred any future concerts. She also sued the Rolling Stones for wrongful death and made an out-of-court settlement for $10,000.

In 1985, Alan Passaro was found dead, floating in Santa Clara County’s Anderson Reservoir with $10,000 in his pocket. No one was ever charged with his murder.

Wally Cox hated the role that made him famous. After beginning his career as a stand-up comedian, he starred for three seasons as mild-mannered science teacher Robinson Peepers in “Mr. Peepers”, an early sitcom that co-starred Tony Randall, Jack Warden and Marion Lorne. In interviews, Wally constantly argued unsuccessfully that he was nothing like the shy and timid character he portrayed. In reality, Wally was married three times. He was very athletic and he often hiked and rode a motorcycle.

In the early 1960s, he lent his voice to Underdog, a cartoon character that was a loose parody of Superman. Wally appeared in over twenty motion pictures, including several Disney productions and the unfinished final Marilyn Monroe vehicle “Something’s Got To Give”. He also appeared in guest-star roles on numerous network shows, including “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, “Bonanza” and several episodes of “The Beverly Hillbillies”. Later, he became a staple on the popular, long-running game show “Hollywood Squares”. His meek character was again exploited on “Hollywood Squares” and Wally often gave sarcastic answers to play against type.

In 1973, during his run on “Hollywood Squares”, 48-year old Wally Cox died from a heart attack. Unconfirmed rumors suggest it was brought on by an overdose of sleeping pills. An unannounced, surprise guest showed up at his wake. It was Wally’s lifelong friend Marlon Brando. Wally and Brando had been roommates in the late 1940s and remained close their entire lives. Brando was visibly upset by the loss of his friend. After cremation, Wally remains were given to Brando, where he kept them in a special container in a closet in his home. Sometimes, Brando later stated, conversing with Wally’s remains made him feel better when he was depressed. When Brando passed away in 2004, he, too, was cremated. Family members mixed his ashes with those of Wally Cox and scattered them in Death Valley, California.

Interestingly, in the early 1970s, character actor Bud Cort (”MASH”, “Harold and Maude”) had to adopt a stage name in order to join the Screen Actors Guild. Cort’s real name is Wally Cox.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “slither”.

The remarkable Prince Randian was one of the most successful sideshow performers of the 1930s. He was brought from his native British Guyana to the United States by showman P.T. Barnum in 1889. Despite being born with no arms and no legs, Prince Randian demonstrated his ability to shave, write, paint and roll and light a cigarette with expert proficiency. He even kept his smoking materials in a wooden box that he built himself with a hammer and saw. He often joked that one day he would build a house himself.

Barnum billed Prince Randian as “The Human Caterpillar”, who slithers on his belly like a reptile. When he performed, Randian wore a knit sack-like garment that emphasized his distinctive limbless torso.

Randian appeared in the 1932 classic Freaks directed by Tod Browning. In a memorable scene, Randian lights a cigarette with a match. He then blows out the flame as he exhales his first puff. Although he spoke four languages fluently, his only line of dialogue is delivered with an incomprehensible accent. (He actually asks another able-bodied actor “Can you do anything with your eyebrows?”) Later in the film, he is seen gripping a dagger in his teeth while crawling through the mud with his colleagues.

Prince Randian was married to “Princess Sarah,” and had five children. Shortly after a performance at the 14th Street Museum in New York City, Prince Randian passed away in 1934 at the age of 63.

Here is Prince Randian’s cigarette-lighting scene from Freaks:

In 1999, former child actress Dana Plato committed suicide at the age of 34. It was the culmination of a tumultuous life that went from starring in a popular weekly television series to robbing a video store and forging a prescription for Valium. The day before her suicide, an upbeat Plato appeared on The Howard Stern Radio Show  and happily subjected herself to a barrage of personal questions about her past.

On May 6, 2010, Plato’s 25-year-old son Tyler Lambert died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A frequent drug and alcohol abuser, Lambert’s suicide came two days shy of the eleventh anniversary of his mother’s death.