Hot Cripple #16/April 2016- Johnny Eck

​This "Hot Cripple" Series is an experiment; an effort to bring attention to the fact that Disability isn't necessarily synonymous with Ugly- as in Ugly Laws, which proliferated this country for over a century.

This month we feature American freak show performer, side show and film actor, Johnny Eck. 

Johnny Eck, (John Eckhardt, Jr.), is best known today for his role in Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic film, Freaks and his appearances as bird creature in the Tarzan films. He was often billed as the amazing "Half-Boy,"  "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, penny arcade owner, Punch and Judy operator and expert model maker.

Still from Tod Brownings, FREAKS (1932)

John Eckhardt, Jr. was born on August 27, 1911 to Emilia and John Eckhardt, Sr. in Baltimore, Maryland, as a fraternal twin. His brother Robert Eckhardt was also a performer and he had an older sister named Caroline. 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. Though Eck capitalized on the resemblance between himself and Robert, the twins were fraternal. Aside from the sacral agenesis, Eck was healthy.

​In 1937, Eck and Robert were recruited by the illusionist and hypnotist, Rajah Raboid, for his "Miracles of 1937" show. In it they performed a magic feat that amazed audiences. Raboid performed the traditional sawing-a-man-in-half illusion, except with an unexpected twist. At first Robert would pretend to be a member of the audience and heckle the illusionist during his routine, resulting in Robert being called on stage to be sawed in half himself. During the illusion, Robert would then be switched with his twin brother Eck, who played the top half of his body, and a dwarf, who played the bottom half, concealed in specially-built pant legs. After being sawed in half, the legs would suddenly get up and start running away, prompting Eck to jump off the table and start chasing his legs around the stage, screaming, "Come back!" "I want my legs back!" Sometimes he even chased the legs into the audience. The subsequent reaction was amazing - people would scream and sometimes even flee the theater in terror. As Eck described it, "The men were more frightened than the women - the women couldn't move because the men were walking across their laps, headed for the exit." The act provided the perfect jolt by frightening people at first but then caused just as much laughter and applause. The illusion would end with stage hands plucking up Eck and setting him atop his legs and then twirling him off-stage to be replaced by his twin Robert, who would then loudly threaten to sue Raboid and storm out of the theater. Their act was so popular that they played to packed audiences up and down the East coast.

In addition to film, sideshow and stage, Eck was also pursuing other interests in this period. He and his brother were musicians, having their own twelve-piece orchestra in Baltimore. Eck conducted while Robert played the piano. Eck continued his love of drawing and painting; early on choosing such subjects as women, ships and himself. He was also a race car enthusiast and the driver of his own custom-built race car that was street-legal in Baltimore, the "Johnny Eck Special". In 1938, Eck climbed the Washington Monument on his hands.

​The song "Table Top Joe", which describes a man without a lower body who becomes a famous entertainer, by Tom Waits is based loosely on the life of Johnny Eck.

On January 5, 1991, Eck suffered a heart attack in his sleep, dying at the age of 79 at the home where he was born. Robert followed him on February 25, 1995, aged 83. They are buried under one headstone in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore.