"I just figured I could never have a normal life."

As I expressed in my last post, Jane Barnell is fantastic and has become an endless source of inspiration.

Jane Barnell was known as Madame Olga, Lady Olga and a number of other stage names.

She was born in 1871 and had a full beard by age two. Her mother thought she was bewitched and tried to have her exercised (more or less). Then, when her father was out of town on business, her mother GAVE HER AWAY TO THE CIRCUS. AT AGE FOUR. She was quoted in a New Yorker article in 1940 saying: "I never been able to find out if Mamma got any  money for me or just gave me away to get rid of me....She hated me, I know that." The circus moved to Germany, where she got sick with typhoid fever, so they ABANDONED her and her father somehow tracked her down. This is all before she was ten years old. Then her father gave her to her Native-American grandmother (did I mention she was part Native American?) where she worked on a farm until she decided she wanted to be a nurse and started SHAVING. Yes indeed. When the money didn't end up being enough, she joined the circus again at age 21.

Her on families:
"Every family of a freak I ever heard of was the same. I've known families that lived off a freak's earnings but wouldn't be seen with him."

She had four husbands(!!!!)

1. They had two children, both of which died at infancy. Then her husband died. "After that, I never got any more pleasure out of circus life. I had to make a living, so I kept on. It's been root, hog, or die. When I got sick of one outfit, I moved on to another. Circuses are all the same – dull as dishwater."
2. She married a balloonist who was killed. She never knew how, she just knew he was killed.
3. "That one treated me shamefully... If he was in a bottle, I wouldn't pull out the stopper to give him air. I taken out a divorce from him the year before I and Mr. O'Boyle (#4) got married."
4. Mr. O'Boyle, an ex-clown and circus "talker", was obsessed with the circus and loved it. 

She also had a cat, a large white Persian cat, whom she loved. "To an animal, if you're bearded, it don't make no difference."

She was incredibly famous and toured all over the place. She was invited to lavish parties, where she went dressed in beautiful clothes. "...I guess I was a curiosity to them. Some of them sure were a curiosity to me. I been around peculiar people most of my life, but I never saw no woman like them before."

She starred in the movie Freaks in 1932, starring as, you guessed it, the bearded woman.  SHE HATED IT. She thought it was "an insult to all freaks." She never worked in Hollywood again.

Browning, the director of the film, and some of the cast – most of which were real "freaks." Jane Barnell is on the right.

In the film, she was married to the skeleton man, and gave birth to a girl with a beard.

She was very outspoken, a supposed socialist, and demanded her due wages. She actually once slapped a manager who suggested she dye her beard blue, so he could bill her as "Bluebeard."

She hated doctors: "When they get their hands on a monsterosity (that's how she pronounced it) the medical profession is too snoopy,"

She wasn't without her own prejudices, and separated freaks into three categories:

1. Born freaks, like herself (aristocrats of the sideshow world)
2. Made freaks (tattooed people, sword swallowers, snake charmers, and glass eaters)
3. Two-timers (normal people who obtain sideshow engagements because of past glory or notoriety, e.g. reformed criminals, old movie stars, retired athletes.)

 She seems to have been a very sad and angry woman. No obituary was ever found for her.
An old boss of hers once said: "She's the only real, old-fashioned bearded lady left in the country. Most bearded ladies are men. Even when they're women, they look like men. Lady Olga is a woman and she looks like a woman."

"When I get the blues, I feel like an outcast from society. I used to think when I got old my feelings wouldn't get hurt, but I was wrong. I got a tougher hide than I once had, but it ain't tough enough."

"No matter how nice a name was put on me, I would still have a beard."

"If the truth was known, we're all freaks together."

What, you might be asking, are you going to use all this for? Well, when I started reading about her, I began to realize how perfect her story is and I had a breakthrough. I'm going to include interviews with various "freaks" throughout the play, as well as draw upon her for inspiration in Lola's life.
Jane Barnell kept her beard, Lola did not. It's an interesting counterpoint that I hope to use thoroughly. And she has such an incredible VOICE. Her language, her accent (which was described as a slight southern drawl, mixed with slang and tendencies of circus talkers), her ideas, the way she presented herself... it's all so fascinating. She's both strong and broken at the same time.

And she's one of about ten women I want to write about. AH!