PRINCESS

ANETTA

"The classic romance of the show-booth, however, occurred well over twenty years ago. At a fair in Geneva there was on show a very beautiful girl of 19 billed as "Princess Anetta." She was entirely armless and legless, and I remember the photograph that appeared in the newspapers recording the romance at the time, showing her resting on a pedestal in a tight-fitting tunic of glittering sequins, with perfectly modelled, armless shoulders, nicely rounded bust, and swelling shapely hips, where the trunk was rounded off cleanly without either legs or stumps being present. To her booth there came every day a young student who had fallen madly in love with her. The show was scheduled to move on to another and distant fair at the end of the week, but the day before the departure, the young man appeared and, watching his opportunity, suddenly snatched the girl from her pedestal and ran at full speed with the beautiful armless and legless charmer in his arms."

"Arrangements had apparently already been made by the youthful lover, for he raced to the local notary's office, were the pair were married, the bridegroom holding his limbless bride in his arms during the ceremony. A few minutes later the irate manager of the attraction arrived hot-foot, but the wedding was over. He was, of course, mollified by promises of adequate compensation to be made by the student's parents and the happy pair went off down the street together, amid the cheers of the crowd that had gathered, the blushing, limbless bride, still in her revealing show costume, lying happily in her newly wedded husband's arms. The affair was widely reported at the time in the English and in the Continental papers, and I remember the clever and amusing headlines in one paper, which ran as follows:                              Charms Without Arms, And Loveliness Without Legs                                           Pretty Limbless Girl's Elopement and Marriage I have often wondered what happened to the pair afterwards, and how the romantic young husband settled down to the ordinary humdrum routine of life with a wife who was just a beautiful but helpless torso, entirely deficient in either arms and legs. I don't think the girl ever returned to the shows. At any rate, I have never heard of her since or encountered her in my own extensive tours through showland. She will be only forty or so at the present time, and no doubt a very handsome woman still. One would like to think that one of the strangest runaway marriages in history turned out to success and that the husband is still a devoted admirer of the unique charms of his attractive armless and legless wife." London Life, 29 Jan 1938

"Souvenir of Fraulein Princess Anneta. Fraulein Anneta, Trunk Artist; born in Cairo on 25 July 1890 without arms and legs"