SERPENTINA:

UNMASKED & OUTED?

The lady commonly known by her stage name as "Serpentina" was born about 1898 in Oakland, California. However,  Dan Mannix in his book "Freaks: We Who Are Not as Others" believed she was Canadian by birth.    Serpentina was billed as a boneless lady, or specifically, as having no bones in her body below the shoulders. Certainly, when you look at her pictures here you'll agree she was at the least very, very bendable!     Serpentina appears to have entered show business when she was about 20 years of age and continued for at least another 22 years, maybe more. She was billed as a "Snake Girl" or "Serpent Girl"  and later as "Sea-Tiny" or "Nature's Closest Approach to a Living Mermaid".     The story is told that she so distrusted banks that took her considerable earnings and invested it in diamonds which she kept underneath her!  Dolly Regan, the ossified lady, says she was cared for by a gentleman named Bill Gregory "for, of course, she was absolutely helpless."  Serpentina's bio pamphlet says "she does not know what an ache or pain means, and she has never needed the services of a physician since she was a small child."     I've always wondered what Serpentina's real name was and think I may have figured it out.     In 1937, '38 and '39 Serpentina was featured with the Mammoth Marine Hippodrome Show which featured a 68-ton whale, an octupus, penguins and other attractions including a flea circus. At this time she was billed as "Nature's Strangest Living Enigma".    However, in 1940 I could no longer find any mention of the Marine Show.  But that year Ripley's Believe It Or Not travelling show had a lady known as - you guessed it- "Nature's Strangest Living Enigma". Now, Ripley didn't go in much for show names, preferring to present his attractions not as oddities but as wonderful and amazing people. So his 1940 show included "Irene Ferrell, Nature's Strangest Living Enigma" but the advertisement did not include a picture.  However, the ad below from the Tampa Daily Times, 16 Jan 1940 clenches the I.D. Apparently, Ripley's organization purchased the Marine show as the flea circus and 68 ton whale were still part of the new show.  Unfortunately, I've never read nor heard whatever became of this remarkbale woman.

However, this ad raises a new question:  Why is she called a merman and not a mermaid as before? Was Serpentina a man who realized he could earn more dressed as a woman? Look at the pictures again and see what you think.

During  Prohibition saloon owners came up with clever ways to make money.  The proprietor of the Globe Cafe on Broadway in 1920,when this picture was taken, turned his bar into a sort of dime museum.  The oddities are perched on the bar itself and include from left to right: Grace Gilbert, bearded lady; unidentified, possibly Rubberneck Joe, elastic-skin man; Walter Cole, living skeleton; Alice Cherry, fat lady; Eli Bowen, half-man, 78 years old; "Zip" Johnson, What-Is-It; Miss Lottie, tattooed woman; and 22 year old Serpentina herself.  (Photo courtesy www.corbis.com)