Koo-Koo the Bird Girl

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Minnie Woolsey
Koo Koo, the Bird Girl
Born
Minnie Woolsey

1880 (1880)
Rabun County, Georgia
Diedafter 1960[1]
Other namesMinnie Ha Ha; Koo Koo the Bird Girl; Cuckoo Girl; Koo Koo, the Blind Girl from Mars
Occupation(s)Entertainer as sideshow entertainer, film performer
Known forFreaks film

Minnie Woolsey (1880 – after 1960), billed as Koo-Koo the Bird Girl, was an American side show entertainer, best known for her only film appearance in Tod Browning's film Freaks in 1932.[2]

Biography

Woolsey was born in 1880[3] in Rabun County, Georgia. Little is known about her early life, only that she was "rescued" from a mental asylum in Georgia by a travelling showman and was commonly billed as Minnie Ha Ha (a play on Minnehaha) in her sideshow entertainment career. She had a rare congenital growth skeletal disorder called Virchow-Seckel syndrome, which caused her to have a very short stature, a small head, a narrow bird-like face with a beak-like nose, large eyes, a receding jaw, large ears and mild intellectual disability.[2][4] In addition, Woolsey was bald, toothless, and either completely blind or very short-sighted. She would appear in an American-Indian style bodysuit made of feathers with a single feather on top of her head as her costume and would dance and speak gibberish.

She appeared in the 1932 film Freaks, alongside a cast of other sideshow performers from the time, billed as Koo Koo, the Bird Girl. She was not the original Koo Koo however; the billing was previously used by another performer in the film, a "Stork" or "Bird" woman named Elizabeth Green. Woolsey is seen in many scenes, particularly at the wedding ceremony, where she is seen dancing on the dining table in a feathery costume. In 1942, a news brief in Billboard reported that Woolsey was recovering in Coney Island Hospital after breaking her arm while descending stairs.[5] She was hit by a car in the 1960s. When and how she died is unknown.

Koo Koo in 1924 (picture top, fourth from Left), was well known for her sideshow career with Ringling Brothers

In popular culture

  • Australian performer Sarah Houbolt created a performance called Kookoo the Bird Girl. Speaking to Disability Arts Online, Houbolt said “My full length show, KooKoo the Birdgirl, is about Minnie Woolsey, a historical performer with disability, who starred in Freaks (1932). This is an art history piece, and a female perspective on the side show. My passion to uncover her story is as a result of the importance of telling our history from a disability perspective. Minnie lived in a time of compulsory sterilisation and anti-marriage laws for disabled women, which not many people know about.”[6]
  • She is mentioned in Tom Waits's song Lucky Day (Overture) from his album The Black Rider, about sideshow performers.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Minnie Woolsey - Koo Koo the Bird Girl". altereddimensions.net. Altered Dimensions Paranormal. December 26, 2012. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  2. ^ a b "KOO KOO - The Bird Girl - Freaks the Movie". thehumanmarvels.com. Circus Freaks and Human Oddities. 2010-12-13. Retrieved 2021-05-27.
  3. ^ Hartzman, Marc (2005). American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History's Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin. p. 178. ISBN 1585424412.
  4. ^ Harsha Vardhan BG, Muthu MS, Saraswathi K, Koteeswaran D (2007). "Bird-headed Dwarf of Seckel". Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry. 25 Suppl: S8–9. PMID 17921644.
  5. ^ "Coney Island, N.Y." The Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. August 29, 1942. pp. 44, 54. Retrieved 2021-05-26 – via books.google.com.
  6. ^ Hambrook, Colin (2017-09-29). "Accomplished Australian circus and physical theatre performer Sarah Houbolt takes flight". Disability Arts Online. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  7. ^ Waits, Tom (1993). "Lyrics: The Black Rider: Lucky Day Overture". tomwaitsfan.com. Retrieved 2021-05-26.

External links

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