Koo-Koo the Bird Girl

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.

Woolsey was born in 1880 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. 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. She was hit by a car in the 1960s. When and how she died is unknown.

Details

Vorname:Minnie
Geburtsdatum:1880 (♑ Steinbock)
144. Geburtstag
Geburtsort:Rabun County
Sterbedatum:+1960-00-00T00:00:00Z
Nationalität:Vereinigte Staaten
Muttersprache:Englisch
Sprachen:Englisch;
Geschlecht:♀weiblich
Berufe:Zirkusdarsteller, Schauspieler,

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Datenstand: 29.03.2024 13:48:18Uhr