Johnny Eck, King of the Freaks Quiz

Answer: Baltimore

Johnny was born and died in the same red-brick row house in the Highlandtown section of Baltimore. He changed his name from Eckhardt to the more theatrical Eck when he began performing in sideshows.

Answer: The Half Boy

Johnny was born with an underdeveloped pelvis and legs, which left him looking as if he'd been lopped off at the waist. One woman who moved into Johnny's neighborhood as a child said she told him he'd been run over by a train!

Answer: His brother

Johnny's twin brother, Robert Alexander Eckhardt, traveled with Johnny and appeared with him to highlight Johnny's unusual body.

Answer: A magician

According to Johnny's autobiography, McAslan was doing a magic show at the church, and asked for a volunteer from the audience. Johnny padded up and knocked McAslan's socks off. The magician managed to finish the show, then approached Johnny's mother about a carnival career for her son.

Answer: True

Johnny made his climb, on his hands, in 1937. A photo shows him standing in the foreground, pointing at the monument. Way to go, Johnny! Another photo shows photographers lying on their stomachs in the grass to get the shot of Johnny, who was (depending on your source) either 18 or 22 inches tall.

Answer: He was part of the sawing-a-person-in-half illusion.

Raboid's sawing illusion used Johnny and his twin brother Robert, and relied upon their similar faces and voices to fool the audience. The physically normal Robert would be recruited from the audience, then switched for the truncated Johnny and a small-statured man who served as the legs of the illusion.

This trick is famous among magicians, who lament that Raboid never had a performance filmed.

Answer: Tarzan

Johnny was fitted with a bird costume, and the resulting footage was used in "Tarzan the Ape Man" (1932), "Tarzan Escapes" (1936), and "Tarzan's Secret Treasure" (1941), starring Johnny Weissmuller.

Answer: He painted pictures on window screens.

Johnny had always been interested in art. He learned screen painting from William Oktavec, a grocer and artist who is credited with inventing the art form in 1913 as a way to decorate screen windows and doors while giving residents greater privacy. From the outside, passers-by see only the painting.

But from the inside, the painted screen functions as a normal window screen, allowing those in the home to look out.

Answer: He wanted to be a railroad engineer.

As a child, Johnny would spend hours by the railroad tracks, watching the trains go by. In those days, being a railroad engineer was a glamor job, much like being an airline pilot today. Johnny bought a miniature railroad set which he took to fairs to give rides to children. He wasn't an engineer on a real railroad, so he bought his own railroad on his own scale!

Answer: He went peacefully in his sleep, at home in bed.

Johnny lay down for a nap after dinner, in the Baltimore row house where he was born, on January 5, 1991. When his brother Robert checked on him, he was dead. Johnny was 79 years old.