Queen Victoria's Smallest Friend: The Real Tom Thumb | Greatest Showman Documentary | Timeline

[Music] today we're all just a cellphone selfie away from worldwide exposure we live in a culture that worships Fame and is addicted to instant celebrity [Music] of course it wasn't always this way the fever began in mid nineteenth century America with the emergence of the first showbiz star to go truly global General Tom Thumb he was just 25 inches tall he sang he danced he acted over the course of his life he was seen by over 50 million people one admirer was President Abraham Lincoln no less he was just as big hair in Britain Queen Victoria adored him and he often popped into Buckingham Palace for tea his real name was Charles Stratton aged just four he was thrust onstage by the legendary showman PT Barnum Barnum created Tom Thumb manipulating the press staging a celebrity wedding and even producing a fake baby the intelligencia were horrified [Music] one rival artist was even driven to suicide Charles Stratton became famous and rich but he had no choice in his career which meant being stared at by millions of people who regarded him as a freak was this a great success story or was it exploitation and don't think this is just a Victorian fascination throughout the 20th century little people continued to get big laughs on stage and screen while today we remain fascinated by performers with unusual bodies I've been in entertainment all my life but for me Tom Thumb is the best showbiz story of them all I want to find out how he achieved such dazzling Fame and at what cost so roll up roll up for the extraordinary story of the real Tom Thumb [Applause] [Music] in 1842 a showbiz hustler was on his way to New York when the Hudson River froze over he was forced to spend the night here in Bridgeport where his brother ran a small hotel his name was PT Barnum and in time he would be famous from Chicago to Calcutta mr. entertainment the world's greatest showman but in 1842 he was less renowned he was a purveyor of air tonic for men exhibits in glass cases and freak shows Phineas Barnum was both respectable and a con man it seemed that the public craved freaks of nature and he was happy to give nature a little helping hand his hoaxes over the previous decade included a cat dyed purple and a 161 year-old woman but his biggest draw was the Fiji mermaid his adverse promised the public a genuine nymph of the South Pacific the reality was a little different [Music] there she is the Fiji it my key [Music] Kathy do you mean to tell me that Barnum got people to pay to look at this creature Barnum got people to pay to look at this creature but it was calculated he had there were steps that he knew he had to prepare the public's mind and Barnum took months to calculate an advertisement promotion where he had friends in Alabama and Washington write letters so completely far apart in the country to New York newspapers to get the public's interest up tonight sort of viral marketing they were calling us today absolutely in 1842 they were expecting all of the promotion's showed beautiful mermaids something that you would think of in your imagination and then when people actually got a glimpse of it they were horrified do we know what she's made of we do actually well this is a reproduction but the original was really the the body of an orangutan or a monkey and then the the tail and the fins and the scales of a fish the fishy mermaid netted Barnum a hefty fortune how to follow that [Music] stranded in his Bridgeport hotel that freezing winter of 1842 Barnum unexpectedly had time to do a bit of talent scouting [Music] he'd heard whispers about an extraordinary local boy and that night his brother brought the parents to the hotel with the boy meet Charles Stratton four years old and exactly 25 inches high but with a big future [Music] Charles's parents showered and Cynthia Stratton were fully grown but poor doctors couldn't explain why their son was so small Barnum offer them a few dollars and signed the boy on the spot the kid might grow but his mum and dad had said he hadn't put on an inch since he was five months old and if he didn't grow he'd be the kind of freak that people will queue around the block to see darlin it smell money [Music] in 1842 that money was in New York not the glamorous destination of today but a raw rough crime ridden boomtown [Music] a third of a million New Yorkers throng the streets and they were hungry for entertainment Bonhams plan was to exhibit Charles at his flagship attraction the American Museum it stood at the south end of Broadway today a rather grim office block back then one of the most exciting addresses in the city it wasn't a museum as we know them more like an early Disneyland inside it's heaving rooms you could find exotic animals human automata a working model of Niagara Falls and an aquarium all packaged by a savvy Barnum as respectable family fun this was a great day out for the citizen who paid 25 cents and expected to be enthralled you might be shocked but you'd learn something at the same time education information titillation I suppose it's a kind of Victorian internet run by a great showman who was interested in anything legal that would sell but the museum's most intriguing attraction was the whole of living curiosities here the public could brush shoulders with Giants dwarves and all manner of weirdly shaped persons it was the world's first mass appeal fully commercialized freakshow and the four-year-old boys new home at one extreme were sort of the the very exotic freaks wild people who were described as cannibals or savages or missing links who were somewhere between human and animal and at the far other extreme of the spectrum were the respectable freaks and I would certainly put Charles Stratton in that category these were individuals who had very very unusual bodies and so part of what was fascinating about them was that there they were decked out in suits and they had good manners and they could speak well and and so there was that jarring contradiction between respectability and then the highly unusual nature of the body it sounds to me like a frightening place for a child [Music] however in this dark place he positively shun shortly after putting little Charles in the Hall of curiosities Barnum made an amazing discovery the kid was wasted in the freakshow he was a natural-born performer and only incidentally a freak it would have been a lightbulb moment if they'd been invented at the heart of the American Museum was a vast theater Barnum had one of his crazy ideas could his tiny star command this massive space sending more profits he followed his instincts in December 1842 his new act stepped out onto the stage mr. PT Barnum is proud to announce he has imported from London to add to his collection of the most extraordinary curiosities from all over the world the rarest the tiniest the most diminutive dwarf imaginable [Applause] but I want you to imagine this is his very very first time on stage he looks out at the auditorium much bigger than this 3,000 seats every one of them filled put yourself in his shoes for a moment which incidentally worthy three inches long you're four years old you're this small you've only just come to the city the biggest crowd you've ever seen is probably a few farmers at the cattle market and your manager whatever that means a few weeks ago reckoned you were pretty bashful what are you feeling like at this moment [Music] mr. Barnum taught you to pose like a statue out there in the exhibition hall alongside be two-headed snakes in the bottle but in here he wants you to play characters from history he wants you to dance little dances he wants you to sing Yankee Doodle Dandy and now there are two-handed skits like this one I say what dress is this it's my ax Oni and dress it is the dress presented by the students at Oxford what do you represent now fair though I understand a fellow at Oxford know a little fellow well not exactly Shakespeare but what was important was the Charles Stratton but I only understood the words but had a gift for comic timing the Barnum spinard begun and it started with a change of identity [Music] the name Tom Thumb came from an old English fairy tale where little Tom fought great battles mounted on a mouse [Music] Barnum's choice of name was brilliant branding the press took the bait [Music] General Tom Thumb jr. the dwarf exhibiting at the American Museum is by far the most wonderful specimen of a man that ever astonished the world the idea of a young gentleman 11 years old weighing less than an infinite six months is truly wonderful he is lively talkative well proportioned and withal quite a comical chap he builds him up in the press he says he's from England because someone from England would be exotic someone from Bridgeport wasn't really that exotic for the people in New York he gave him the title of general which is a sort of classic celebrity status enhancement right really yeah you know Prince or Madonna or Elvis the king Duke Ellington Count Basie that's right but for him it was also funny because he was so small now there must have been a concern in Barnum's mind that the public might say well he's only five what do you how big do you expect him to be right well he he he tricked them by saying that he was seven years older than he really was he said he was twelve it was eleven and then later twelve to make him seem even seem more incredible that's right that's right and the the surprising thing to me about that was that all these people are meeting him the mayor of New York and nobody questions the age and so that means he must have been a really intelligent child [Music] general Tom thumb's act was a mixed bill he'd pose in a white body stocking impersonating classical statues he'd banter with straight men in little skits and he'd bring the house down by dancing a miniature hornpipe audiences went while Barna murder understood his public tom thumb combined two magic ingredients fascination with the strange and cheap laughs the boy was now set to work regardless of his age or what we'd call his disability it sounds like a tale of Dickensian exploitation yet I grew up in a world that wasn't that different the harmonica gang in comedy vent small was still beautiful [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well I learnt as a kid going at the variety theater that small was funny there were so many small people on the variety stage making thousands and thousands of people laugh I can think of Jimmy clithero obviously and his predecessor wee Georgie would Arthur Askey was no giant and then there were the speciality actor Morton Fraser his harmonica gang Johnny polio they all used very very tiny people to get cheap laughs screams and gales of laughter guaranteed every time you saw them but what is this like for the performer how does it feel to make your size you're selling right David Funes is an entertainer whose career began in a similar way to that of Charles Stratton [Music] what was your first job I worked as Cupid I yeah just as Cupid in what and I wasn't a diver and the funny thing is is yes so I just didn't belt it'll cost him out of the blue I had toilet paper wrapped around me as a banner and was gonna play or was it a musical role no it was what you call a club yeah a club yeah and I just basically danced like as a go-go boy type thing but when they said they when you got the job and they say they wanted you to play cupid and wear a diaper nappy did you at any time feel you were being exploited yes all the time but you just thought of the money since the beginning of the gig till the end of the gig I would feel like I was being exploited all day and I was thinking to myself what am i doing like do I want to do this duel what is gonna come out of this what is the money gonna come out what are people's reaction what are my parents reaction gonna be but I just saw this as you know what I'm gonna do it I'm gonna become better at what I do so there was a moment where you actually came to terms with it and said actually it's a job yes but are you still doing the diaper act or even where have you moved on from there I've moved on for the day what was the next job the next server was st. Patrick's Day some Patrick's Day yes do we have a little leprechaun as a freak oh yeah that's our favorite Argentinian leprechaun yeah what do you feel about being typecast in those sorts of roles you know the phone rings and okay yeah and that's how it is I'm just like okay you know what it's time to do this and everything like that but then when I get on the stage is such a different feeling it's such a euphoric feeling really yeah I feel very excited like I feel like there's such an energy buzz you get a buzz from an audience yes I actually feed off the audience and if you're gonna have a negative outlook and how do you see it you're never gonna be able to succeed in this business so I always keep the positive if David had been scared at first the four-year-old Charles's debut must have been terrifying but I was also beginning to understand how success for a little person on stage could start to be addictive that success was coming very quickly for Charles Stratton for much of his fifth year he was on the road or rather on the railroad Charles was born as the steam age took off and the new trains meant his fame could be spread in ways impossible just a few years ago for the next year Charles toured to Boston and around New England its fame steadily growing his eyes forever on his box office Barnum new image was everything and this began with Charles's wardrobe [Music] we have a very early piece that belonged to Charles Stratton and was actually given to the museum by PT Barnum it's a little jacket oh yeah very tiny as you can see he was about 25 inches tall when he would have worn this it wasn't just the size that mattered Barnum made short Charles his clothes were made of the most exquisite materials this is all bespoke isn't it every one of these is happy for him [Music] Barnum so cleverly used clothing to boost Charles's age and his social standing he became not just a man but a gentle man there are two hats in here oh my goodness tiny yes they're like cymbals this pair we think are really the the most special I mean it's just exquisite goodness in that he's out beautiful he could afford the best and did and these are the best this is at the top of the range [Music] Barnum had tailored the perfect image for Charles but how could his star be seen beyond the railroad tracks luckily mid 19th century America was the right place at the right time [Music] previously all original publicity images had to be created by an artist by hand yet all this was to change photography arrived in 1839 making it one year younger than Charles now everyone could see his incredible dimensions for real ever ready to exploit any means to boost Charles's fame Barnum rushed the boy into the studio I'm being photographed the Victorian way whoosh 1011 mm ovens 3000 offence so the equivalent of a shatter today is when you just take the lens cap off that's correct and you're going to be typically in this light probably 3 minutes exposure right that's how long you want me to go and pose if you wouldn't mind not difficult for me I brought my top hat with me [Music] Photography accelerated Charles's Fame and the arrival of his latest product brought him into the family home 1011 mm part calling card part publicity shot part of football sticker the carte de visite enabled his fans to buy a souvenir Tom Thumb to keep [Music] the scale of the culture physique was absolutely phenomenal Queen Victoria for example there were between about 3 and 4 million carts of her produce between 1860 and 1862 so she was incredibly popular and those are ending up in people's family albums in individuals houses and they were collecting the whole of the royal family and politicians and artists and clergymen and all these people to put in their own albums was there a roaring trade in in carte de visite of of the abnormal the the curiosities as Barnum we used to call them you find pictures of people like Stratton people with medical particular medical conditions and people like Chang the the Giants who was collected photographed in the UK and on tour when he was exhibited and for a lot of people then they were seeing these types of people in the exhibitions for the first time so they would take them back and show them to their friends and Barnum I think understood this because they would then come back to the exhibition and pay an entrance fee to go and see them in person so the pictures were his best marketing tool [Music] right well good news oh did I keep still perfectly oh wow that's very distinguished honking fifty years late but by Royal appointment portrait from life I love that my own car to visit photographs made Charles visible and railroads made him widely accessible by the time he was six he had toured these two cities for a year and had added new routines bike dragging up as a little girl called our Marianne but people couldn't get enough of him one wagon even wrote a poem in praise the streets run people all business was done absorbed in the interest of General Tom Fong Barnum was making a fortune with Charles in the USA but he was a risk-taker across the Atlantic lay Europe the cradle of civilization and the home of vast audiences Barnum scented even more money but he'd have to start from scratch on January the 19th 1844 Charles's parents and Barnum boarded the steamship the SS Yorkshire and set sail for England [Music] it was a brave time to make the trip just thirty years earlier the two nations had been at war and the Brits had left the White House a burnt-out shell to many Victorian Britons Americans were just a bunch of uncouth eggs [Music] after three weeks at sea Charles Barnum and their entourage landed with little idea of what was in store they headed for the biggest city on earth London a population of nearly 2 million made the city over four times bigger than New York crammed with theatres opera houses flea pits and exhibition halls this was a town ravenous for the latest sensation [Music] and what they like most were the freakish and the strange there's a sense that this is a form of entertainment that is booming the punch magazine announced that the country has been gripped by deformative mania so there's a well-developed public appetite for this kind of entertainment and circuits are forming you know actor traveling the country what sort of exhibits would that be I mean were they people with genuine deformities or were there you know faked bearded ladies and scams there were I mean it's a very mixed economy this but if for instance you had gone to see a pig-faced lady you might be seeing a bear changed to a chair put in a crinoline and shaved strategically and to look more human-like so there are all kinds of game and it was a money-making enterprise and the public was fascinated the public was fascinated the public had an insatiable curiosity for human oddity where does that come from do you think is that a Victorian thing or is it has it always been there there's an immense history to this I mean if you'd have gone to Bartholomew fair if you've been around in the Middle Ages there would have been entertainment like this what happens in the 19th century is that it becomes rather more organized commercialized absolutely yes yeah I mean this is business this is business in which contracts are issued in which arrangements are made [Music] but Princess Theatre once stood here on Oxford Street on the 20th of February 1844 and just turned six the general first stepped out on to the London stage that night the bill was offering Porterville farce and Italian diversions Tom Thumb was squeezed in between acts two and three of a cut down version of Donizetti's opera Don Pasquale [Music] the press was not kind the Illustrated London News called Tom Thumb Illidan monster who provided melancholy proof of the low state the legitimate drama has been reduced to well I think it'd be fair to say it wasn't a roaring success it's not the right kind of venue for him because people don't listen hard enough people don't pay attention properly you didn't have to behave yourself in this sort of environment Barnum had hoped to set the West End alight but the great premiere had turned into a damp squib this was a pivotal moment for Barnum as he stood in the wings and watched America's biggest star his star failing to WoW the audience he must have thought he'd left his magic touch somewhere in Mid Atlantic he needed to come up with something and quickly and he had a genius idea Barnum decided to market Charles to the upper classes [Music] the Yankee had instinctively grasped the aspirational nature of the British class system he knew that aristocratic endorsement would quickly sway the mass market the first thing he needed was to invite the right callers to the right address so he splashed out on the rental of number 13 Grafton Street Mayfair Barnum said about pursuing anyone and everyone in the upper echelon and issuing invitations and they were intrigued the dukes of Buckingham Bedford and Devon sure came by Sir Robert a lady peel popped in and when he saw Charles give him an impersonation of Napoleon at a private audience My dear they couldn't get rid of the Duke of Wellington Knight led to Lord Lord led to Duke further on up the ladder until has Barnum it hoped they reached the summit [Music] on the 9th of March a soldier of the Life Guards arrived at Crafton Street to invite Charles and Barnum to an audience with Her Majesty Queen Victoria this was the big gamble it was make or break success could make them both rich for life failure the end of Barnum's global ambitions once again the great showman put all his chips on a single spin of the wheel resplendent in their new hand-tailored court suits on March the 23rd 1844 Barnum and the six-year-old Charles arrived at Buckingham Palace to meet the most powerful woman in the world picture the scene the Queen sits at one end of a very long state room with her is Prince Albert some ladies-in-waiting and assorted courtiers Charles and Barnum make their entrance beautifully dressed in their brand-new black velvet court attire the Queen is dressed simply in black there are flunkies everywhere dressed in black not unlike a funeral anyway Charles marches towards the Queen and opens with good evening ladies and gentlemen not exactly protocol but the Yanks have made their entrance [Music] Charles launched into his routine singing cheeky songs and rattling off a few impressions it was risky stuff the court was officially in mourning for Prince Albert's father but no one kicked them out and after a quick finale they prepared to depart Barnum has been well briefed on the royal protocol never turn your back on the lawn so he starts to reverse out bowing as he goes Charles tries to keep up with Barnum but his little legs won't let him so he turns and runs and stops and vows and he turns and runs and stops her boughs all this sets off a Royal spaniel the dog it's the same height as Charles it leaps forward and starts barking and barking spontaneously this is genius Charles pulls out his tiny ceremonial sword and starts pretending to fence with fighting [Music] the room erupts in hysterical laughter the Queen is amused and they get invited back it was a triumph two more visits to the palace soon followed there's a rather affecting sort of intimacy about this relationship the Royal children are introduced to him there's a lot of comparison of heights so he's brought within really the very core of that Family Circle they're like some stranger elevated odd distorted version of the ordinary Victorian middle-class family Victoria and Charles they seem like an odd pairing but she was only doing what many rulers had done before [Music] for centuries dwarves had been royal entertainers just look for example of Velasquez paintings of the court dwarves of Philip the fourth of Spain I wonder if there wasn't a certain kind of identification between freaks and royalty on the one hand royalty have the world's at their fingertips everything is available to them at the same time there must be a certain sense of loneliness and isolation it's an incredibly rarefied position to find oneself in and there's no anonymity no possibility of simply mingling with the public at large and so so I wonder if there wasn't a kind of recognition between these these very elites Royals and the freaks who came to see them in a sense that in in some way they they occupied a similar position socially [Music] whatever the Queen's motivation Barnum had worked his magic again after Victoria anyone who was anyone had to see Tom Thumb in London he was the talk of the town here at the Lyceum Theatre it was standing room only Charles Dickens dragged a few of his friends here to see him hiding in a daisy and popping out of a nut in a play entitled hopper my family riding on the wave of Queen Victoria's approval Barnum took Charles on a European tour playing Belgium Spain and France Charles was developing as a performer up to now he was doing songs and sketches and impressions but then to French dramatists wrote a play especially for him which he learned in French and he was very good at it Barnum described him smashing audiences killing them so now our lad was doing his whole act plus two plays in French every single day well he was 8 years old after his shows the boy in adult clothing that buy limelight met his public it was noticeable that women were always first in line women had very interesting reactions to him he was very cute kid but we think of him as a kid but they thought of him as much older because remember Barnum is inflating his age there were many women who looked at him with a sort of motherly affection but there were others who took a more you know erotic interest in him and it became quite inappropriate at times in what way well when they're selling souvenirs after the show he would stand there and give kisses or what he called his receipts to anyone who bought a souvenir and so women would apparently line up around the block to get these kisses from him you know they'd buy a photograph and then they'd get a kiss they'd buy a book of Barnum's and they'd get a kiss and some of them would just peck him on the cheek but some of them would not so it became a little bit of an issue and and there were reports from men who are very upset that their wives and daughters are you know spending all their money on getting kisses from from Charles [Music] by 1846 Barnum er decided it was once again time to move back to America he posted bills for a series of farewell shows at London's prestigious Egyptian Hall it was here that Tom Thumb would finally collide head-on with the Victorian cultural establishment who had reason to see themselves as the defenders of civilization itself because another very different attraction had booked into the famous venue at the very same time [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 70,851

Rating: 4.8040619 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, the greatest showman, hugh jackman, tom thumb, general tom thumb, greatest showman, the greatest showman real story, barnum circus, the bearded lady, rare photos of the circus from the past, extraordinary people, barnum and bailey, circus freaks

Id: tfD8AU7RPts

Length: 45min 32sec (2732 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 30 2019