The Real Tom Thumb: PT Barnum's Smallest Superstar? | 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 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 a dazzling fame and at what cost so roll up roll up for the extraordinary story of the real Tom Thumb [Applause] Benjamin Robert Hayden ra was a friend of Keats and Wordsworth and a painter of morally uplifting canvases through his art he believed he could reform the taste of the British people here at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool they have one of his smaller works on display Christ's blessing the little children but for the Egyptian Hall he plans something even more ambitious a series of huge moralistic paintings depicting good and bad government Haley believed passionately in high art especially his own it had been struck by the irony of Tom thumb's goodbye show at dumb-down mass entertainment being booked into the Egyptian Hall just a few doors down the corridor from his own exhibition of paintings with subjects grand classical and refined [Music] this was his last chance to reform the taste of the English public this is the man who wrote in his diary in 1840 Oh Almighty God one request more spare my life till I have reformed the taste of my country he believed that the greatness of Great Britain would be enhanced by his work so Tom Thumb is up at the Egyptian Hall and the two attractions are on at the same time yeah in one week 17000 came to see Tom Thumb each pain a shilling in the same week 133 and a half people come to see Benjamin Robert Hayden's great works the half was a little girl the terrible thing was that the queue to general Tom thumb's room went right past Hayden's room two months after the catastrophe Hayden bought a pistol standing before an unfinished canvas glorifying British justice he pulled the trigger and failed to kill himself he had to finish the job with a razor [Music] the press were appalled at the death of the man they had decided was a great artist The Times sneered the display of a disgusting dwarf attracted hordes of gaping idiots who poured into the yawning pockets of a Yankee showman a stream of wealth one type of which would have redeemed an honorable English artist from the wretchedness and death Haden's friend the purchaser is about Barrett Browning was more succinct the dwarf slew the giant the comic almanaque printed a cartoon by George Cruikshank that summed up the anger felt towards Charles Hayden was the tragic artist Tom Thumb was the indolent freak lounging on a sofa it was called born a genius born a dwarf no one helped Hayden when he was alive but now he was dead he was a useful symbol high up needed protection from the rising tide of mindless popular culture that sounds familiar [Music] today that job Falls to the Arts Council yet its current chairman was in his former life the TV producer who brought the world Big Brother why does he believe certain arts should be protected by the state while the mass market with his freakish tastes fence for itself the justification of supporting art with public money broadly speaking is to back the next generation of talent and to take risks that you get behind talent which becomes sometimes commercially successful later on new talent taking risks today's outrage is tomorrow's mainstream do you think the public's appetite for the unusual is satisfied these days by some some reality TV the worst end of reality TV well you you could be making a reference here to the Big Brother television program which I was let off you know time off for good behavior um about six years ago but early on in Big Brother there were quite a few winners and runners-up who were you might say stereotypes as the series went on and people watched them interact with the other people in the house they discovered the actually delightful personalities behind this stereotype and perhaps one way of judging them is whether the end of the product is whether we're merely being astonished at if you like a freak show or whether it ends up being sympathetic and I'd even say the same about the people who went to see Tom Thumb if at the end of it they came out sympathetic to him was it altogether bad [Music] and sympathetic the British were even the press were eventually won over one newspaper said scarcely any exhibition within our memory has excited such interest among all circles as the general Charles s Tran not Tom Thumb but his own name in print the Brits had finally taken him to their hearts of course it was all thanks to Barnum after a shaky start the Yankee showman had quickly grasped what made the British tick [Music] then as now there was a great respect for authority and tradition but just as greater love for the Joker who poked fun at the establishment it was a very British sweet spot and Barnum had positioned Charles to hit it perfectly [Music] the Tom Thumb entourage returned in triumph to New York in February 1847 Charles Stratton went straight to the American Museum where an orangutan a fortune teller and a model of Napoleon's funeral weren't exactly doing the business he played for straights sellout weeks usually five shows a day a former mayor of New York saw the show and commented afters that he thought Tom Thumb had increased in littleness well he hadn't in fact grown but he was maturing and no wonder at nine years old Charles has seen more of America than most Americans at sea he now had a collection of bespoke carriages driven by Shetland ponies and wherever the Tom Thumb tour went he would drive through the town ahead of time craving publicity put more bums on war seats Charles's family began poor now his earnings bought them a large villa containing his own apartment with miniature furniture he put his sister's through private education he could have retired aged nine yet for the rest of his life he kept on touring was it just the money that pulled him back to the stage ladies and gentlemen prepare to be taken to heaven Matt Fraser is a writer actor and comedian who has a successful career on stage and screen a connoisseur of the freakshow he even performs a recreation of an early 20th century freak act CeeLo the seal boy I perform all over the place in plays you know live art cabaret burlesque striptease comedy you know I like to I'm a jack of all trades and master of none and was a difficult choice early on to kind of shine a light on your disability or did that just feel like a natural thing to do that's a disabled person you're stared at all the time 24/7 100% of the time but you have no agency you have no power in the exchange you know I can walk down the street and be stared at by a group of people and not have any power in that exchange but if you put me on stage I'm a paid for the experience and B I get to talk so yeah it's attractive to be able to have what happens in the street anyway but be paid for it have the power of how it happens and to affect the minds of the people watching does your manager ever ask you to do things happy to even ask me to do that know what my agent is far more politically correct than I am so she never offers me work that I think is distasteful rather I just go off and do that work without telling her it's more like that sorry oh that's yeah I think probably Tom Thumb got the bug because he he seemed to be very happy to work and work and work absolutely he was he was the world's first truly international superstar and here's the other thing but non-disabled people tend to forget you do you show a thousand people think you're fantastic thanks very much good night James walk out the stage door some fellas just staring at you on the street again you are Bank you're back there you're always back there of course you want to get back on the stage of course you do it's not beyond the realms of possibility I think that somebody could be addicted for life to that sort of thing it's a delicious power that I I wouldn't know what to do without by the mid-1850s Charles was in his late teens and had been touring for over a decade [Music] he began appearing in Broadway plays revealing an ambition to become a serious actor he was taking more control over his own career and displaying a canny business mind Barnum had taught him well the showman had stepped back from Charles letting the tours continue by pocketing a share of the profits Barnum's boundless energy had found new outlets which he promoted with all the vigor of his Tom Thumb campaigns [Music] America was bitterly divided over slavery and on the brink of Civil War Barnum joined the campaign for abolition bravely staging and his slavery plays at his museum but principles could coexist with profits money flooded in he toured a Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind making half a million dollars in old money and he invested heavily in property and industry and that's how his troubles started Barnum at that point had so much money I think he was kind of throwing it around a little bit too much catalyst he had built his huge mansion in Ranna Stan and he keeps signing away big checks and suddenly he's half a million dollars in debt and Barnum has to declare bankruptcy so what's he gonna do he's got to decide how to deal with this bankruptcy has to shut down his house in Bridgeport he moves into a small apartment in New York and he gets this letter from his former protege Charles Stratton Tom Thumb and he says hey I'm still making lots of money let me help you out Charles arranged another tour and this money helped put Barnum back on his feet it was a sign that their relationship had shifted 14 years earlier this had been a financial arrangement Barnum protected Charles but dictated every step of his career but gradually it had become a partnership by his late teens Charles was calling the shots over his own tours and he was the one to get barnum out of trouble there must have been a touch of satisfaction in this for Charles he was becoming his own man and perhaps he needed a lady his financial troubles over it was Barnum who made a crucial introduction [Music] Phineas Barnum seemed to have his eye on every dwarf of note so when he got wind of a diminutive singer working for a rival impresario in a Museum of curiosities that floated up and down the Mississippi he determined to steal her away Lavinia Warren bump was 20 years old and 32 inches tall when Barnum signed her up she was talented vivacious and funny when Charles saw her face he was a believer but he had a rival enter Commodore George Nutt blonde and blue-eyed he was known to the press as a $30,000 nut Barnum's alleged signing fee the showman had snapped him up while Charles was away on tour and now the Commodore was nuts for Lavinia the rivals went head to head over the lady Charles suffered a setback when the vinius mother took against his new mustache things were getting desperate [Music] in his autobiography Barnum said his usually cool star was highly excited for Charles it was Now or Never well then Barnum throws a dinner party for Lavinia where Charles pops the question with Barnum and his wife watching through the keyhole suddenly there's a bang at the door in bursts not to find he's been pipped at the post [Music] [Applause] the wedding was set for February 1863 at the prestigious Grace Church on Broadway the wedding preparations made the New York Times for three days and remember this is at the height of the American Civil War picture the scene it's February 10th at 12 o'clock since 9:00 the crowds out there have been throwing the pavement it takes ticket holders and Barnum again two hours to get through the police cordon in their carriages it could have been posh and Becks yet some church regulars had been determined this celebrity wedding wouldn't take place now we're standing pretty much on the spot where the happy couple were we are standing right where it would it would have taken place Charles Stratton would have been standing probably you know right about here and Lavinia Warren would have been standing right about here right in this spot do you think there was a level of prejudice about the fact that these were two very very small people I think there was definitely some prejudice might be the word for it but just just that this was not a proper wedding for grace Church and these people were in show business they were they must have see vulgar I suppose they they looked at it as vulgar these were people who were not correct they were they were to form they were tiny Charles Stratton anticipated what the objections might be and he said I want to assure you that we are we are not mount backs we are we are not abortions it is true that we are little but we are as God made us perfect in our littleness a wonderful quote which which I think has a lot of contemporary resonance with with what's going on today in the church's struggle to understand who can be married in the church Charles's argument carried the day and the wedding went ahead those who hadn't been able to get into the church scrambled to buy instant photos of the ceremony typically staged a few days earlier by Barnum in a photographic studio complete with a fake church set Commodore Nutt seemed to have buried his hatchet and served as best man lavinius sister Minnie just sixteen years old was the Pippa Middleton of the day the press froth there were details of the decor and the dress news of the nuptials rolled around the globe and mr. and mrs. Tom thumb's fame went stratospheric they were even given a reception by President and mrs. Lincoln at the White House the president asked the general for military advice he told Charles you have thrown me completely in the shade before Charles have been celebrated as an object of fascination now he and his wife were loved they went out on the road together and the wedding boost made their Enterprise even more successful Stratton certainly lived the early American dream but there was one thing their money couldn't buy them the only tiny feet they would hear pitter patter would be their own until Barnum fixed that too in 1863 Charles and Lavinia had a new arrival Barnum knew the birth of a baby would spark all kinds of feelings in the public not least incredulity they went on tour to display the baby and the crowds went crazy and yet it was all a lie Barnum rented different babies for photoshoots and live appearances he had manipulated Charles's image before but he'd never pushed it this far the pictures went all over America and when they went to Europe they rented babies of other nationalities by the hour when the scam had finally run its course gone and casually announced that the baby had died [Music] much as I respect Barnum I think in this case he really crossed the line Charles and Lavinia was certainly complicit in the publicity scam but at what emotional cost of them holding other people's babies 140 years ago for people of their size to think about having a baby could prove fatal and they certainly knew that or at least that's the story that's been told Lavinia confessed to the baby hoax in her autobiography and it's gone unquestioned for a century but as always with Barnum things are never quite as simple as they appear because in 1866 Charles and Lavinia were touring in England and very unusually for them they started to cancel shows British historian John Gannon has discovered new evidence which he thinks explains why so here we have to bear your register person Gregory's Church in Norwich now at that particular time as he Stratton was touring in Norfolk many Warren Stratton and then we have here the author of the celebrated General Tom Thumb 26 September two years old now in order to confirm this we also have a death certificate oh wow and as the father you will see the daughter of Charles Shearwood Strong's exhibit exhibiting so this really turns the whole story upside down because this is this is new news but the story that we've been told is that they had no children that Barnum provided them that used to rent babies just for publicity that's correct but you think this says I think what this says is this was their childhood but Lavinia did have she did baby in daughter with good strength this is their child okay okay in this particular article from the 29th of September sizz now in the north from the north of new uses yes this tells us of the burial of their child thousand people congregated in the cemetery yeah I've been strutting trying to keep the event obviously I mean as kind of low-key as he possibly could but unfortunately they were invaded by among thousand spectators well for me there's so much evidence there absolutely the fact that they that they were too grief-stricken really to fulfill their engagements immediately after the this child died this is an amazing discovery absolutely amazed it's hard to know what to think if the baby was a hoax why was there a funeral for a child with Charles Lavinia and a thousand others in attendance and why was Charles named as the father on both the death and burial certificates surely a publicity stunt wouldn't require that but this contradictory evidence according to the papers at the time the baby would have had to have been born the venue is on stage in the Midwest [Music] John Ganon's evidence does prove one thing beyond doubt in 1866 a young girl died in England in Charles and Lavinia's care she was buried under the name of Minnie Warren Stratton and sure enough forgotten for a century and a half in a Norwich Cemetery we found this [Music] Minnie Warren stratton is this the grave of Charles and Lavinia zone daughter or is it the grave of a hired foundling I don't think we'll ever know for certain but whatever the truth it's a fact that Charles and Lavinia unusually for them canceled performances after the funeral their life was full of spin but this wasn't fakery their grief for Minnie Warren Stratton this little girl whoever she was was real [Music] you [Music] [Music] but the show had to go on Charles and Lavinia returned to the United States and threw themselves into work once again they hit the road but this time in a new lineup the wedding had shown the public appetite for the quartet and Charles Lavinia Commodore Nutt and Minnie was soon performing together they were the first performers ever to travel by rail to what was the Wild West there were encounters with outlaws who shot at them and locals were mused by their stature in almost 1869 they reached San Francisco and just kept going first they toured Japan then on to India and Charles was the first American star to tour Australia while they were there they did a free show in an orphanage in the outback and Lavinia was amazed to find that the children already knew Tom Thumb was this was truly the world's first global celebrity turn altogether they covered 55,000 miles and played 1471 shows in 587 cities and towns no performer had done so much and until the 20th century none would try [Music] they didn't see America for three years but eventually they returned older wiser and with a new ambition Charles wanted to set up home [Music] in 1870 Ian Lavinia came to her original hometown Middleborough Massachusetts and they built B [Music] set in a hundred and fifty acres their new house was an escape from the glare of the lights and the grind of the road it was a place where they could be themselves not actors not celebrities just as they called each other Charlie and Vinny no film crew has ever recorded their hideaway Eric layman has joined me as he's a first-time visitor - very good what do you think it's a grand mansion isn't it so this is the main entrance hall and it looks like a regular house so it's very lovely but it's just an ordinary house isn't it except well look at the size of the stairs the height is very short oh my goodness so we believe that Tom Bilt's had this custom built so he and Lavinia wouldn't have to do big stretching and if you'll feel the banisters they're much lower than a typical [Music] so where are you taking us now okay so right in here we have Tom thumb's original custom-made piano whoa you can see the original work oh my goodness that is amazing isn't that amazing so in this this is the Donny just like the dining room right huh and here are the shoes these are lavinius shoes these are living issues and we found them in a wall when we were doing a renovation upstairs no way we found quite a few interesting things in some of the walls so tiny and I have one more thing to show you and it is the original wood stove great moving down to the kitchen right down to the kitchen it's a miniature it is it's beautiful real range I mean this is a full working stove we did nothing to it we didn't even paint it what's fascinating to me is that they had a cook and a maid they were normal size but Lavinia clearly wanted to cook for herself and maybe he had it made for her in case she wanted to cook I think it's really romantic that he he did so many things for her to make sure she was comfortable to the next decade past the tours now relieved by welcome domesticity Charles has started putting on weight the little man was filling out and this very public individual had become fascinated by a deeply secret society Charles had become a freemason of the order of the Knights Templar like his property ownership it was another way of making himself a pillar of the community someone whose size didn't matter he had revealed one of his greatest ambitions acceptance but the lure of the stage was still strong and in 1880 Barnum tempted Charles back to appear in his latest scheme a circus Charles and Lavinia went to the Midwest with the circus and they were treated like royalty but the gig didn't last for two reasons Barnum split the profits with Bailey and then paid the thumbs a salary out of his share the Charles and Lavinia could make a lot more money travelling their own show in theatres like this you see the stars had become richer than their producer which isn't supposed to happen but the second reason was more important competitors had begun copying Barnum's freakish exhibits but with acts that lacked Charles's class and his control over his own career Julia Pastrana from Mexico was advertised as a bear woman her manager married her and after her death toward her mummified corpse the world of the freak show the world that Barnum and Charles had helped create was changing acts were becoming a grotesque sideshow and that would never do for Charles [Music] fortunately he was rich enough to turn his back on the big top Charles and Lavinia carried on touring as usual with them when two Dwarfs who had a marvelous act with trained Canaries I think I may have booked them anyway all went well until disaster struck they were in a hotel in Milwaukee when in the dead of night the whole building burned to the ground between seventy and a hundred people died in this terrible Inferno the streets were littered with the bodies of guests who had jumped hoping to avoid the blaze Lavinia was carried out like a child and Charles staggered out very shaken it was to be their last tour worn down by the endless shows and the traumatic fire Charles finally started to slow up he came back home to Middleborough do you think that Charles looking back on his life regretted that meeting first meeting with Barnum or what do you look back and said actually I'd done very well out of this I've had a wonderful life definitely the latter he was very pleased with the opportunities he had in life he had made enough money by age nine that he could have stopped and and lived a quiet life but I think he enjoyed it because he kept going back out every season in touring there's something distressing to this idea of someone being being taken up at a very young age and spending an entire lifetime being exhibited for other people to stare at on the other hand there was no disability rights movement there wasn't even a concept of disability that partnership with Barnum did enable Stratton to have life comforts that otherwise wouldn't have been available to him when we look back on performance like Stratton we assume that they all died in misery lying in sawdust somewhere but actually if you look at their lie that didn't happen to an awful lot of them Australia ended his life owning a yacht and an enormous house these people had showbiz careers lots of showbiz careers and in desperate misery a lot don't by the 1880s Charles was a man of stature and not just in the community he'd grown a couple of inches in his teens but in 1883 he was 45 fat and three foot four maybe it was dyed maybe it was a middle age or maybe it was drink something he'd been fond of since before he was 10 that at cigars whiskey ruined his friend Commodore nut who died in 1881 and Charles's lifestyle probably hastened his own end - Charles died on July the 15th 1883 suddenly at home in this very room Lavinia was away in New York on business their brother-in-law Edward Newell who lived with them had seen Charles dressing and left the room probably through this door he heard a thud Charles lay at the foot of the bed he'd gone with his boots off in his own sumptuous bedroom and quickly there are worse ways [Music] Charles Stratton came home to Bridgeport for burial he was laid out in church and 10,000 of his fans filed past the coffin of silver walnut and jet to get a last glimpse of America's first international superstar his memorial kept him forever young its statue carved from life when Charles was 19 Lavinia grieved but she carried the Stratton banner on through another decade and into the 20th century she remarried another little man a titled Italian count Margaery but when she died in 1919 she asked to be laid next to her first love and here they lie Charles and Lavinia [Music] and if Charles lay close to his wife his other great companion wasn't far away PT Barnum [Music] he was on holiday when Charles died and couldn't get back in time for the funeral he outlived his star by eight years and when he died in 1891 he was buried within a few yards of him they had travelled the world together tens of thousands of miles but were laid to rest just a few paces apart Charles Stratton soaked up applause on five continents the act he'd learned as a FOIA role which in some ways hardly changed was eventually seen by over 50 million people [Music] it doesn't need barn and spin to tell you that's a lot of bums on a lot of seats [Music] by all the rules of show business the relationship between Stratton and Barnum should have ended in tears I've seen it all too often with my fifty years in the business manji assigns an unknown artist on a one-sided contract that ends up in litigation in the recrimination that didn't happen in this case Barnum and stratton were partners and friends for 40 years - gentlemen of the old school they were good for each other and good to each other they were separated only by 2 feet and 8 inches I don't think size was ever an issue of the Charles major Newell one of his fellow performers put on a very late growth spurt reaching nearly 5 foot and Charles felt sorry for it he said the poor fella he just kept growing and growing until he was just like everybody else [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 45,399

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

Id: IQyone5WZtE

Length: 45min 5sec (2705 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 06 2019