Jack Earle(1906-1952)
- Actor
He weighed only four pounds at birth and was so tiny that doctors
feared he wouldn't live. But immediately, he began to grow at an
incredible rate and by age ten was over six feet tall. He was
discovered by Hollywood as a teenager and offered a job acting in
comedies. He made over fifty of them, until one day on the set when he
fell from a scaffolding. When he woke up, he found he was losing his
peripheral vision, due to a newly-discovered pituitary gland tumour.
Doctors attempted to shrink the tumor with X-rays which miraculously
both restored his sight and stopped his incredible growth. He enrolled
in college, during which he went to see the Ringling Brothers and
Barnum & Bailey Circus where he saw Jack (Jim) Tarver, billed as 'the
tallest man in the world'. He joined the circus and traveled with them
for fourteen years. Upon retiring from the circus, Jack became a
successful traveling salesman and was intensely creative. He painted,
sculpted, was a prize-winning photographer.
