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This incident left them forever housebound and fearful; never again would they allow strangers into their home, and the socializing that made them so happy came to an abrupt end.

A close friend, Zan Turner, sent flyers all around the country asking for donations to help the brothers, since the robbery left them with very little in the way of assets, and work was no longer possible for them because of age and illnesses.

Johnny Eck never fully recovered from that experience and died in 1991. His brother, Robert, passed away in 1995. Like Angelo, Johnny died knowing that he had been a part of something special, achieving the kind of immortality only the cinema can bestow, thanks to a man named Tod Browning and the legacy of a phenomenon known as FREAKS.

HERVE SHEDS HIS “TATTOO”

My last encounter with the “little people” in show-biz would involve a day’s trip up in the Goodyear Blimp, a very ill-advised photo session with Herve Villachaize and his then wife Donna, who were aboard the blimp for the duration. Herve was still working on “FANTASY ISLAND,” earning a cool $25,000. per episode, and had recently purchased a comfortable ranch complete with horses in the valley. At just under four feet in height, he had married a tall, lanky lady who was almost six feet without heels, who until recently had worked as a stand-in on the aforementioned TV show where she met and won the heart of “Tattoo.”

Now this would be the first time Herve and I would meet face to face, yet we had two mutual friends in common that he had worked with in a film years before called SEIZURE (1974), which introduced Oliver Stone to the world of feature films. This film was made in Canada and starred Jonathan Frid right after his “Dark Shadows” success that ever so briefly put him on the cover of “Tiger Beat” as a teen heart throb right along Bobby Sherman and the Monkees. The original title of the film was QUEEN OF EVIL, however both Oliver and Frid agreed that the marquee value of “Jonathan Frid in QUEEN OF EVIL” just might send out the wrong message. They finally settled on SEIZURE with Martine Beswicke as the Queen, and future Cult Queen Mary Woronov from the “velvet underground” as one of her victims. A lot of queens on this film, believe you me.

Herve played the role of Spider, the nightmarish servant of the Queen of Evil, and had a field day with these two camp ladies who allowed him to play the stud, if only in fantasy terms. Martine had her hands full keeping the sound man from going off the deep end with drink, and the entire cast and crew lived and filmed in the same old dark house that is featured in the film. Herve in those days was quite a boozer, but it was controlled by the time I would meet him. His drinking was beginning to cause a lot of problems for him, especially with his new wife.

Now back on the Goodyear Blimp — we were all preparing to board this small craft under the blimp itself, to fly over Los Angeles and create a photo shoot for Playboy. There were about three other models with us for atmosphere, and a full bar. At first this looked like it was going to be a lot of fun, but once we were up among the clouds Herve began to drink. At first he got upset with me because I accidentally brushed his head with my hand reaching for a cocktail, so he went off about me trying to pat him on the head like a child. Herve was sensitive about such things as it turned out. On the “FANTASY” set it was not uncommon for visiting kids to try and pick him up like a doll and security had to always be on the look out for any rough house antics of that sort. As if things could not get any worse, fuelled by booze, he and Donna went at it for all to see and hear. She made it obvious that this was a marriage in name only and sure enough one year to the day after they were married she filed for divorce and took the little guy for all he was worth. That afternoon mercifully ended as soon as we landed back on terra firma, and I never saw him again. It took only a few more years before he had had enough and propped a shot gun up to his chest, blowing his brains out in his truck in 1993.

Those that knew and worked with him loved his energy and creativity that could have brought Herve great success in the world of art or photography if his inner demons and his fragile health had not made life a never-ending source of pain and disappointment.

“SATAN IN TINY TOWN”

It seems appropriate that we conclude with a mini (what else) review of the world’s first midget musical western THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN (1938), one year before the WIZARD OF OZ. Most of Hollywood’s “Little people” were recruited to play various roles in this routine, by-the-numbers western whose only claim to fame was the entire cast being under four feet tall and riding around on ponies. Directed by Sam Newfield, whose claim to fame was the old “Ramar of the Jungle” TV series with John Hall and a tasteless horror film THE MONSTER MAKER with Ralph Morgan, the brother of Frank Morgan, the screen’s Wizard of Oz.

Why I will never forget this film is more about the man who first introduced me to its limited charm: the head of the Church of Satan himself, Anton La Vey. Yes, The Horned One (plastic horns glued onto a black skull cap, I kid you not.) He showed me this film in the basement of his black house in San Francisco late one night and simply howled with laughter at every little thing these midgets said or did on screen. Anton owned a 16 millimeter print, and wanted me to do a review of it for ‘Films and Filming.’

Anton confided that he had personally baptized several midgets into the service of the Lord of Flies, and useful little creatures they were too. TINY TOWN was his favorite film and he just could not understand why more film buffs did not see its true value beyond the camp aspect of the thing…the power to make a Satanist just laugh his tail off any old time it is on the screen.

Well Anton did not live to see his favorite flick make it to a wider audience, but now THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN is available on DVD, so what are you waiting for – march right out and pick this little masterpiece up and ring up a servant of the Devil, grab some popcorn, and “HAIL SATAN….all I have is thine.”

Remember may all your dreams be in high definition and enhanced for 16×9.

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