Percilla Bejano
Percilla Bejano | |
|---|---|
 Promotional photo of Percilla and Emmitt Bejano, captioned “Monkey Girl Weds Alligator Boy” | |
| Born | Percilla Román April 26, 1911 Bayamón, Puerto Rico |
| Died | February 5, 2001 (age 89) Tampa, Florida |
| Other names |
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| Occupation(s) | Sideshow performer, showman, singer, dancer, actress |
| Years active | 1910s—1990s |
| Employers | |
| Known for | Performing as “The Monkey Girl” |
| Spouse | Emmitt Bejano (m. 1938–1995) |
| Children |
|
| Relatives | Carl Lauther (adoptive father) |
Percilla Bejano, born Percilla Román, (Bayamón, Puerto Rico, April 26, 1911 — February 5, 2001, Tampa, Florida)[1] was a Puerto Rican-American sideshow performer, showman, actress, and singer billed as The Monkey Girl or La Chica Mono. Percilla was born with hyperdontia (two rows of teeth) and hypertrichosis, a condition that causes excessive hair growth all over the body. By three years old she was placed on exhibit by her father to support their family. She worked in sideshow exhibits and traveling shows for over fifty years until making television and film appearances in her later years.[2][3]
Early life
[edit]
After taking his baby daughter to many American doctors for answers about her condition and learning there was no cure, Percilla’s father decided to start exhibiting her to support their family of seven children. He eventually recruited showman Carl L. Lauther to help promote and manage his daughter’s career.[1]
Percilla’s father was fatally shot in Gainesville while she was still a child, and his final wish was for Lauther and his wife to adopt Percilla. Although he exhibited and profited off of her, Lauther treated Percilla (now Percilla Lauther) like his own daughter and took it personally when customers called her a ‘freak’.
In the 1999 documentary film Sideshow: Alive On The Inside, Percilla said of Lauther:
“I was his daughter. He didn’t even allow any of the working men to cuss in front of me.”[4]
Career
[edit]In 1936, when she was 25, Lauther signed Percilla to perform with Johnny J. Jones Exposition’s “Oddities of the 20th Century” show. There, she met Emmitt Bejano, a man with lamellar ichthyosis billed as “Lobello, the Alligator Boy”.
Percilla and Emmitt married in 1938 and began performing together as “The World’s Strangest Married Couple”.
In 1938 they left Lauther’s show and signed with a traveling Ripley’s Believe It or Not! exhibit.
On February 2, 1939, Percilla gave birth to a baby girl, Francina, in Virginia. Like Percilla, Francina was born with hypertrichosis (covered head-to-toe in black hair). Sadly, at just fourteen weeks, Francina succumbed to bronchopneumonia.
In the 1950s Percilla and Emmitt adopted a boy named Tony and they lived together on a ranch in Gibsonton, Florida. For the next two decades, they ran their own show as the Bejano Family, with Gooding Amusements, and later with James E. Strates Shows in the 1970s, even as ‘freak shows’ across the nation faced closures by well-intentioned activist groups.[5]
In 1978, she told a reporter:
“When they start making fun at me, I say, ‘I can see you for nothing right here, but you had to pay to see me.’”
In the ‘80s and ’90s, Percilla and Emmitt retired from traveling, but made many television and film appearances as two of the last surviving veterans of American freak show culture.
Percilla and Emmit (sometimes credited as Emmett) both appeared in the American movie Carny (1980)[6], a 1992 episode of the British television show The Secret Cabaret[7], and the Canadian documentary film Being Different (1981).[2]
They retired together in Tampa until Emmitt’s passing on April 17, 1995. After his death, Percilla shaved her beard as a sign of mourning and remained shaved until her own death in 2001.
After Emmitt’s death, Percilla was interviewed for an E! True Hollywood Story episode in 2000 titled “The Murder of Lobster Boy”. She also appeared as herself in the 1999 American documentary Sideshow: Alive on the Inside.[8]
Legacy
[edit]In one of her pitchbooks sold at her shows, Percilla wrote:
“I’ll grant my exterior appearance is strange and unusual but that does not hinder me from enjoying life to the fullest extent and from participating in the goodness life has to offer the same as yourself.”[5]
Showman and author Daniel P. Mannix wrote about Percilla extensively in his 1976 book Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Percilla – The Monkey Girl". International Independent Showmen’s Museum. 7 September 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2025.
- ^ a b "Article clipped from The Indianapolis Star". The Indianapolis Star. 1982-03-07. p. 103. Retrieved 2025-05-07.
- ^ "Percilla Bejano | Actress". IMDb. Retrieved 2025-05-07.
- ^ SIDESHOW Alive (2025-03-06). ULTIMATE BETRAYAL: PERCILLA the MONKEY GIRL. RAW!. Retrieved 2025-05-07 – via YouTube.
- ^ a b Rivera, Doc. "The Monkey Girl: The Story of Percilla Bejano". Doc’s Midway Cookhouse. Retrieved 7 May 2025.
- ^ Carny (1980) - Full cast & crew - IMDb. Retrieved 2025-05-23 – via www.imdb.com.
- ^ Harris, Sebastian; Coutts, Don (1992-02-19), "Episode #2.6", The Secret Cabaret, Simon Drake, Frank Abagnale Jr, Emmett Bejano, retrieved 2025-05-23
- ^ Dougherty, Lynn, Sideshow: Alive on the Inside (Documentary), Percilla Bejano, Ronnie Galyon, Donnie Galyon, retrieved 2025-05-23
- ^ Mannix, Daniel P. (Jan 1, 1976). Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others. Pocket Books. ISBN 9781618867575.