Peter Robinson (sideshow artist)

Peter Robinson (April 8, 1873 – 1947) credited as The Cigarette Fiend, The Thin Man and The Living Skeleton, was an American theater and sideshow art performer and his only film appearance in film in cult film Freaks, with a lengthy career in the carnival circus circuit at Coney Island and with Ringling Bros. He also appeared briefly in Broadway. Robinson was born in Chicopee, Massachusetts April 8, 1873, the son of Abraham Robinson, a native of Vermont and Canadian Victoria Hebert. In later records he used April 6 as his birthday and gave Springfield, Massachusetts as his place of birth, but the birth registry gives the former date and location. His parents were born in the United States, but were of Canadian ancestry. He said that he had a normal childhood and appearance until his early teens, when his weight began to drop precipitously.

Career

He worked as a carnival sideshow entertainer, weighing in at 58 pounds, he billed himself as "The Living Skeleton", in the vein of Isaac W. Sprague. In January 1922 he went on tour through South America and returned to the United States in November that same year. In 1916, he married in New York fellow sideshow entertainer Baby Bunny Smith, a 467-pound (212 kg) circus fat lady aged 18, and had two children. He would marry her numerous time for promotional purposes, after having been involved with no fewer than eight other "circus fat ladies".^[1]

Despite making his living in side shows, he was a classically trained Shakespearean actor. He is best known for his role in the horror film Freaks (1932), directed by Tod Browning. He was also purported to be an expert harmonica player. By 1940 he was living with his sister Josephine Robinson and her husband Charles Slight at Agawam, Massachusetts..

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