Full Name Minnie Woolsey Name Koo-Koo Bird Nationality American Role Film actress | Occupation Entertainer Died 1960 Known for Freaks film | |
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Other names Minnie Ha Ha, Koo Koo the Bird Girl. Koo Koo, the Blind Girl from Mars Similar People Schlitzie, Elizabeth Green the Stork Wo, Tod Browning, Frances O'Connor, Josephine Joseph | ||
Minnie Woolsey (1880 – after 1960) was an American entertainer predominantly in side shows but also a film performer.
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Biography
Woolsey was born in 1880 in Rabun County, Georgia. Little is known about her early life, only that she was "rescued" from a mental asylum and was commonly billed as Minnie Ha Ha (a play on Minnehaha), in her sideshow entertainment career. She suffered from a rare congenital growth skeletal disorder called Virchow-Seckel syndrome, which caused her to have a very short stature, a small head, a narrow bird-like face with a beak-like nose, large eyes with an antimongoloid slant, a receding jaw, large ears and mild intellectual disability. In addition, Woolsey was bald, toothless, and either completely blind or very short-sighted. She would appear in a Native Indian American costume, and spoke gibberish. When and how she died is unknown, but accounts show that she was still alive and performing in 1960, working at Coney Island in sideshow/circus, aged in her 80s.
She appeared in the 1932 film Freaks, alongside a cast of other sideshow performers from the time, billed as Koo Koo, the Bird Girl. She was not the original Koo Koo however; the billing was previously used by another performer in the film, a "Stork" or "Bird" woman named Elizabeth Green. Woolsey does not speak any dialogue in the film but is seen in many scenes dancing in a feathery costume. Woosley was hit by a car in the 1960s. In 1964 she was presumed dead.
In popular culture
The Manchester-based Gypsy folk band Naymedici released a single titled "Koo Koo the Bird Girl" in memory of the entertainer, with a video featuring scenes from Freaks.
