Barnum & Bailey Circus’Sideshow performer Stephan Bibrowski, also known as Lionel the Lion-Faced Man.
Stephan Bibrowski was born in Bielsk, Poland in 1890 with stunning blonde hair — that covered his entire body from head to toe. Aghast at this so-called abomination, his mother gave him up and turned him over to a businessman who paraded him across Europe as a sideshow attraction before taking him to America in 1901.
Once in the U.S., Barnum & Bailey quickly snatched Bibrowski up and put him on display as “Lionel the Lion-Faced Man,” describing him as “half-man half-lion.” For 20 years, Bibrowski was exhibited as a “freak,” with audiences scarcely realizing that the gentle soul behind the hair was a soft-spoken man who knew five languages and nurtured a secret dream of leaving the stage and becoming a dentist.
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