A tribute to the spirit and humanity of people who are physically different from the average: very tall and very large men and women, a bearded woman and her long-time husband, Siamese twins joined at the midsection, and several little people including actor Billy Barty. We meet some at Gibsonton, Florida, where carnival folk winter. They talk about their lives and accomplishments. The camera also goes on the road to visit a grandfather with a distinctive face, a legless mechanic from Kentucky on a second honeymoon in LA, a marathon runner and motivational speaker who has no feet, a karate student with partial limbs, and an armless, down-to-earth mom in Texas.* Written & Directed by Harry Rasky
* Narrated by Christopher Plummer
Being Different is an overview of several “human oddities” — people who would, in an earlier, crueler era, have been called “freaks.” (Even the term “human oddities” seems a bit insensitive, but so far I don’t think anyone’s come up with a good term which fulfills the unstated PC mandate of “distinction without qualitative judgement.”) Our narrator, Christopher Plummer, makes allusions to both Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver’s Travels while gazing thoughtfully into a funhouse mirror. What would it be like, he muses, if we stayed that way?
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The most famous of the people here are Emmett and Percilla Rejano, who are respectively the Alligator Man and the Monkey Girl; together, they’re billed as the world’s strangest married couple, and they seem very happy together. But Percilla’s hairy face demonstrates that, even in Gibsonton, there are limits to the extremes that the “normal” locals can accept easily; Percilla habitually wears a concealing wrap when out in public.Louise Capps was born in the small town of Gunbarrel City, Texas, in 1952. She was abandoned at birth by her mother, an American Indian, who was an alcoholic. Louise became a ward of the state, but was soon adopted by Eugene Capps and his wife. Mrs. Capps was a schoolteacher and encouraged Louise to use her feet, teaching her that she could do anything that anyone with arms can do.
Louise married twice and was single again when the film crew for Being Different interviewed her in 1979. One of her husbands, Bruce Hill, was a human blockhead she met in the sideshow at the Texas State Fair. She claims she married so that she could have children, and had always wanted a son with dark hair and eyes like hers, and a blonde, blue-eyed daughter. Both of her children are featured in the documentary. Ward Hall says that blonde, blue-eyed Nola would go on to be a showgirl with the sideshow. Louise enjoys swimming, playing guitar, embroidery, rollerskating and horseback riding, and has a license to drive either a car or a truck. The documentary Being Different (1980) features her prominently, and she is shown painting pottery, typing on a typewriter, cutting her son's hair, roller skating, driving her car, riding a horse and country-western dancing.
Robert Owen 'Bob' Melvin, the Man with Two Faces, was born in Lancaster, Missouri in 1920 and died in 1995. He was also called 'The Modern-Day Elephant Man'. He appeared in several movies, including the documentary Being Different in 1980 and the schlock horror The Sentinel in 1977. Doctors examined Bob but were unable to find a diagnosis for his deformity; Bob said it was simply "god's sense of humor". Towards the end of his life, he was found to have neurofibromatosis, a disorder that causes the spontaneous growth of fibrous tumors. Manifestations of NF differ greatly from patient to patient; some simply have hyper-pigmented or "cafe au lait" spots, while others, such as Grace McDaniels, are greatly deformed. Bob Melvin was a friendly, church-going man, beloved by all who knew him in his hometown of Lancaster. He was married and had a daughter and a granddaughter. Bob passed away in his hometown of Lancaster, Missouri, on November 19, 1995.
NOTE:
It is written in the Holy Scriptures: Romans 9:20-21 - "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? "
Louise married twice and was single again when the film crew for Being Different interviewed her in 1979. One of her husbands, Bruce Hill, was a human blockhead she met in the sideshow at the Texas State Fair. She claims she married so that she could have children, and had always wanted a son with dark hair and eyes like hers, and a blonde, blue-eyed daughter. Both of her children are featured in the documentary. Ward Hall says that blonde, blue-eyed Nola would go on to be a showgirl with the sideshow. Louise enjoys swimming, playing guitar, embroidery, rollerskating and horseback riding, and has a license to drive either a car or a truck. The documentary Being Different (1980) features her prominently, and she is shown painting pottery, typing on a typewriter, cutting her son's hair, roller skating, driving her car, riding a horse and country-western dancing.
Robert Owen 'Bob' Melvin, the Man with Two Faces, was born in Lancaster, Missouri in 1920 and died in 1995. He was also called 'The Modern-Day Elephant Man'. He appeared in several movies, including the documentary Being Different in 1980 and the schlock horror The Sentinel in 1977. Doctors examined Bob but were unable to find a diagnosis for his deformity; Bob said it was simply "god's sense of humor". Towards the end of his life, he was found to have neurofibromatosis, a disorder that causes the spontaneous growth of fibrous tumors. Manifestations of NF differ greatly from patient to patient; some simply have hyper-pigmented or "cafe au lait" spots, while others, such as Grace McDaniels, are greatly deformed. Bob Melvin was a friendly, church-going man, beloved by all who knew him in his hometown of Lancaster. He was married and had a daughter and a granddaughter. Bob passed away in his hometown of Lancaster, Missouri, on November 19, 1995.NOTE:
It is written in the Holy Scriptures: Romans 9:20-21 - "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? "
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