Celebrities endorsing name-brand products as spokespeople originated in the 1880s in America when actress Lillie Langtry endorsed Pears brand soap.
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Similarly, Barnum’s famed singer Jenny Lind lent her name to everything from bicycles, to home furnishings, to cigars in the 1850s.
Modern advertising was in its infancy in the 19th Century, with a variety of newly manufactured products vying for the consumer’s attention. The celebrity endorsement was a uniquely distinctive resource, and smaller companies not able to attract the expensive services of universally famous personages sometimes utilized unusual-bodied people to represent their products.
Often these unique personages acted not just to endorse the product, but also worked as de facto salesmen, and even as human mascots for companies whose wares were being hawked to a distracted public. The idea was that the association with such unique individuals would cause the consumer to remember and differentiate those products from others.
Most commonly used were Midget performers. Because their appearance instantly drew attention, and by definition gave attention to the item they were promoting, the domain of little people in advertising was one which persists even occasionally today.
In 2025 Florida’s Hulett Pest Control continues to utilize identical twin dwarf brothers, John Rice (1951 – 2005) and Greg Rice (1951- ), in various commercials and infomercials. Until the death of John Rice on November 5, 2005, the two held the world record for being the shortest living twins, standing only 2 ft 10 in tall. https://www.bugs.com/about-us/tv-commercials/
Considered “cute” and harmless, the figure of the Midget performer featured in ads could either be emasculating or empowering. Either way, these ads drew the consumers’ eyes to the spokesperson, and by extension to the product, and additionally allowed many performers to make a good living outside the world of the sideshow.
Though Midget performers were most commonly used to advertise or act as spokesmen for commercial products, companies also utilized Giants, Fat Men (and Women), and others.
Giants demonstrated that if a product or business could satisfy someone so big, that it could satisfy someone of average size.
Likewise the Fat performer. If his or her appetite or larger than normal needs could be satisfied by a specific product, then your normal appetite could be satisfied even more.
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The Seven Sutherland Sisters
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Headed up a string of entrepreneurial freak performers were the Sutherland Sisters.
The Seven Sutherland Sisters, originally a sideshow and dime museum act, parlayed their hirsute celebrity into a product their own father concocted. Claiming that the extraordinary lustrousness and length of their hair was a result of using the formula contained in the Seven Sutherland Sisters’ Hair Growth Tonic, the sisters made millions. They soon expanded the line of products to include Seven Sutherland Sisters Brand Oriental Beauty Creme, Seven Sutherland Sisters Hair & Scalp Cleaner, Seven Sutherland Sisters Colorator, and various Dressing Combs.
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The Admiral Dot Hotel
Around 1890 Leopold Kahn, known by his stage name, Admiral Dot, opened the Admiral Dot Hotel. While the local citizenry of White Plains, New York derisively called the establishment “Hotel Pee Wee,” it was a successful venture until it burned down in 1911.
The hotel spawned other businesses for Kahn, including the Admiral Dot Bowling Alley and Admiral Dot Whiskey.
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To Gibsonton And Beyond
In the mid-20th-Century sideshow performers travelled to and purchased properties in Florida and started many small businesses. The Sutherland Sisters were not the only sideshow performers to own a business and promote using their own likenesses. The Giant’s Camp Motel, Giant’s Restaurant, and Giant’s Bait & Tackle were businesses in Gibsonton, Florida that were owned and operated by Al and Jeanie Tomaini from the 1940s until Jeanie’s death in 1999. Often billed as the “World’s Strangest Married Couple,” Jeanie “The Half Girl” and Al the Giant promoted their business using Al’s likeness.
[to be continued]
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