[Curiosities] Meet Frank Lentini, The Sideshow Performer With Three Legs, 16 Fingers, And Two Penises

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Frank Lentini, the "Three-Legged Man," went on to have a successful career thanks to his parasitic twin.

The vintage fascination with American “freak shows” has fortunately been left in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Carnival goers marveled at the bizarre results of procreation in bearded-ladies, strong-men, sword-swallowers, and little people like Tom Thumb. But how exactly these performers fared as the morbid fascination for paying customers is hard to understand, particularly when there is so little honest information on them. Such is the case for Franceso “Frank” Lentini, the so-called Three-Legged Man who made a living off his rare condition of having been born with a parasitic twin.Frank Lentini’s Early Years Born in May of 1889 in Sicily, Italy, as either an only child or the fifth of 12, Frank Lentini was born with three legs, four feet, 16 fingers, and two sets of genitals.

His extra leg sprouted from the side of his right hip with a fourth foot protruding from his knee. His condition was the result of a second embryo that began to develop in the womb but ultimately could not separate from its twin. Thus one twin came to dominate the other.At four months old, Lentini was taken to a specialist about the possibility of amputating his additional leg, but the threat of paralysis or even death kept the doctor from carrying out the procedure. He became known as “u maravigghiusu” or “the marvel” in Corsican, or even more cruelly as “little monster” around his hometown. Lentini’s family consequently sent him to live with an aunt to avoid further disgrace.In 1898, at just nine years old, Lentini made the long and arduous journey to America with his father where they met with a man named Guiseppe Magnano in Boston. A professional showman, Magnano had been in America for three years by the time he met with Lentini about potentially adding him to his shows.