Martin Laurello shows why he’s called “The Human Owl” at a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! party. As featured in Life Magazine.
Martin Laurello could turn his back to you and still look you in the eye. “The Human Owl” had the unique ability to rotate his head 180 degrees.
As I wrote in my book, American Sideshow:
Laurello was born in 1889 and came to the United States from Germany in the early 1920s. Before The Exorcist shocked audiences with Linda Blair’s revolving head, the demon-free Laurello astonished crowds with his turning noggin at the Coney Island Dreamland Circus Sideshow, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey show, and at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium in the 1930s. Ripley advertised him as ‘the only one in the world who can walk straight ahead and look straight behind.’ Laurello could also walk in reverse. His head later swiveled at the 1940 New York World’s Fair and at Hubert’s Museum. Laurello’s oscillating antics earned him as much as $50 a week.”
Of course, such a feat required a lot of practice. He claimed to have spent three years slowly twisting his head further and further. But please, don’t try this at home. Or anywhere, for that matter.
![Artificial nose, 17th-18th century, made of plated metal. Such noses would have been made to replace an original, which may have been congenitally absent or deformed, lost through accident or during combat or due to a degenerative disease, such as syphilis. By Science Museum London / Science and Society Picture Library [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.weirdhistorian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Artificial_nose_17th-18th_century_By-Science-Museum-London-Science-and-Society-Picture-Library-CC-BY-SA-2.0-via-Wikimedia-Commons-235x190.jpg)
