Francesco Lentini was born with a parasitic twin and was a sideshow performer billed as The Three-Legged Wonder.
Medical condition
Francesco Lentini was born with three legs, two sets of genitals and one rudimentary foot growing from the knee of his third leg. So, in total, he had three legs, four feet, sixteen toes, and two sets of functioning male genitals, which were all that existed of a conjoined twin and jutted from the right side of his body. The doctors determined that since his twin was connected to his spine, removal could have resulted in paralysis. While his extra leg was several inches shorter than the others, his primary legs were also two different lengths. "If you lived in a world where everyone had one arm, how would you cope with two?" -Frank Lentini.
Life
Born in 1889 in Siracusa, Sicily into a family with eleven children, Lentini was raised by his aunt after his parents refused to acknowledge their deformed child. At age nine, after leaving the disabled children's home in which his aunt had placed him, Frank came to the United States to join showbusiness, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen at the age of 30. When his parents refused to acknowledge him, his aunt raised him but eventually handed him over to a home for disabled children. As a child Lentini had hated his extra body parts until he spent time at the home. There, he met children who were deaf, blind, and mute. In his youth, Lentini used his extraordinary third leg to kick a soccer ball across the stage, hence his show name, the Three-Legged Football Player. h three legs, he still didn't have a pair.
At the age of nine, Lentini moved to the U.S. and entered the sideshow business as The Great Lentini, joining the Ringling Brothers circus act. Later he toured with Barnum and Bailey and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He gained US citizenship at the age of 30.
He married a woman named Theresa Murray and had four children - Natale, Frank, James and Jennie.
Frank Lentini died in Jacksonville, Florida on 22 September 1966.