Jane Barnell was a US bearded lady

Bearded Lady

A bearded lady or bearded woman is a woman who has a visible beard. These women have long been a phenomenon of legend, curiosity, ridicule, and more recently, political statement and fashion statement. A small number of women are able to grow enough facial hair to have a distinct beard...

 who used the stage name Lady Olga.

According to later accounts - notably Joseph Mitchell's article "Lady Olga" in Up In The Old Hotel - Barnell's mother sold her to the Great Orient Family Circus, which was later merged with a larger circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

. This circus took her to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. She fell ill in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and was left in an orphanage, where she was later found by her father.

As an adult, when she was working on her grandmother's farm she met a circus strongman

Strongman (strength athlete)

In the 19th century, the term strongman referred to an exhibitor of strength or circus performers of similar ilk who displayed feats of strength such as the bent press , supporting large amounts of...

 who invited her to join John Robinson's Circus. She tried several stage names before eventually settling on Lady Olga Roderick. At that time her beard was 13 inches long.

Lady Olga toured for a time with number of circuses, including the Ringling Brothers

Ringling brothers

The Ringling brothers were seven siblings who transformed their small touring company of performers into one of America's largest circuses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in McGregor, Iowa and raised in Baraboo, Wisconsin, they were the children of Heinrich Friedrich August Ringling...

 circus, and later joined Hubert's Museum in Times Square

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. She appeared in a number of films, most famously Tod Browning

Tod Browning

Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...

's Freaks

Freaks

Freaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film was based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs"...

(1932) which, according to the documentary on the Freaks DVD (Freaks: The Sideshow Cinema, 2004), left her unhappy with the overall portrayal of the sideshow

Sideshow

In America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair or other such attraction.- Types of attractions :There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions:...

performers in the film.

Barnell was married four times. Her last marriage was to Thomas O'Boyle, her thought-to-be manager, an ex-circus clown, and a sideshow talker for Hubert's Dime Museum.