Jack Earle was born Jacob Ehrlich, a baby so tiny that doctors feared he wouldn't live. He weighed four pounds. But immediately, he began to grow incredibly; by age ten he was over six feet tall. He finally topped out at 7 feet, 7 1/2 inches.
He was discovered by Hollywood as a teenager and offered a job acting in comedies. He made over fifty of them, until one day on the set when he fell from a scaffolding. When he woke, he found he was blind, due to a newly-discovered tumor on his pituitary gland. Doctors attempted to shrink the tumor with X-rays which miraculously both returned his sight and stopped his incredible growth.
He enrolled in college, during which he went to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus where he saw Jim Tarver, billed as the tallest man in the world. Jack considered that odd, since he was taller than Tarver by several inches. He joined the circus and traveled with them for fourteen years.
Upon retiring from the circus, Jack became a successful traveling salesman and was intensely creative. He painted, sculpted, was a prize-winning photographer and a poet. He even published a book of poetry called The Long Shadows.
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