Lobster Boy plaster hand cast for sale
This elegant plaster hand cast of "Little" Grady Stiles's deformed hand is up for auction on eBay. Little Grady is the son of infamous Lobster Boy Grady Stiles Jr., whose nasty, murderous side is revealed in the thrilling book Lobster Boy by Fred Rose. The eBay lot also includes a signed Lobster Boy show card and photo of the younger Stiles. Lobster Boy auction (eBay, thanks Michael-Anne Rauback!)
the latest
latest episodes
I actually have one of these in my collection, though without the base and aged finish. You could find them often on EBay a couple of years ago. I suspect Grady Stiles III made an original cast and the negative was commercially available for a time to hobby casters.
http://thehumanmarvels.com/?p=66
Long ago, after helping a tipsy Grady Stiles (Lobster Boy) get into his trailer one hot Pennsylvania morning, my Dad and I sat with him and had a chat.
Dad was a local volunteer cop and the arriving carnival was his new beat.
Once inside the squalid trailer it became apparent that LobsterBoy was diligently working at being drunk by noon and was disappointed when my Dad turned down his offer of a pull from the bottle of Old Crow which Grady kept hidden in his diaper. Conversation slowed after that.
We soon beat a quick exit and never spoke of the incident...
Which hand did he abuse his family with?
#3 Both his hands and his feat were deformed in the same manner..as were his children and his parents.
He didn't see it as passing on a hideous, debilitating deformity but rather as bestowing upon them a livelihood.
He would pinch his kids/wife/anyone who bugged him with his strong, over develpoed 'lobster claws'.
Ugh......
Question: Was he afraid of butter and nut crackers?
Discuss.
I have one of these as well. The one I have had been passed around at white elephant gift parties on St. Thomas, VI for several years. It was given to a friend of mine with the caveat that she send it off the island.
He used to appear on a number of public access tv shows in Tampa, usually related to random people calling in, him and his friends talking about random news and callers cursing as fast as they can before getting hung up on.
I used to frequent the Giant's Boot resturant in Gibtown and see him and his family quite often, of course this was well after the death of the original lobster boy.
A plaster artist friend of mine David Cavaliere, who lives and runs his studio in Tampa, Fl. cast this hand off of Grady Stiles several years ago. He also has a picture of one of the non patinaed castings at his MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/plaster_skater