HUBERT’S FREAKS

The Rare-Book Dealer, The Times Square Talker,

and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus

by Gregory Gibson

This is the story of, in no particular order, Diane Arbus, Bob Langmuir, and Charlie Lucas. There are minor characters that underpin any good story, and in HUBERT’S FREAKS those supporting characters would be Woogie: Charlie Lucas’ wife and performer, Jack Dracula: the tattooed man, and Bob Langmuir’s rotating collection of friends, wives, and business associates. If this were a play list, for me Charlie Lucas would receive top billing.

Bob Langmuir is a hustler. A man with little discernible talent except for his ability to root out buried treasures. Underground treasures like truffles in the dirt for the literary-minded and the art-schooled. Trolling flea markets, antique auctions, book sales, Langmuir is a collector of dust. Like all hustlers Langmuir lives day to day off his most recent acquisition, the most recent find, in a continuing search for the one big kill.

It is during one of these quests that Bob Langmuir comes across a trunk full of photos that will change his life forever. The photos in the trunk are of Hubert’s Museum, an infamous “freak show” venue located on Times Square in the 1960's. More importantly, these particular photos were taken by famed photographer Diane Arbus.

Diane Arbus was a child of wealth and privilege in New York City, rebelling at an early age against the cold world in which she lived. As an adult, after years of serving as her husband Alan's assistant in their fashion photo business, Diane developed her own eye and soon became famous for her photography of the odd and disaffected “freaks” of society. Ms. Arbus cited her sterile upbringing as a reason for her fascination with an "abnormal" life, stating that her sheltered childhood instilled a sense of “unreality”, compelling her to seek out a darker side to life, an “unclean” world where beauty is not necessarily pretty.

Chicago born R.C. (Richard "Charlie") Lucas worked for the Ringling Bros. Circus as young man before touring North America in the 1940's and 50's as an “African Prince” in a wildly racist traveling sideshow referred to as “Jungle Reviews”. It is during this time that Charlie meets and marries another “African” sideshow performer named Mary Sahloo or “Woogie”.

In 1956 Charlie became manager of Hubert’s Museum, with Woogie performing a snake-charming dance, Jack Dracula the tattooed man, magicians, fire-eaters, and of course the “flea-circus” led by it’s ringleader Charlie Lucas himself.

It was early in Diane Arbus’s career that she walked into Hubert’s and introduced herself to Charlie, forging a friendship that would produce some of America’s most brilliant photographic art. Some of which ended up in Bob Langmuir’s hands.

Gregory Gibson weaves quite a detective story out of Mr. Langmuir’s attempts to discover the origins of the photos, and their importance, and their value; along the way, fleshing out the humanity in the freaks that so enraptured the patrons of Hubert’s Museum.

Mr. Gibson has a terrific website devoted to the book, featuring the “grind tape” pitch Charlie Lucas used on patrons as they entered Hubert’s. Mr. Gibson’s site also includes some fascinating pics of all the parties involved:

HUBERT’S FREAKS

___________

___________