Shrek and Fiona?
The appearance of “Shrek” from the DreamWorks’ animated studio film is based on the real-life pro-wrestler, Maurice Tillet, who had a rare disease called acromegaly. Born in the Ural Mountains of Russia, Maurice grew up with the condition usually caused by a benign tumor on the pituitary gland. The result was bone overgrowth and a thickening of the skeletal system, giving him an ‘ogre-like’ appearance.
In 1937, Tillet embarked on a career in professional wrestling, and for two years, he competed in France and England before being forced to leave Europe for the United States during World War II. When not wrestling, Tillet boasted an impressive control of the human language through poetry and writing, and had mastered more than 14 different languages by the time of his death in 1954.
Much like our own ogre in Shrek the Musical, Maurice Tillet probably endured similar stereotypes of what it meant to be an intelligent, eloquent person caught up in the big-boned body of a feared wrestler. That being said, we at Home Base Theatre still fear what Shrek warns us about ogres: “An ogre will grind your bones for its bread, make a suit from your freshly peeled skin; he’ll shave your liver, and squeeze the jelly from your eyes!”
