Henry Cyril Paget, One Of The World’s Weirdest People
Henry Cyril Paget has been referred to as “the most notorious aristocratic homosexual” and a Victorian-era Freddie Mercury. While that alone isn’t enough to dub him one of history’s weirdest people, the fact that he bankrupted himself to maintain his flamboyant lifestyle certainly is.
Public DomainHenry Cyril Paget in one of his elaborate costumes, circa 1900.
In 1898, Paget inherited his father’s title and became the 5th Marquess of Anglesey. He also inherited the family’s estates, 30,000 acres of land, and an income equivalent to roughly $20 million per year.
It should have been more money than Paget could ever spend — but barely five years later, he had not only squandered his fortune but was more than $60 million in debt. So, where did all the money go?
Paget had a fabulous wardrobe. He also loved theater, so in addition to his daily attire, he spent outrageous sums on costumes. He became known for his “butterfly dancing,” in which he waved his robes around like wings, and soon earned the nickname “the dancing marquess.” Paget even converted a chapel at one of his manors into what he called the “Gaiety Theatre.”
In addition to his clothing and theatrical performances, Paget spent freely on jewels, furs, and opulent parties.
Paget did marry a woman named Lilian Chetwynd — who happened to be his first cousin — in 1898, but she left him in a matter of weeks. Chetwynd’s grandson, Christopher Sykes, told the BBC’s The Aristocracy in 1997, “The closest the marriage ever came to consummation was that he would make her pose naked just covered top to bottom in jewels and she had to sleep wearing the jewelry. The marriage only lasted six weeks.”
The dancing marquess was officially declared bankrupt in 1904, and he died from tuberculosis less than a year later at age 29. His beloved wardrobe was sold to pay off some of his debts.
As Paget had no children, his first cousin, Charles Paget, took his title. Charles immediately burned almost every document belonging to the 5th Marquess of Anglesey in an attempt to erase one of the world’s weirdest people from his aristocratic family tree.
Carl Tanzler, The Man Who Lived With A Corpse For Years
DeWolfe and Wood Collection in the Otto Hirzel Scrapbook/Wikimedia CommonsCarl Tanzler, the man who slept next to a corpse for seven years, circa 1940.
Some of the weirdest people on this list earned the title by adopting odd pets or having strange health conditions. Carl Tanzler earned it by sleeping next to a dead woman.
Tanzler was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1926 with his wife and children. They settled in Florida, where Tanzler took a job as a radiology technician in Key West while his family lived in Zephyrhills, just north of Tampa.
It was at the hospital that Tanzler first caught sight of 20-year-old Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, a Cuban-American woman suffering from tuberculosis. Since childhood, Tanzler had been having dreams about his true love. As soon as he set eyes on Elena, he knew that he’d found her.
Although Tanzler was 33 years older than Elena and married with daughters of his own, he was in love. For 18 months, he did everything he could to save her life while showering her with gifts. But tuberculosis was still a death sentence at the time, and the disease claimed Elena on Oct. 25, 1931.
Tanzler paid for Elena’s funeral and purchased her an opulent mausoleum — but he didn’t stop there. For the first two years after Elena’s death, he visited her grave every night to serenade her. Then, things got weird.
In April 1933, Carl Tanzler exhumed Elena’s body. It was mostly decomposed at that point, so he strengthened Elena’s limbs with piano wire, stuffed rags in her torso, covered her decaying skin in wax and plaster, placed a wig on her skull, and doused her body in perfume.
Monroe County Public Library’s Florida Keys History CenterThe corpse of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos after it was taken from Carl Tanzler’s house.
He then dressed the corpse and kept it in his bed for seven years.
Tanzler was ultimately caught and charged with grave robbing, but because the statute of limitations on his crime had expired, he avoided any jail time. His only punishment was spending the remainder of his life known as one of the world’s weirdest people.
