The Strange Saga of Sober Sue, Who Made a Career Out of Refusing to Laugh

For millions of people in the tri-state area in the early 20th century, Coney Island was seen as at least a temporary cure for sadness. The Ferris wheel, the carnival games, the Luna—all of it was designed to strip people of their worries and crack a smile.

Sober Sue was having none of it.

In 1907, accompanied by a press agent and promoter, Sober Sue endured a trip to see the rides. On the way, she was entertained by a comic named Stuffy Davis, who attempted to get her to laugh at his jokes. Time and again, the corners of her mouth failed to turn up. She did not laugh, or chuckle, or smirk, or make any audible sound of amusement. The only part of Coney Island she liked, she later said, was an attraction purported to be a simulation of hell, which one entered via a coffin. Otherwise, nothing and no one had been able to “iron the crease out of Sober Sue’s brow,” per a journalist's account of the failed trip.

Newspapers dubbed her “the Mirthless Marvel.” For reasons that could only be speculated upon, Sober Sue appeared utterly incapable of laughing. A New York theater owner offered a $100 bounty—which others later raised to $500 and even $1000—to anyone who could get her to laugh. She remained resolute and stoic, as though laughter was an abstract concept. While most entertainers trafficked in making people happy, her total lack of merriment became her act, one she toured throughout the country and which provoked a central question: Why couldn’t Sober Sue laugh?

1. A Lack of Levity
2. A Sobering Reveal

A Lack of Levity

Biographical information about early 20th-century performers, particularly those relegated to sideshow or circus slots, can be notoriously hard to verify. By some accounts, Sober Sue was born Susan Jenkins, an immigrant whose family had arrived from Haiti and settled in Philadelphia. (Though even this isn’t confirmed: Other sources cite her name as Susan Kelly.) As an infant, she said, her parents and uncles had made it their mission to make her laugh or at least smile. But Susan was that rare baby who would not express any delight whatsoever.

“They tell me I enjoyed these pranks and cried when they stopped to have them go on again,” she said. “But I never laughed, and that is why they began to call me Sober Sue.”

It was a perfect summary of her disposition, one that would later prove lucrative. Her talent was mentioned as early as 1902, when, after being detained for public drunkenness in Pittsburgh, the 21-year-old was told by the judge she would be released if she was willing to laugh out loud. The judge was already familiar with her notoriety thanks to some recent appearances at a local museum.

“I feel more like crying,” Sober Sue responded. Not even the threat of jail could move her to gaiety.

Sober Sue’s attitude toward humor was one of appreciation. Something funny could be understood as such, though it seemed as though nothing had any ability to provoke a response from her. “It isn’t necessary to roar over them,” she said. “I can appreciate funny things without going into contortions.”

Sober Sue’s dour disposition eventually came to the attention of Willie Hammerstein, father of famed Broadway composer Oscar Hammerstein and owner of the Victoria Theatre in New York City. Hammerstein’s idea was to invite Sober Sue to the Paradise Roof Garden, a performing space above the Victoria, and make a grand show of offering $100 to anyone who could make her laugh. Spectators could watch and see if anyone might get her to break.

Night after night, a parade of comics—both known and upcoming—stood up to perform their act, hoping a joke might land. None did. Hammerstein also had vaudeville actors try their hand, promising to give them a weekly raise in salary if anyone could crack Sober Sue’s façade.

It was pointless. Sober Sue would not react.

Hammerstein and press agent Johnny Pollock took her to Coney Island as a publicity stunt. This, too, failed to elicit any response, though Hammerstein got mileage out of asking a photographer to take Sober Sue’s photograph the day after.

“Look pleasant, please,” the photographer implored.

Sober Sue merely stared at him.

A Sobering Reveal

Sober Sue’s engagement at the Victoria was circa 1907. How long it lasted is hard to ascertain, but by 1908, she was on the road, appearing in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where one newspaper reported she “grows more glum with each passing day” and another observed that “a veritable cesspool of men and old jokes by the jokesmiths” failed to elicit any response. The following year, while in Cleveland, Ohio, she was hailed as being “absolutely devoid of a sense of humor.”

Sober Sue continued touring for decades to come, with her last reported appearance coming in 1947. But it was her time at the Victoria that resulted in the most attention. It was said no one ever claimed the $100 reward.

Some have theorized that Sober Sue’s residency at the Victoria was a plot by Hammerstein to have comedians perform for free at the theater in the hopes of claiming the money. Under the auspices of making Sober Sue laugh, Hammerstein got a comic performance at no cost to him—save for the $20 weekly he paid Sober Sue to sit in virtual silence.

There was never any conclusive reason given for Sober Sue’s dull demeanor. It’s possible she was simply very good at remaining stoic. Others believed she had some type of facial paralysis, possibly stemming from a reporter who tried in vain to get her to make even a fake smile. This, she said, was physically painful.

“Did you ever try to laugh?” the reporter asked. “Will you try now?”

“Yes,” she responded. “But it will hurt.”

“Well,” the reporter said, expressing minimal sympathy, “try anyway.”

A dour Sue “twisted her face strangely” in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to chuckle.

In 1924, actor and humorist Will Rogers related a story that provides one possible explanation for her difficulty. In his newspaper column, Rogers stated he had been one of the vaudeville actors recruited to try and make Sober Sue laugh at the Victoria. Predictably, he and the others were unsuccessful. But at the end of the summer, he wrote, Sober Sue met up with him and made a confession: “On the last night after the roof closed, she confided to us that she was deaf, and was short-sighted, and had never seen nor heard any of us all summer. She laughed when she told us this, but that was too late to do us any good.”

But many reporters had spoken with Sober Sue and not reported any perceived difficulty in communicating with her, so it’s hard to say that a hearing issue was to blame. How or why Sober Sue remained immune to laughter may never be known—but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Among Hammerstein’s many attempts to get her to crack was to take her to see clowns at the circus. At this, Sober Sue nearly burst into tears.

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