American Horror Story season 4, subtitled Freak Show, played host to the reality-based, literally two-faced character of Edward Mordrake. One of the most successful anthology TV shows ever, American Horror Story is set to air its landmark tenth season in 2020, and was also recently renewed by the FX network for three more seasons. It makes sense that the Ryan Murphy-created program would at least make it to season 13, what with so many of its storylines incorporating historical urban legends, and 13 being famously associated with supernatural misfortune.
Airing in fall 2014 and winter 2015, American Horror Story: Freak Show took a look inside the lives of those who live and work inside the titular show, run by wannabe star Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange). As is usual for American Horror Story, lots of murder, mayhem, and misery ensue, all acted out by one of the most talented rotating casts on TV, including Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Michael Chiklis, Emma Roberts, and even Neil Patrick Harris in a delightfully gruesome guest role.
Another memorable supporting player in American Horror Story: Freak Show was Edward Mordrake, played by Wes Bentley, who would go on to appear in Hotel (season 5) and Roanoke (season 6) as well. Mordrake is a ghost, and in life once performed in a freak show, until the evil second face on the back of his head compelled him to murder his fellow performers. Now, he's a legendary figure said to be summoned by any performance that occurs on Halloween, with a need to retrieve a soul while he's there.
The Edward Mordrake character in American Horror Story: Freak Show is based on an allegedly real 19th-century English nobleman of the same name, who was supposedly born with a second face on the back of his head. The face was incapable of eating or speaking, but Edward claimed it would whisper terrifying things to him at night when they were alone, and begged doctors to remove it. They refused, and Edward took his own life at the age of 23. Or at least that's how the the most popular version of the story goes.
The Edward Mordrake story being taken at face value begins with an entry in the 1896 book Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. However, there's reason to believe the story is entirely false, as it cites no definite sources, and mentions two doctors who were supposedly involved in Edward's care that there's otherwise no record of from the time. Even the well-known photo, seen above, that's purportedly of Mordrake is now widely believed to be a forgery. It turns out that the tale of Edward Mordrake likely originated in an 1895 newspaper article by Charles Lotin Hildreth, who was actually an author of speculative fiction. With no mention of Edward prior to that article, it seems clear that he never actually existed, and was instead of the creation of an author trying to get attention. So while American Horror Story: Freak Show did base Edward Mordrake on a true story, in that accounts of Edward exist, no such person is proven to have lived.
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