At the age of six, Frida Kahlo was stricken with polio. It affected her right leg. She spent nine months in bed.
“‘It all began with a horrible pain in my right leg from the muscle downward,” she remembered. ‘They washed my little leg in a small tub with walnut water and small hot towels.'”
Once she was out of bed, her doctor insisted that Frida exercise to build up her weaker leg. Her father got her involved in all kinds of sports, a decidedly male domain in 1914 Mexico. However, Frida played soccer, boxed, wrestled, and became a champion swimmer. (1) She climbed trees, rowed on the lakes of Chapultepec Park, and played ball.
Despite her best efforts, her right leg remained very skinny. To disguise that fact, she wore three or four socks on her thin calf and shoes with a built-up right heel. While some of her friends admired her stamina despite her deformity, other children teased her:
“Frida’s childhood friend, the painter Aurora Reyes, says: ‘We were quite cruel about her leg. When she was riding her bicycle, we would yell at her, ‘Frida, pata de palo!’ [Frida, peg leg], and she would respond furiously with lots of curses.'”In this photo, Frida is shown marching in a skirt that hits below the knee – thus exposing her obviously thinner right calf. Not long after this photo was taken, Frida began to wear elaborate, floor-length skirts – to hide her emaciated leg from public view.
(1) Herrera, Hayden. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. New York, Harper, 1983.
Now read: “Frida Kahlo Had Childhood Polio Part 2.”
I knew nothing about Frida Kahlo before I started reading this blog. These occasional posts about her are fascinating!
LikeLike
Rob, Frida is fascinating. Keep coming back and thanks for the kudos.
LikeLike
I’m reading The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver right now on our new Kindle. It’s the fictional account of an American-Mexican boy who lives with Frida and Diego, and later Trotsky up until his death. Very fun.
LikeLike
I need to check it out. Thanks for the tip.
LikeLike
I watched the Selma Hayek film, FRIDA, for the first time just two nights ago and I was totally enthralled. I don’t recall anything about the polio but perhaps I missed it somehow. According to the film, Frida’s pelvic region was speared through and through with a large metal rod during a bus accident. It was a horrid scene and the years following were just as horrible.
I loved her sense of independence and creativity as depicted in the film. I am guessing now that most of what I saw was creative license as opposed to the truth.
I was only sorry that the channel masters here in NYC saw fit to obviously cut the film when it came to her romantic liason with the person I took to be Josephine Baker during Frida’s solo stay in Paris.
Frida’s heartbreak with Diego’s brief affair with her adored sister was painful.
The scene following her miscarriage where she cried that “her baby had come out in pieces,” was agonizing. She kept screaming for the “head.”
Whether true or not, Hayek made one heck of a good movie and I look forward to seeing it again and watching some scenes even more closely.
LikeLike
Hi, Carole, Frida and Diego’s life was writ large and vivid, sometimes more so because of Frida’s liberal fudging of the truth. Frida and Diego’s dependence on one another wasn’t very healthy and Frida was quite a drinker. They were both total narcissists which makes it hard to merge in a marriage. It seems to me as if they were both involved in a childish game of spying on another, cheating on one another, coming back together again only to break their freshly-established and fragile bond. In the end, I believe Frida was a burden to Diego. The last ten years of her life were so physically painful for her and she was totally self-absorbed. As for her miscarriage, some doubt that she really had one. It could have been an abortion or that she wasn’t really pregnant and was needing attention from Diego. Having had polio when she was so young left one leg shorter and thinner, hence the wearing of the long skirts to hide her disfigurement. When she was a child, she was teased for limping. Some Frida biographers speculate that Frida was born with scoliosis and this was the reason for her shorter leg. As for Josephine Baker, I have not read much about that or I have and have forgotten it. Frida had relationships, it seems, with whomever was present. I mean, Trotsky?
LikeLike
Yeaha, the Trotsky relationship WAS a bit of a stretch. The scene atop the Myan Pyramid was more than a bit over-the-top.
The Josephine Baker look-a-like could also have been the same kind of tongue-in-cheek memory.
However, the film was still good. I probably need to order a copy of something more truthful about Frida and Diego and have something more substantial to base the truths upon.
LikeLike
Carole, books are best for info on Frida, my fave being the definite bio FRIDA by Hayden Herrera.
LikeLike
Hi Lisa, I’m doing a school project, and I have to interview someone. This project is a year long project and worth a lot of points. I was wondering if I could interview you. I use your website a lot when I write my paper on Frida Kahlo. I could email you the questions. I just need your email. Thank You
LikeLike
lisarogers224@austin.rr.com
LikeLike
Hi I’m doing an NHD project and am wondering if I am allowed to use the photos on your website in my project. I would not modify them in any way, but I would like to know if I can use the photos. Thank you!
LikeLike
Donna, you will have to determine licensing rights for each individual pic. Lisa’s History Room is a non-profit, educational website. I receive no income from my site. So I may use some images that a for-profit author may need to secure rights and pay fees to use. I don’t know what NHD is but I would say that, if you are using the images in an educational manner, not selling them, them you are safe. Best, Lisa
LikeLike
[…] and emotional pain, that she had to be committed to her bed and wheelchair. They also forgot that Frida’s right leg that was thinner than her left one after her battle with polio. And, yes, her most unique feature — if we had to name just one — […]
LikeLike