Koo Koo the Bird Girl was born Minnie Woolsey in 1880. She suffered from a rare skeletal disorder called Virchow-Seckel syndrome, which caused her to have a very short stature, a small head, a narrow birdlike face with a beak-like nose, large slanted eyes, a receding jaw, large ears, and mild mental retardation. She was also bald, toothless, and either completely blind or very short sighted.