Trivia

Because his guardians had predeceased him since he lived to the age of 70 (longer than most micro-cephalics), Schlitze was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in Los Angeles County. When visitors to the Find-a-Grave website lamented this on the message board in 2007, an impromptu online fund-raiser was coordinated and a gravestone was purchased and placed.

In the movie Freaks, la monstrueuse parade (1932), Phroso the clown compliments Schlitze on "her" new dress, offering to buy "her" a new hat. Schlitze is said to have loved hats and wearing new dresses, as well as playing with string instruments (either the violin or cello), playing card and board games, dancing and singing. Despite being clinically diagnosed as mentally retarded with a low IQ resulting from his natural born birth defect, he had a relatively developed intellect for a micro-cephalic, although his lines in the movie 'Freaks' are mostly incomprehensible. Schlitze could count up to ten and taught himself to imitate the tone of director Tod Browning's voice.

Although dressed and exhibited as a female, Schlitze the "pinhead" was, in fact, a man.

In the late 1930s, Schlitze was placed in an mental institution after 30 years in the sideshow business, where his health began to decline sharply. Mr. Sam Alexander, a Canadian promoter, took Schlitze back on the road, where he remained on the sideshow circuit until he died at age 70 in 1971.

Schlitze was cartoonist Bill Griffith's inspiration for his famous "Zippy the Pinhead" comic strip (along with a Barnum and Bailey sideshow pinhead exhibited named "Zip the What-is-it"). According to Schlitze's keeper, the pinhead had been taught to talk by California speech experts, and could count up to ten but refused to speak the word eight. Schlitzie's head contained only two ounces of brains.

Upon his death, he was interred at Queen of Heaven Cemetery and Mortuary in Rowland Heights, Los Angeles County, California, USA. His location plot is Grave 69, Tier 21, Section E.

The Ramones song "Pinhead" is about him.

A victim of birth defect microcephaly as evidenced by smaller than normal cranium.