In her only film role in Tod Browning's cult classic Freaks, using the sideshow stage name Olga Roderick, she was billed as the "Bearded Lady".

When she applied for her social security card in May 1939, she gave her parents as George Barnell and Nancy Shaw.

[3] Barnell's mother sold the 4-year-old Jane to the Great Orient Family Circus and Menagerie while her father was away on business[2]: 152  in Baltimore.

The circus consisted of the Muslim woman who worked as manager, two of her daughters who danced, and three sons who juggled and were tight rope walkers.

[3] After that incident, Barnell was placed in the care of her Catawban grandmother who lived in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

Her grandmother told her stories about Florence Nightingale, which inspired her to work as a student nurse in the old city hospital at Wilmington when she turned 17.

[3] At some point during her life, Barnell worked as a trapeze artist before having a railroad accident that ended her career.

She appeared in a Tod Browning's Freaks (1932) which, according to the DVD documentary,[4] left her unhappy with the overall portrayal of the sideshow performers in the film.

When approached by Diane Arbus about information regarding her death, Joseph Mitchell verified her passing.

Her last marriage, in 1931, was to her manager Thomas O'Boyle, an orphan ex-circus clown and a sideshow talker for Hubert's Dime Museum.