His lifelong career on the outdoor entertainment circuit as a major sideshow attraction with Barnum & Bailey, among others, made him a popular cultural icon.

[5] Those who knew Schlitzie described him as an affectionate, exuberant, sociable person who loved dancing, singing, and being the center of attention, performing for anyone he could stop and talk with.

[3] On the sideshow circuit, microcephalic people were usually promoted as "pinheads" or "missing links", and Schlitzie was billed under such titles as "The Last of the Aztecs", "The Monkey Girl", and "What Is It?".

While Schlitzie was performing with the Tom Mix Circus in 1935, George Surtees, a chimpanzee trainer with a trained-chimpanzee act in the show, adopted him, becoming his legal guardian.

Hospital authorities determined that the best care for Schlitzie would be to make him a ward of Unks' employer, showman Sam Alexander, and return him to the sideshow, where he remained until 1968.

He liked going to MacArthur Park at Alvarado Street and Wilshire Boulevard, where he would visit the lake with his guardian, feeding the pigeons and ducks and performing for passersby.

In the 1960s, Freaks was rediscovered and enjoyed a long run as one of the first midnight movies, becoming a cult classic, and in 1994 it was selected by the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Schlitzie's iconic image has lent itself to many products, including masks, hats, shirts, models, clocks, snow globes, and dolls.

[citation needed] The 2018 game Red Dead Redemption 2 featured a side-mission which included a character called Bertram, whose appearance is modeled on Schlitzie.