Ectrodactyly

LOS ANGELES -- Ladies and gentleman, children of all ages, step behind the curtain if you dare and marvel at the Scorpion Queen!

During her 20 years reporting and anchoring Southern California newscasts, such an introduction would have deeply offended disability advocate Bree Walker, who was born with a congenital condition called ectrodactyly. Traditionally referred to as lobster- claw syndrome, the condition fused together the digits of her hands and feet into claw-like appendages.

Much of her on-camera career in the '80s and '90s was spent with her hands hidden beneath a news desk. Now Walker has finally embraced her "inner freak," she says, as one of the sideshow attractions on the dark HBO drama "Carnivale," airing at 8 p.m. Sundays.

"When I was a little kid, my oldest brother used to tease me that the only job I'd ever get would be in a carnival as a sideshow freak," she says. "I've spent all my professional life trying to act as if I were not different. I didn't realize how I'd been hiding the true me all these years."

Walker, 51, plays the glamorous, seductive "Scorpion Queen" Sabina, who is married to a half-man, half-woman named Bert/Bertha and was previously wed to dwarfed "Carnivale" proprietor Samson.

Her decision to play Sabina has caused controversy. Some advocacy groups have branded their former hero a traitor for appearing as a freak -- an offensive stereotype people with disabilities have tried to overcome. She has received nasty e-mails. Several speaking engagements have been canceled. But Walker says she pitched the character to "Carnivale" producers as an example of a woman who survived against all odds.

"Were I born in the '20s and working in the Depression-era Dust Bowl, I would have been lucky to have been Sabina," Walker says. "In those days, there were laws on the books that didn't allow people with deformities to be in public places during certain times of day, like meal times. So most people born with a physical deformity were either given away to an orphanage, drowned at birth or abandoned to the family closet or cellar." (Walker's grandfather abandoned her mother, who also was born with the disability.)

Besides ectrodactyly, Walker has something else in common with her character: multiple marriages. Thrice divorced, she was last married (from 1990 to 2000) to television sportscaster Jim Lampley, with whom she co-anchored KCBS news in Los Angeles.

"Jim and I got back together on and off for the past five years - - even talked about getting [remarried], but we couldn't quite get there," she says.

Gannett News Service

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