Rose Siggins, ‘American Horror Story’ Actress Born With Sacral Agenesis, Died at 43

Rose Siggins was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition in which the lower spine does not form properly. Her legs were severely deformed, feet pointing in opposite directions. She moved on her hands or on a wheeled board. Her parents chose amputation when she was a small child; she later said that decision let her have a more ordinary childhood.

She built an independent adult life in Colorado: marriage, two children (Luke and Shelby), driving, work with horses, and then acting. She wrote that she believed she was the only person with sacral agenesis to carry and deliver a child without the same disability. On television she became widely known as Legless Suzi in American Horror Story: Freak Show (2014). FX called her a kind person, a loving mother and a talented actor. Co-stars remembered her laugh. The role put a real body — not a costume — inside a series about a sideshow, and it widened the conversation about who appears on screen.

Siggins was born Rose Marie Homan on 8 December 1972 in Pueblo, Colorado. She died in Denver on 12 December 2015, four days after her 43rd birthday, from complications of an infection after kidney-stone surgery.

Her public story was never only the diagnosis. It was the daily adaptations — skateboard, car, pregnancy, set — and a brief, visible career that treated disability as part of a working life rather than the whole of it.

Sources

The New York Times / Associated Press, “Rose Siggins, Actress on ‘American Horror Story,’ Dies at 43” (December 2015)
BBC News, “American Horror Story: Freak Show actress Rose Siggins dies”
The Hollywood Reporter; Deadline; CNN obituaries (infection after kidney surgery)