Real life Shrek. Maurice Tillet was actually a very intelligent person who was a poet and writer. He could speak 14 languages. Tillet was born in 1903, and as a teenager he manifested a rare disease called acromegaly, which caused his bones to grow uncontrollably. As a result his body was disfigured, and he turned into what people back then referred to as “freak show”; He took advantage of his condition, turning into a pro wrestler called the “freak ogre of the ring”.