Face/Off

French surgeons have successfully completed the first face transplant operation, attaching the face of legendary actor James Earl Jones' onto the front of a small French girl's head. Small French girl Marianne Cadeau, 7, is reputably delighted with her new ruggledly handsome, late middle aged, black face. "I feel it's every girl's dream", she enthused. "What seven-year-old girl wouldn't like to have the face of the man who played Johnny Williams in 1976's 'The River Niger' attached to her?"


Before


After

More than 13,000 patients are on the waiting list for a James Earl Jones face and doctors say up to 12,999 of them won't get one. Cadeau was chosen for the operation because of all of those who suffer from not having James Earl Jones' face, she didn't have it the most.

"The grafting of the face of '70's Blaxploitation star James Earl Jones onto a French girl was a complex process," says French surgeon Pierre Perrier. "We thought that such groundbreaking surgery was always going to be tricky, but failure to give this girl the face of actor James Earl Jones, who starred opposite Bill Cosby in 1977's A Piece Of The Action, was not an option."



During a press conference held by Marianne and her family, Marianne's mother, Claudette, 40, said "I thought this operation was insanity - that it would be impossible. Until, that is, Marianne said, 'nothing's impossible, Mama. Because even impossible is four fifths possible. And I'd bet my house with those odds!' She didn't, of course. She doesn't have a house. And I punished her for telling such lies."