The “Birdman of Alcatraz” Didn’t Actually Have Birds
In spite of his nickname, the “Birdman of Alcatraz” had no birds in the prison. Robert Stroud was serving a manslaughter sentence for killing a bartender in a fight. He fatally stabbed a guard at Leavenworth Prison in 1916. President Woodrow Wilson then sentenced him to a life of permanent solitary confinement and he was moved to Alcatraz, which is when Stroud spent his time doing peculiar things.
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He studied ornithological diseases, wrote and illustrated two books and raised canaries and other birds in his Leavenworth cell. But in 1942, when he was transferred to Alcatraz, he was ordered to give up his birds and he was banned from having any birds during his 17 years inside the prison. The 1962 movie Birdman of Alcatraz, for which Burt Lancaster received an Academy Award nomination a few weeks before “The Rock” closed, was mostly fictitious.
See next why the prison was given the name Alcatraz…