Sword swallowing is arguably the most dangerous and misunderstood of all sideshow stunts. It is dangerous due to the physical proximity of cold steel to the internal organs of the performer and misunderstood as, more than all the sideshow arts, sword swallowing is commonly perceived to be the result of trickery. Sword swallowing is very real. There is no illusion and no trickery ...
Some call him the ‘The Last Great Circus Stongman’ but perhaps a more accurate title would simply be ‘The Greatest Strongman”. Yosselle L. Greenstein was born three months premature on July 15, 1893 in Suvalk Poland into the poorest family in town. Weighing less than 4 pounds, “Joseph” Greenstein was fortunate to even survive his infancy and his early tribulations certainly tempered his ...
The Great Regurgitator, who was also billed as The Egyptian Enigma, was born Hadji Ali in Egypt in 1892. In the 1920’s Hadji Ali came to be something of an American vaudeville sensation for his unusual ability to swallow unique items, regurgitate them in an order specific to audience requests and for his ‘human water spout’ routine. Professional regurgitation and the ...
One of the first marvelous feats I personally learned to endure and perform was the consumption and manipulation of fire. I was young and, of course being foolish, I went about learning the craft in completely the most incorrect and dangerous manner – alone with the aid of texts hazardously outdated. I burnt myself severely more times ...
In 1900 a young mystifier took Europe by storm and perplexed Scotland Yard with his ability to escape from all marshal restraints. That man was none other than Ehrich Weiss, the master escape artist better known as Harry Houdini. Houdini actually owed a lot to the human marvels he shared the stage with when he ...
