A team lowers the coffin into the ground and fills the hole up with dirt. The magician – often in chains – gets into a coffin. This is another trick that is what it says it is. It's a common trick among escape artists, and it's also an incredibly dangerous one. 31, 1990, he was crushed to death while performing a coffin escape trick Unlike Houdini, though, who died after a punch to the gut ruptured internal organs, Burrus died in front of an audience while performing a stunt. Joseph Burrus was the self-proclaimed "Next Harry Houdini." There's one thing he ended up having in common with Houdini: They both died on Halloween. When the bullet hit, Robinson broke character on stage for the first time since assuming his Chinese persona Oh my God. Built-up powder caused both the blank and the real bullet to fire simultaneously. It had worked smoothly for him at show after show until March 23, 1918, when he forgot to clean the gun properly. An audience member would load a real bullet into the gun, but what actually fired was a blank from the other barrel. The key to Robinson's trick was a gun with a secret second barrel. In a nod to the circa-1900 Boxer Rebellion, a failed anti-imperialist uprising in China, he called his act "Condemned to Death by Boxers." Classy. Think Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," but worse.) In Robinson's act, he was sentenced to death by firing squad. From today's perspective, his whole act comes across as racially offensive Robinson was a native New Yorker of Scottish descent who took on an Asian persona, stole a name from a living Chinese magician, and only spoke onstage in fake Chinese gibberish
Magician William Ellsworth Robinson performed in the early 20th century under the name Chung Ling Soo. He forgot to bite away the whole bullet and swap it out for a blank Madame DeLinsky was shot in the belly with a real bullet, lost her pregnancy and died from the wound two days laterģ.Chung Ling Soo's "Condemned to Death by Boxers" One of the soldiers at the performance in Germany had a bit of stage fright and reverted to autopilot during the gun-loading part of the act. Instead of just biting away the paper wrapping, the soldiers were supposed to secretly bite away the whole bullet and swap in a blank Their gunmen did the actual loading and shooting during the act.Īt that time, bullets came wrapped in paper that was bitten away before loading the bullets into the gun.
Instead of loading one real bullet and one blank, they used all blanks and squad of professional soldiers who fired six guns at once. Their bullet catch method was a little bit different from Chung Ling Soo's. Madame DeLinsky acted as her husband's assistant, and he watched as his pregnant wife was shot to death right on stage. The DeLinsky family, a Polish husband-wife magician duo, was performing a bullet catch in front of a German prince and his family in 1820 when things went awry. She was reportedly more upset that she had to cancel some upcoming shows than she was about her broken ribs When she finally emerged, Tenko continued her act for 30 minutes despite her debilitating injuries.
The swords pinned Princess Tenko into the box, and her assistant had to remove them to free her. According to her manager, one of the swords came dangerously close to puncturing Tenko's right eye While performing the routine in Sabae, Japan, a mechanical failure caused the swords to hit Tenko while she was inside the box, breaking several ribs and her right cheekbone. In the summer of 2007, Tenko's performance didn't end as neatly as that trick usually does. The magician gets into a box and an assistant drives swords into the box, and the magician emerges unscathed at the end. You've probably seen versions of this classic sword box trick. When performing one of her illusions – called "Spike Illusion in the Face of Death" – things went terribly wrong, but she pushed through and finished her act. Japanese magician Princess Tenko – real name Tenko Hikita – is tough as nails. 1.Princess Tenko's "Spike Illusion in the Face of Death"