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Escapologist
Escapology is the practice of escaping from restraints or other traps. Escapologists (also classified as escape artists) escape from handcuffs, straitjackets, cages, coffins, steel boxes, barrels, bags, burning buildings, fish-tanks, and other perils, often in combination. History The art of escaping from restraints and confined spaces has been a skill employed by performers for a very long time. It was not originally displayed as an overt act in itself but was instead used secretly to create illusions such as a disappearance or transmutation. In the 1860s, the Davenport Brothers, who were skilled at releasing themselves from rope ties, used the art to convey the impression they were restrained while they created spirit phenomena. Other illusionists, including John Nevil Maskelyne, worked out how the Davenports did their act and re-created the tricks to debunk the brothers' claims of psychic power. However, the re-creations did not involve overt escape, merely a replication ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothy Dietrich
Dorothy Dietrich (born October 31, 1969) is an American stage magician and escapologist, best known for performing the bullet catch in her mouth (although Adelaide Herrmann reputedly did this earlier) and the first woman to perform a straitjacket escape while suspended hundreds of feet in the air from a burning rope. She was the first woman to gain prominence as an escape artist since the days of Houdini, breaking the glass ceiling for women in the field of escapes and magic. The 2006 ''Columbia Encyclopedia'' included Dietrich among their "eight most noted magicians of the late 20th century", and entertainment writer Samantha Hart in ''Hollywood Walk of Fame: 2000 Sensational Stars, Star Makers and Legends'', called her a "world-class magician" and "one of the world's leading female magicians". Early on, as a teenager, she already was referred to as "The First Lady of Magic", a reference later copied by others. Dietrich, often called the female Houdini, has duplicated many of H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antony Britton
Antony Britton is an escapologist and stunt performer. He has performed a series of large scale spectacular stunts done for television and charity. Britton first attracted notice in Wakefield, England in a 2012 stunt. He went on to perform a series of stunts for charity, and in 2014 thousands turned out in Bradford city centre to watch him attempt the inverted straitjacket escape. In 2015 he attempted the Buried Alive escape challenge, making him the third person to have attempted the routine in 100 years. He was unsuccessful and had to be rescued. Early life Britton was born in Saltaire, Bradford, England, and has one brother and an older sister. He went to Wycliffe Middle School in Saltaire and Beckfoot School in Bingley. At a young age he was diagnosed with dyslexia. Britton trained as a welder whilst performing escapes, he would be seen by the public been chained, padlocked and handcuffed before jumping in the canals of Saltaire and Bingley. Britton performed his e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American Escapology, escape artist, Magic (illusion), magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his Escapology, escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, Robert-Houdin (1805–1871). He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as "Harry 'Handcuff' Houdini" on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to escape from and hold his breath inside a sealed milk can with water in it. In 1904, thousands watched as he tried to escape from special handcuffs commissioned by London's ''Daily Mirror'', keeping them in suspense for an hour. Another stunt saw him Premature burial, buried alive and only just able to claw himself to the surface, emerging in a state ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Alan
Alan Alan (born Alan Rabinowitz, 30 November 1926 – 4 July 2014) was a British escapologist and magician. He originated tricks that have subsequently become familiar features of the repertoire of other performers and he was honoured by The Magic Circle. Alan achieved fame through a series of stunts staged for the media. He made headline news in 1949 when a "buried alive" stunt, performed for Pathe News, nearly went wrong. He is credited with devising the burning-rope straitjacket escape, in which he is suspended upside-down from a crane with a length of thick rope doused with petrol; once ignited there is a short time to escape before the rope burns through. He appeared in a number of television magic shows, including ''The Magic of David Copperfield''. He also "taught" the inmates of Wormwood Scrubs prison how to escape from handcuffs in his performance with a number of other magicians. In more recent years he was seen on the Channel 4 TV show '' The Secret Cabaret'' wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Grim Game
''The Grim Game'' is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by Irvin Willat and starring Harry Houdini and Ann Forrest.Farmer 1984, p. 312. The basic plotline serves as a showcase for Houdini's talent as an escapologist, stunt performer and aviator. As the story unfolds, a series of Houdini's trademark set-piece stunts and escapes are performed. When his tormentors chain him up and imprison him on numerous occasions, Houdini escapes. The film concludes with a climactic mid-air collision following an aircraft pursuit. Following the collision, Houdini is reunited with his fiancée. Plot Young newspaper reporter Harvey Hanford (Harry Houdini) is in love with Mary Cameron (Ann Forrest), the ward of his rich, eccentric Uncle Dudley Cameron (Thomas Jefferson), who opposes the match. Harvey becomes involved in a newspaper scheme to plant evidence for a fake murder of his uncle. Dudley Cameron is actually killed, however, and Harvey is framed and arrested for the murder. Jailed un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Restraint
Physical restraint refers to means of purposely limiting or obstructing the freedom of a person's bodily movement. Basic methods Usually, binding objects such as handcuffs, legcuffs, ropes, chains, straps or straitjackets are used for this purpose. Alternatively different kinds of arm locks deriving from unarmed combat methods or martial arts are frequently used to restrain a person, which are predominantly used by trained police or correctional officers. This less commonly also extends to joint locks and pinning techniques. The freedom of movement in terms of locomotion is usually limited, by locking a person into an enclosed space, such as a prison cell and by chaining or binding someone to a heavy or immobile object. This effect can also be achieved by seizing and withholding specific items of clothing, that are normally used for protection against common adversities of the environment. Examples can be protective clothing against temperature, forcing the indiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Owen (martyr)
Nicholas Owen, S.J., (c. 1562 – 1/2 March 1606) was an English Jesuit lay brother who was the principal builder of priest holes during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. Owen built many priest holes in the buildings of English Catholics from 1588 until his final arrest in 1606, when he was tortured to death by prison authorities in the Tower of London. Owen is honoured as a martyr by the Catholic Church and was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Life Nicholas Owen was born around 1562 in Oxford, England, into a devoutly Catholic family and grew up during the Penal Laws. His father, Walter Owen, was a carpenter and Nicholas was apprenticed as a joiner in February 1577, acquiring the skills that he would use to build hiding places. Two of his older brothers became priests. Owen served as a servant of Edmund Campion, who was arrested by priest hunters in 1581, and was himself arrested for protesting Campion's innocence. Upon his release, he entered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Nevil Maskelyne
John Nevil Maskelyne (22 December 183918 May 1917) was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet, along with other Victorian-era devices. He worked with magicians George Alfred Cooke and David Devant, and many of his illusions are still performed today. His book ''Sharps and Flats: A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill'' is considered a classic overview of card sharp practices.In 1914 he founded the Occult Committee, a group to "investigate claims to supernatural power and to expose fraud". Early life Maskelyne was born on 22 December 1839 at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England to John Nevil Maskelyne (1800–1875), a saddler, and his wife Harriet née Brunsdon (1812–1871). He trained as a watchmaker. Career Maskelyne became interested in conjuring after watching a stage performance at his local Town Hall by the fraudulent American spiritualists the Davenport brothers. He saw how the Davenports' spirit cabinet illus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Clempert
John Clempert ( Siberia, April 19, 1878 – May 1940) was a Russian escape artist who became famous for his hanging tricks and for a legal dispute with Harry Houdini. Early career Clempert was born in Siberia on April 19, 1878, in a city Edwin A. Dawes indicated as “Poletavarr.” He started working in Farroni's Circus as a wrestler, but became famous as “The Man They Cannot Hang” for the acts of escapology he managed to perform after an assistant had hung him. In 1903, however, one of his hanging performances failed in Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ..., and the accident nearly costed Clempert his life. He abandoned the hanging tricks and joined the Warren American Circus, touring India and the Middle East. Legal dispute with Houdini The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tower Of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new Norman ruling class. The castle was also used as a prison from 1100 (Ranulf Flambard) until 1952 ( Kray twins), although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion, mainly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = , founding_location = , type = Order of clerics regular of pontifical right (for men) , headquarters = Generalate:Borgo S. Spirito 4, 00195 Roma-Prati, Italy , coords = , region_served = Worldwide , num_members = 14,839 members (includes 10,721 priests) as of 2020 , leader_title = Motto , leader_name = la, Ad Majorem Dei GloriamEnglish: ''For the Greater Glory of God'' , leader_title2 = Superior General , leader_name2 = Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ , leader_title3 = Patron saints , leader_name3 = , leader_title4 = Ministry , leader_name4 = Missionary, educational, literary works , main_organ = La Civiltà Cattoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Bosco
John Melchior Bosco ( it, Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco; pms, Gioann Melchior Bòsch; 16 August 181531 January 1888), popularly known as Don Bosco , was an Italian Catholic priest, educator, writer and saint of the 19th century. While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the ill-effects of industrialization and urbanization, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the Salesian Preventive System. A follower of the spirituality and philosophy of Francis de Sales, Bosco was an ardent devotee of Mary, mother of Jesus, under the title Mary Help of Christians. He later dedicated his works to de Sales when he founded the Salesians of Don Bosco, based in Turin. Together with Maria Domenica Mazzarello, he founded the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, now commonly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
