Lower the curtain.” At his autopsy it was discovered that he was not Chinese, but an American named William Robinson. When his final performance of the trick went wrong, and he was accidentally shot in the chest, he exclaimed in perfect English, “Oh my God. In his later years, Houdini campaigned against mediums, mind readers, fakirs, and others who claimed supernatural talents but depended on tricks. Blaine had a metal cup in his mouth in which the bullet was caught.Ĭhung Ling Soo, the most famous person to die while doing the trick, always performed silently because he apparently spoke no English. Bialla wore steel dentures and steel gloves to form a funnel into his mouth. However you may be surprised to learn that there are a couple magicians who have (as far as we can tell) actually done the stunt for real! The first is German performer Ralf Bialla, who memorably performed it on Wild World of Sports, and more recently, David Blaine.
Magicians are very clever, and you won’t be surprised to learn that there are a variety of ways that a stunt like this can be faked. 357 Magnums outfitted with laser sights and fire through panes of glass to prove the guns were actually fired. That is they fire marked bullets at each other simultaneously and catch them in their teeth simultaneously. Many think the best performance of the trick is done by Penn & Teller. Like all tricks, the specifics of the performances and the methods used vary from performer to performer and change over time. The trick goes back to the early 1800s, and is possibly older than that-although the earliest descriptions might be fictional. Houdini once announced he would perform the feat, but later decided it was too risky and never went through with it. Chanchal Lahiri, also known as Jadugar Mandrake, was tied up with ropes and steel chains for a magic trick and was lowered into the river on Sunday while his friends and family watched from the river bank. There is a book about the trick called Twelve Have Died, although in truth we don’t really know how many lives it has claimed. The body of an Indian magician who drowned when his Houdini-like escape stunt went wrong has been recovered from the River Ganges.
The trick is called “The Bullet Catch” and as you can probably guess from the name, it’s a trick in which a gun is fired at the magician and he catches the bullet-most often between his teeth, however it has sometimes been caught on a plate, in the hand, in a handkerchief, apple, bottle, or on the point of a sword.
“Death by Misadventure” was the coroner’s conclusion after Chung Ling Soo died onstage at the Wood Green Empire in London on Maperforming what is certainly the world’s most dangerous trick.