There is always the biggest kind of risk that some dog will `job’ you. Magician Harry Keller dissuaded him: “Now, my dear boy, this is advice from the heart, DON’T TRY THE D-N Bullet Catching…no matter how sure you may feel of its success. Robinson) was tragically killed while performing the catch in 1918 England, Houdini announced he’d add it to his act. To date, at least 20 performers have died attempting it. The first, in 1897, was Adelaide Hermann who inherited the trick from her deceased magician husband. Mentored by magician/inventor Jack London, Dorothy was also only the second woman in history to do The Bullet Catch in which a marksman shoots a bullet – generally initialed by a volunteer – directly at a magician who somehow catches it. It was not the only time she accomplished a feat no woman had attempted before. I stood up and executed it gracefully.” Again, not enough for agents/audiences. “Houdini fell down, struggled with exaggeration, rolled round – it was rough and tumble, too ugly for a female. Instead of having an assistant restrain her, she asked policemen or volunteer audience members. Her jackets, bought at auctions or mail ordered from the likes of Humane Restraint Company, have always been early models rather than the wide-necked ones magicians tend to use. Handcuffed and tied to a chair with 100 feet of rope, even shut in a barrel, didn’t seem like enough. Dorothy began to end her act by being buckled into and escaping from a straitjacket. “I wanted to do things Houdini did, to be the bravest person in the room,” said Dorothy Dietrich. “The easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure, will mean sudden death.” Harry Houdini
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