Impalement Arts - Noted Impalement Artists - Knife Throwing

Knife Throwing

• Sylvester and Barbara Braun - This husband and wife began performing their "Wizards of the West" act in the early 1940s. Sixty years later they were honoured by the International Knifethrowers Hall of Fame with the "Knife Throwing Pioneer Award" and the title "Wild West Duo of the 20th Century".
• The Brumbachs/Los Alamos - A renowned German family act now in its second generation. They began with Fritz Brumbach as thrower and his wife Helga as target girl. Later daughter Sylvia joined the act as a second target girl and then son Patrick became a thrower. They have made many television appearances. Fritz appeared on Circus of the Stars in 1986 with Britt Ekland as his target girl. Fritz and Helga have since retired but Patrick and Sylvia continue the act. Fritz is a Guinness World Record holder for rapid throwing around a live target.
• Larry Cisewski - Cisewski has made numerous film and television appearances. He provided knife throwing skills for the film The Fan. His television work includes The Merv Griffin Show, Real People, The Dick Clark Special, and a performance on the December 1981 edition of Circus of the Stars with actress Sally Kellerman as his target girl. He is also noted for developing the "Devil's door" rotating target stunt.
• Steve Clemente - Clemente was a Mexican actor known for playing villains in movies and serials in the 1930s. Clemente developed a passion for knife throwing when he was a child. This skill later helped win him acting and stunt work in Hollywood and he was trusted to throw knives around movie stars. He appeared in more than 60 movies and threw knives in about ten of them, including The Sideshow (1928), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), The Gallant Fool (1933), Fighting Through (1934), Under Two Flags (1936), Mad Youth (1940), Sing Your Worries Away (1942), and Perils of Nyoka (1942).
• Elizabeth and Collins - Hungarian thrower Martin Collins had travelled Europe as a circus performer in the 1930s. He met and married Elizabeth around the time of the outbreak of World War 2 after spotting her as a potential performing partner. They spent the war years in neutral Sweden and later settled in Britain. Collins developed a signature trick that involved doing the wheel of death stunt while he balanced on a tightrope. Their act took them to nightclubs and vaudeville theaters around the world and they were one of the first impalement acts to break into television. Elizabeth retired from performing in the early 1960s and was replaced by their daughter who was also named Elizabeth (although additionally known as Agnes). Elizabeth and Collins performed on The Ed Sullivan Show three times and appeared as themselves in an episode of the 1960s spy series The Avengers.
• Joe "Brokenfeather" Darrah - Joseph Darrah was born in 1957 and began throwing knives at the age of five under the tuition of his father, an ex-Ranger. At 19 he was hired by a traveling circus as a knife thrower and bullwhip artist. He later became a highly successful tournament thrower.
• Jack Dagger - Dagger is the knife throwing stage persona of Todd Abrams, who styles himself as "The King of Fling". His signature stunt is cutting a cucumber or similar vegetable held on his assistant's arm. Abrams is also an actor, whip artist, and juggler and performed as Adam Sandler's "stunt hands" in the motion picture You Don't Mess with the Zohan. He was inducted into the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame in 2005 as "Impalement Artist of the Year" and was honoured as "National Knife Throwing Performer of the Year" in 2006.
• The Denvers - The Denvers are the first knife throwing act ever to appear on television. They were chosen as one of a number of variety acts to appear in test broadcasts from the pioneering BBC studio at Alexandra Palace in London prior to the second world war. Their first documented appearance was in a test transmission on 24 October 1936. They also appeared in a programme transmitted in 1946 following the post-war resumption of broadcasts. A film record of the 1946 performance exists and there is a recording of a radio broadcast made at the time of their 1936 performance.
• Paul "Judge" Desmuke - Born in 1876, Desmuke was a sideshow performer, justice of the peace and occasional actor who was remarkable for the fact that he had no arms. Desmuke gained his nickname Judge because he became a justice of the peace in Jourdanton, Texas. He later learned to throw knives and worked with the A. G. Barnes Circus and Sideshow and with Zack Miller's Wild West Show. He worked as a double for Lon Chaney in the 1927 silent film The Unknown, in which Chaney played an armless knife thrower. Desmuke married a woman named Mae Dixon in 1926 and she worked with him as his target girl in an impalement act which featured in the Ripley's Odditorium at the "Century of Progress" International Exposition in Chicago in 1933. He is sometimes credited as Peter Dismuki. Desmuke died in 1949.
• The Gibsons - Joe and Hannah Gibson came originally from Germany but later performed in the United States and have been credited with bringing the wheel of death stunt to America. They featured in Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's shows at Madison Square Garden in 1938.
• Caroline Haerdi - Haerdi a Swiss knife thrower who stands out as a woman in a trade that seems to be almost exclusively male. In the past she performed under the name Risk Ladies with a target girl called Claude Chantal Blanc, who is an experienced aerial and tight wire artist. Caroline Haerdi currently works in partnership with a male thrower named Arno Black; she as the thrower and he as the target.
• Dick Haines - Haines began throwing knives at an early age and became part of The Haines Family Circus. The show included high wire, a magic act, fire eating, and whips, as well as knife throwing. He has taught a number of other noted throwers.
• Jayde Hanson - Hanson is a British knifethrower who achieved a degree of notoriety as a result of a number of incidents in which he injured his partner Yana Rodionova during performances. Those incidents included an accident in which a knife struck Miss Rodionova in the head while the couple were attempting a world record feat live on the ITV This Morning television programme in April 2003. The couple work with the Cottle and Austen Circus and on a number of occasions the circus achieved significant media coverage by advertising for a replacement target girl because Yana was supposedly quitting the act. However, she continued to work with Hanson and the couple were married in 2004.
• Jonny King - A Dutch thrower who specialised in cabaret work. Among other things he is notable for working with German artist Timm Ulrichs to create a performance video piece titled Messerwurf-Porträt 1978/91. King is also noted for stunts in which he planted knives particularly close to and even touching his assistants, a skill he demonstrated on the final episode of the UK television show The Secret Cabaret in 1992.
• Paul Lacross - Paul LaCross was billed as the "World's Fastest, Fanciest Gunslinger, Knife and Tomahawk Thrower." His interest in throwing and sharp shooting began in the Boy Scouts and he became set on a performing career after seeing a cowboy demonstrating skills with guns and knives at a sportsmen's show. His television credits include The Merv Griffin Show, Thrill Seekers with Chuck Connors, The Mike Douglas Show, What's My Line, To Tell The Truth, and an appearance on Circus of the Stars in 1983, in which movie actress Linda Blair was his target girl. He performed at Carnegie Hall in New York and Massy Hall in Toronto, Canada. His major foreign performances included a tour of Russia with the United States Circus under the Cultural Exchange Program, Expo 70 in Japan and the 1977 Auckland, New Zealand Easter show. He was also known for writing and other activity encouraging others to take up throwing. He died in August 1993 at the age of 78.
• Harry Munroe - Munroe is best known as a maker of throwing knives used by other noted performers. As a thrower he has performed alongside The Great Throwdini as well as with his own act, Xtreme Behaviour. In 2005 he was honoured by the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame as "International Knife Maker of the Year".
• Texas Slim and Montana Nell - These were the performing aliases of Robert and Pearl Collins. Robert Collins began performing as a knifethrower around 1900 and by 1910 was working for Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. He married Pearl, a skilled horse rider, in 1929 and they formed a travelling act featuring a selection of western arts. They retired in 1950. They were posthumously honoured by the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame in 2006.
• The Great Throwdini (aka Rev Dr David Adamovich) - Adamovich started throwing later in life than many other top performers, following multiple careers that included exercise physiology, pool hall management and ordained minister. He is noted for fast throwing and for reviving the impalement arts amid the modern burlesque and cabaret scene in New York. He holds a number of world records. Together with target girl Tina Nagy he appeared in the 2007 series of the NBC television show America's Got Talent, succeeding in the first round but dropping out before the final. Other television appearances include Late Night with Conan O'Brien and NBC's Guinness World Records Live: The Top 100. He is a co-author of one of the few books on the subject of the impalement arts.
• Two Tornados Irene and Rolf Stey are members of an old Swiss circus family who did a knife act between 1965 and 1985 and made various television appearances, including a performance at the International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo. They are one of only two acts other than Elizabeth and Collins to have done the simultaneous combination of throwing from a tightrope and the wheel of death.
• George "Skeeter" Vaughan (aka Grey Otter) - Vaughan was a Cherokee who served in the US Army in the second world war and worked at various times as a lumberjack, Hollywood stunt man and impalement artist. He made numerous national television appearances including Truth or Consequences, Thrillseekers, a minor role in Magnum, P.I. and performances on Circus of the Stars in 1977 with actress Ann Turkel as his target girl and again in 1979 with Charlene Tilton braving the knives. He died in 1989 and was posthumously honoured by the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame in 2006.
• Che Che Whitecloud (aka Kenneth Lawrence Pierce) - Whitecloud is a native American whose father Lawrence Pierce (aka Chief Whitecloud) and great-grandfather Willett Pierce were also knife throwers. Che Che is noted among his peers for his ability to throw knives rapidly one after another. In 2004 he was honoured by the International Knife Throwers' Hall of Fame as the "Outstanding Knife Thrower of the 20th Century".
• Sandra and Tommy Thompson - The Thompsons had a "Wheel of Death" act with many circuses, including Hagen Brothers, Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers, and King Brothers. Tommy was also a sword swallower who is in the Sword Swallowers Hall of Fame. Sandra was stuck twice during their career; once in the thigh and once in the ear. When she was stuck in the ear, six women in the audience fainted. The next night their performance was to standing room only.
• The Great Cindini (aka Cynthia Morrison) performs in her sideshow "Lethal Injection" at festivals, fairs and theatres. She was inspired to become a knife thrower by her mentor the Great Throwdini. She was an extra in the 1981 movie Body Heat and has also been directed in plays by actor Burt Reynolds. She was featured as the Knife Thrower in the independent film The Big Top (2009), which had its premier at the historic Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, Florida.
• Lash and Steel - Lash and Steels are a knife throwing and whip cracking act consisting of American Baptist evangelist John Bailey and his wife Monika. Bailey has won numerous titles in knife throwing competitions and has also set world records. He is president and founder of the World Knife Throwers Guild Inc., a board member of the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame and a charter member of the American Knife Throwers Association. He also designs throwing knives and other types of implements for the Boker company in Germany.