Dorothy Dietrich

Dorothy Dietrich is an American stage magician and escapologist, and the first and only woman to have performed the bullet catch in her mouth. She was also the first woman to perform a straitjacket escape while suspended hundreds of feet in the air from a burning rope (as shown on a Home Box Office Special). She is the first woman to gain prominence as a female escape artist since the days of Houdini, breaking the glass ceiling for women in the field of escapes. She has been named as one of the top four escape artists in history. The 2006 Columbia Encyclopedia included Dietrich among their "eight most noted magicians of the late 20th century", and entertainment writer Samantha Hart in her definitive book "The Hollywood Walk of Fame" called her a "world-class magician" and "one of the world's leading female magicians". Early on as a teenager she already was dubbed as "The First Lady of Magic." Dietrich, often called the female Houdini, has duplicated many of Houdini's original escapes, and has gone one step further by doing the Jinxed Bullet Catch Stunt — the one that Houdini backed away from.