5 Magicians who died during their last trick.

Just saw this post by PPcorn dated 4/12/2015.

I must say, I haven’t researched this to see how many more magicians have died during their last trick.

I will make a point of researching this for the future though.

The magicians that died as per the PPcorn posting:

Gilbert Genesta: 1930, milk can escape- drowned, due to the can being dented, before he could escape.

Madame DeLinsky: Madame DeLinsky was a magician’s assistant who died tragically during a magic performance in 1820. She was part of a duo performing the “bullet catch” trick, where a performer is supposed to catch or avoid a bullet fired at them.

During the act, a live bullet was mistakenly loaded into one of the guns, and she was fatally shot in the abdomen. She survived for two days after the incident before succumbing to her injuries.

The accident occurred when a firing squad was set up to fire bullets at Madame DeLinsky and her husband, who were performing the trick. However, one of the soldiers got nervous and loaded a real bullet instead of a blank, leading to the fatal outcome.

Vivian Hensley: Vivian Hensley was a dentist from Brisbane, Australia who performed magic tricks as a hobby. In 1938, while showing his son a trick called “Swallowing the Rusty Razor Blade,” he accidentally swallowed a razor blade instead of palming it into his sleeve. Despite being rushed to the hospital and undergoing surgery, Hensley died four days later from his injuries.

Charles Rowen: strait jacket escape- done before a car can ride over him- unfortunately, car did ride over him and severed his leg. He died from infection a few days later. He was a South African magician, performing in Chicago, known as Karr the Magician. The essence of the trick was that he would escape from a straitjacket on the 10 to 15 seconds that a car was driving at him at 45mph. Unfortunately, he did not acccomplish the feat.

Joe Burrus: doing a buried alive in plastic coffin. Poured cement in, unfortunately, cement crushed the coffin and he died.

May they all rest in peace.

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Last updated on 2025-05-08