TRAGIC EXITS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 49, 19 August 1911, Page 7

TRAGIC EXITS

The Great Lafayette's name will always be held in honour. He deliberately went back in to the flames at the Empire Palace Music Hall (Edinburgh) to rescue his horse and died in the attempt. Too often tragedy lurks beneath the laughter of music hall audiences. One night in November, 1907, a full house was watching with delight the exquisite dancing of Mile, de la Papimtada on the Stage of the Apollo, at Berlin. La Papimtada was the star of the variety programme, and every time she appeared she fascinated the audience by her beauty and grace. Just as she was executing the last rapid steps of her performance, which had lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour, she sank slowly to the stage with a low cry.

The audience, thinking it all part of the performance, applauded rapturously. The curtain fell. A moment later the manager stepped out to the front. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said solemnly, 'Mdlle. de la Papimtada. is dead! I will ask you to disperse quietly.' Part of the turn of Daniel Lambert, a wrestler and gymnast, who was performing some years ago at the Rochdale Theatre of Varieties, was to go through a performance of hanging, taking a drop of no less than fifteen feet. The audience (lately refused to believe that this part of the show was genuine, and Lambert was roundly hissed. But on the fifth night the audience had its suspicions removed in a tragic manner. Lambert began his performance but failed to catch the noose as usual, and it became fast at the back of his ear. He hung for a few seconds, and when the cord was loosened, fell a limp heap to he stage. He was apparently dead, but beinng hurried off to the infirmary, he was pulled round. But he was suffering from concussion of the spinal-cord, and was paralysed. There is more than one case on record of a music-hall performer being shot dead in full view of the audience. One swell occurred at the Middlesex Music Hall two years ago. 'Clementine, the Rifle-shooting expert, was doing a William Tell act, "in which she shot at glass ;l*alls balanced on the head and outstretched arms of her assistant. She had successfully shot away the balls on the man's arm"; then she aimed at the one on his head. With the crack of her rifle the man tumbled over with a crash, and a shriek of alarm arose from the audience. He had been shot right through the head, and died a few hours later.

What is probably the most sensational incident ever seen on the stage occurred in August, 1908, at the theatre of Volsk, in Russia. Some months earlier, a young man of independent means named Ivan Kuznetsoff had fallen madlv in love with Madine Rostoff, a girl employed as a dancer at the local theatre. They became engaged, and the wedding-day had been fixed when the girl wrote to Ivan and told him that they were not suited to one another, and that each ought to marry in their own station. She herself had decided' to marry the juggler in the show.

Kuznetsoff disappeared without a word, and early in August Nadine married the man of her choice. On the night of August 12th, she and her husband were performing together, when suddenly a young man bounded out of the audience with a pistol in his hand, and rushed upon the stage. It was Zuznetsoff. and before anyone could raise a a hand to stop him', he had fired three shots, killing his rival and his bride on the spot. He then threw the pistol down and surrendered to the police. Cabin, the originator of the "Death Leap" was a very well-known French music-hall performer. His end was a most sensational one. The "Death Leap" consisted in leaping from a roof a hundred feet high to an inclined, smoothlyplaned wooden shaft. From this be shot safely to a not at the foot. Ho bad to time bis jump so that his .body bit the shaft at a proper angle, mid thoroughly understood that mistake spelt death. The mistake occurred at the 4ofl performance which he gave at the Circus Busch, in Berlin.

Five thousand spectators saw him miss the slope, and, striking the upper end o,f the shaft with his chest, fall to the floor with almost every bone in his body smashed.