Where Houdini left off...
Gallup's Extreme Escapes begin.
Extreme athlete, escape artist and daredevil, Robert Gallup has created
his own niche in the world of escape by pushing himself and his art
to the extreme. With movie star good looks and a rock and roll attitude,
this modern day Houdini constantly pushes the envelope of death-defying
escape both on and off stage.
In his live touring show, Gallup challenges the Pyre of Death
nightly by shackling himself to a steel bed where fifty flaming spikes
are suspended precariously above him. Once the rope that suspends the
spikes are set on fire he has only seconds to free himself before becoming
a human shish kabob. The addicted daredevil explains, "I get a
real adrenaline rush every time I attempt this escape as there is always
a very real possibility of catastrophe."
In the spirit of his mentor, Harry Houdini, Gallup also often accepts
death-defying escape challenges while touring internationally. Recently
in Australia he was challenged by the Victoria Police to replicate Houdinis
near fatal underwater Queen
St. Bridge Jump Escape. From the very same bridge, almost
ninety years to the day, Gallup was handcuffed, arm manacled, leg chained
and thrown into the frigid river below. Surviving that, the popular
Australian television show, "Who Dares Wins", challenged Gallup
to the Rialto Tower Hang
and Burn Escape where he was straight jacketed and suspended
upside-down by a burning rope from the top of the tallest building in
the southern hemisphere. As Gallup bluntly puts it, "When the consequence
of a mistake is plummeting headfirst one thousand feet to the pavement
below, you do your best not make any!"
"With my childhood fascination of Houdini, extreme escapes was
a natural evolution of combining the unique physical dynamics of my
stage show with my extreme activities and sports of my personal life",
explains Robert. "Even as a kid when a made a parachute out of
my parents bed sheets and clothesline and jumped off the second story
roof, Ive always pushed the envelope of thrills, and sensibility."
So it was no surprise that Gallups first extreme escape, the Skydive
Chain Escape, had him handcuffed, chained, locked, and thrown
out of a plane at 13,000 feet! "Fortunately, once I freed myself
I had a little more than just bed sheets and clothesline to break my
fall."
Later, as the live finalé to his first FOX Network television
special, Gallup barely pulled off one of the most insane death-defying
escapes ever attempted in the history of escape, the Challenge
of the Death Dive. Handcuffed and leg manacled, Gallup was
stuffed, chained and padlocked inside of a mail bag, chained and locked
inside of an eight-foot square jail cell, and thrown out of a C-123
transport plane 18,000 feet above the Mojave desert, and this time without
a parachute on. Plummeting to earth at 150 miles an hour he had less
that a minute to free himself from his restraints and retrieve his parachute
that was attached to the outside of the cell! A close call for
Gallup but a huge ratings success for FOX as Gallup
Extreme Magic: Challenge of the Death Dive won all of its
key demographics in its prime-time slot and further entrenched Gallup
as a world wide preeminent leader in magic, illusion and escape.
Today, having been featured in over 200 television shows internationally,
including a half-dozen of his own highly rated network specials, Robert
splits his time between performing his highly successful live international
touring show, and creating and producing new extreme magic, illusions
and escapes. Gallups eyes dance with excitement as he discusses his
next greatest death-defying escape challenges, and mocks
the risks involved. "O.K., so maybe I occasionally cut it a little
close, but if the consequence of failure isnt death... then its just
not fun!" And then admitting with a smirk, "Lets face it,
a lot of my stunts are like car races, half the people come to cheer
me to the finish line, and the other half show up to see if todays the
day I crash and burn."
A far cry from his childhood rooftop "skydive", but Robert
is most content when pushing himself and the paradigm of magic and escape
to new extremes. As he says with a grin, "Hey, whats the worst
that can happen I end up hangn with Houdini and doing card tricks for
Elvis!?"
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