Michael Costello, aka the Amazing Blondini (1922-1996)
Michael Costello, fairground performer and escapologist, was born at a fairground in Dublin in August 1922; both his parents were fairground novelty acts from Tralee, his father a strongman and his mother a fortune teller. He had no formal education and spent his formative years on the fairgrounds of Ireland and England. At 13 he left his family and began his career as the worlds youngest sword-swallower. Two years later he added fire-eating to his act. However, after his sister fell to her death during her trapeze act, he left the fairgrounds and spent many years as a drifter, mostly around Dublin.
In 1939 Costello moved to London and worked for a time with a quack, selling health potions. With the onset of the second World War he joined the British army as an infantryman. After the war he returned to the business of entertaining. He became an escapologist, learned the art of self-hypnosis, developed into a strongman and was also an explosives expert. His stunts included lying on a bed of nails and inviting people to walk on him, pulling a Rolls-Royce with his teeth and lying in a coffin filled with explosives and blowing it up.
He toured the world under the name the Amazing Blondini, and his death-defying stunts attracted audiences of more than 10,000 people. He was constantly inventing new stunts and acts: at Bellevue fairground in Manchester in 1975 he was buried alive for 78 days. His acts were not illusions, and on one occasion he was badly burned after his exploding coffin trick went wrong; however, he continued to perform the trick well into his 60th year.
Described as "one of the worlds greatest circus performers", Costello appeared in fairgrounds and theatres in Asia, the US, South Africa and Europe. He also worked as a film stuntman for actors such as Alan Ladd and Victor Mature and appeared on many British television shows, including The Billy Cotton Band Show, Sunday Night at the London Palladiumand The Russell Harty Show.
Costello died on November 20th 1996 in Wicklow and is buried in Greystones. He had been visiting his friend and biographer Gordon Thomas and was thinking of retiring to Ireland. He was survived by his common-law wife, Sally.
Adapted from the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography. See dlb.ie
