Peters, Aloys | A deadly daredevil act

Peters, Aloys

Sells-Floto Circus Presents The Great Peters the Man with the Iron Neck. … First Time in America. Chicago: Litho. Co., ca. 1931

Color lithograph poster (40 x 27 in.; 1018 x 688 mm). Some creases and light stains, a bit of marginal restoration. Framed and glazed with Plexiglas.

The Great Peters developed his act with the Strassburger Circus in Berlin before touring the United States with the Sells-Floto Circus starting about 1930. This poster, introducing the act to American audiences, claimed that Peters "drops 75 feet through space with his head in a hangman's noose!" Ricky Jay revealed that "the rope covered a layer of special elastic" that would break his fall a few feet from the ground. The elastic did not remove all danger from the act, however: "For more than a decade, Peters shocked and thrilled audiences with his unusual act. Appearing with the the Sells-Floto Circus in St. Louis on October 22, 1943, he was killed when the rope gave way and he plummeted to his death" (LP&FW, p. 154). 

REFERENCE:

Circus, pp. 524–25; LP&FW, pp. 152–54 & color plate