US UCLA Library Special Collections, A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575. Email: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu. Phone: (310) 825-4988
Description
Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds. Prince Ucon, Algerian Wonder Worker, The Man Who Defies Death, proclaimed himself to be the toughest prisoner the jail has ever had and proceeded to show the officers present by eating a series of old keys, bullets, sticking safety pins through his cheeks and shaving with a blowtorch. Following his thirty day conviction he proclaimed to the court, "Judge, do I have to eat that jail food that long or can I have some bolts occasionally - I'm liable to start chewing on the bars unless they give me my iron." While holding the blowtorch a few inches from his face Ucon opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue. Similar photograph appears with the article, "Razor Blade Menu Eaten," Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan 1936: A2. Handwritten on negative: Prince Ucon Text from negative sleeve: 3649 - Prince Ucon Algerian Showman arrested for vagrancy "toughest man in Lincoln Heights jail" (Fakir) (see others - #3460) [stamped:] Feb 13 1936
Type
image
Format
b&w nitrate negative
Identifier
uclamss_1429_12726 ark:/21198/zz002hmsh7
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Stunt performers--California--Lincoln Heights Prisoners--California--Lincoln Heights Tramps--American--California--Lincoln Heights Turbans--California--Lincoln Heights Metals Lincoln Heights Jail Ucon, Prince, b. 1894
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