Cutting Edge Entertainment

Olga Sharpinova, a Russian immigrant, was a popular vaudevillian who performed two different acts each night. Her first performance was juggling knives which left the audience on the edge of their seats. It was her second act, hiccuping the Star Spangled Banner, which brought down the house.

One night, referred in the annals of vaudeville history as "Bloody Sunday," Olga involuntarily started hiccuping while juggling. The knives rained down on her body, even nicking the juggler in the jugular. Luckily there was a physician in the audience who saved her life by applying tourniquets to her wounds that he fashioned from the stage curtains.

She continued performing for a short time after the accident, but eventually quit to marry the doctor who saved her life. Years later, she wrote a bestselling memoir, "Life is Wounderful."