Otto was born 21 May
1929 in small town of Rėzgaliai. He arrived on the ship Goya, 26 May 1950. He worked as a cabinet maker in Adelaide before becoming a professional sword-swallower and fire eater.
While living in a DP camp
in Hamburg, he began a correspondence course.
The books didn’t tell him about sword-swallowing, so he threw them away
and began to teach himself. He also
began learning fire eating the same way but finished teaching himself. It took him two years before he was able to
push a sword down his mouth without feeling nauseous.
He
was the star attraction in live entertainment shows in hotels in Sydney. He used to swallow 27-inch swords until a
doctor told him the points were bumping the pit of his stomach. He reduced the swords to 24 inches. He would
get a sore throat after swallowing swords a dozen times a week. He wouldn’t
swallow a sword after a heavy meal, as it might make him sick. One also cannot move once the sword is down. For
a change he would swallow 4000-volt lit neon tubes, which could be seen through
his chest.
He
was a fakir, magician, fire-eater, hot coal eater, sword swallower, neon tube
swallower, and collector and manufacturer of magic apparatus. Butkus performed a show called 100 Minutes
China Fantasy where he performed in flashy Asian costumes, ate fire and hot
coals with chopsticks, swallowed a Tai Chi sword and neon tubes.
With
a lighted glass neon tube filled with gas and charged with 3,000 volts; his
audience sat perspiring. In his act, he not
only swallowed a sword, but razor blades, and fire. Butkus confessed that swallowing the neon
tube was his most complicated act.
Butkus died in Sydney Australia, on 30 January 2008, and is buried
in Macquarie
Park Cemetery.
Daily
Telegraph, Sunday 10 October 1954, page 13
Images
from State Library of Victoria and State Library of New South Wales
http://www.swordswallow.com/halloffame.php
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