Romark

Romark was born on July 31, 1926 in England as Ronald Markham. Romark was a fascinating hypno-therapist and in 1971 he allegedly hypnotised an audience of smokers and 1000 of them gave up smoking. Among some of his more colourful encounters is the curse he reputedly placed on the Crystal Palace football team and an attempt to hypnotise Muhummad Ali into losing to Yorkshire boxer Richard Dunn in 1976. He is reputedly the first man to "die'" on stage by hanging for nearly four minutes before bringing himself to life again. He holds five records in the Guiness Book of Records for the longest-running one-man show. Romark is also infamous for attempting to prove his psychic powers by driving a car blindfolded which resulted in a collision with a police car. He was also an actor, appearing in Mannix (1967), Flip (1970) and The Merv Griffin Show (1962). Romark died of a stroke in December 1982 in Torbay, Devon, England, not long after being released from prison where he served a 4 and a half month stretch for embezzling cash from his mother while she was ill in hospital.