Mark Lyons O--O Cuffs
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The Famous Fords ----- Don and Dot Ford King and Queen of Handcuffs Brother and sister act, The Famous Fords were performing in many countries and doing a Houdini style escape show with the milk can, packing crates, mail bags, strait jackets and they were billed as the Handcuff King and Queens.
Finding information about them is very futile since the search for the "Famous Fords "produces thousands of references to rare Ford automobiles and family members of the auto giant organization. Searching "King and Queen" and "handcuffs" also results in multitudes of unrelated material. The British monarchy and Houdini producing 95% search results.
Pretty much all I know or could find about the Famous Fords was from newspaper articles and advertisements. I have captured and saved as many photos as possible that I have seen in my many years of collecting. I am happy to share what info I have on them and wish I had more. If any of you have anything to add, I surely would welcome any contributions!
An eBay win for me last night is a picture postcard of the handcuff display that traveled around with the Famous Fords and placed at the theater entrance. I will present it here once it arrives.
Don Ford was billed separately in several articles, and I am not sure if he started out singly and was joined later by his sister, Dot OR if they performed together and she left the act to pursue the family life. In the below newspaper article, she fell ill around February 1908 and returned to her home in New Jersey to recover. There are no further accounts to find out if her illness was the cause of her retirement or if she was out of commission for only a short time.
The only timeframe that I could place them at was 1907 and 08. I never could find other dates of their Vaudeville appearances, but they must have started much earlier as they traveled the US and Europe regularly. This article states that the act made appearances in 27 different countries and escaped from over 890 handcuffs and shackles. An amazing feat that rivals Houdini's claim to fame. One has to wonder why the Fords are so obscure when their resume was so impressive!
Lost in history, is what became of their handcuff collection? Perhaps the items were acquired by other escape artists or collectors and sold off without their provenance.
Maybe some of us have some of these in our collection and will never know.
Some nice goodies on display! Who has them now?
Among the best picture I could find of Don Ford
As we like to say, If only they could talk!