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Frankie Stiletto (Photo by Danny Fulgencio)
The thought of sliding a sword down your throat, past your esophagus, is enough to make most people hurl. Rachael Williams — a.k.a Frankie Stiletto — felt the same way. That’s why she pushed herself to do it.
“I used to be afraid of everything,” she says. “I have a long history of anxiety of all sorts.”
Stiletto has made her career out of defying her fears. When she was tired of feeling claustrophobic, she learned how to escape a straight jacket.
“What kind of drives me is where oh, I’m scared of this thing, now I have to do it. It’s like a very quirky form of exposure therapy.”
So when the East Dallas resident was befriended by a sword swallower with more than 20 years experience, she knew something else she wanted to check off her bucket list.
The sword swallower lived in another state, so he ended up teaching her over the phone. Something she doesn’t recommend.
“I didn’t even ever meet him until last winter. It was really crazy going, ‘Nice to meet you. Thank you for teaching me how to swallow a sword over the phone.’ ”
Teaching yourself to swallow a sword is all about body awareness, she says. Stiletto taught herself a variety of breathing techniques before even touching a sword.
Muscle memory and body awareness has helped her in the past as well. Stiletto is just three years removed from a traumatic brain injury. The then pre-med student suffered from memory problems and vertigo. She also experienced seizures brought on by certain lighting.
Stiletto started experimenting with muscle memory by juggling, and it improved her cognitive abilities.
After that she was hooked.
When she finally did pick up her long, slender blade, she took a slow and steady approach, which seems like common sense, but isn’t always the approach early sword swallowers take.
“I’ve never gotten sick or hurt sword swallowing. A lot of people I know who also do sword swallowing have had a perforated esophagus,” she says. “People get hurt and die all the time. As much as I am a daredevil, you don’t want this big public stunt to be something you can only do one time.”
Stiletto learned how to sword swallow two years ago. She’s one of around 25 female performers in the world who can swallow a sword. Since learning her new skill, she’s performed just about anywhere she can, including circuses, stage shows and even sidewalks.
In April Stiletto made a name for herself by getting into the Guinness Book of World Records. She holds the record for fastest straitjacket escape while sword swallowing. She completed the feat in 47.925 seconds. While completing the task in that short amount of time is impressive, Stiletto also had to train someone to stick a real sword down her throat.
“That takes a level of trust I never thought I would have in my entire life,” she says.
Since then she’s been touring the country and performing on the street whenever she can. She wants to continue at least through October.
Performing on the street is a much tougher environment, she says, than performing on a stage.
“[A stage show has] an established audience. Most people don’t go in and buy tickets and hope that you fail. The street is very different,” she says. “To draw a crowd, to get the first people in a crowd is always a bit of a challenge. But it becomes second nature after a while. The unfortunate truth is in general, most people, they equate street performers with homeless.”
Because of that, many people walk past you trying to not make eye contact, like you’re handing out pamphlets at a mall kiosk.
But street performance shouldn’t be associated with homelessness, Stiletto says.
“It is a very valid way of making a living. I’ve been doing just performance for a year now. Unfortunately people tend to look down on it. That’s the hard part. Even though people want to see. They want to see what’s going to happen when I swallow a sword. That’s why sideshow exists.”
During her tour of the country, Stiletto found an area where street performance is embraced.
The Sunset Celebration in Key West, Fla. is a nightly arts festival at the Mallory Square Dock. The festival features a little bit of everything and brings in thousands of tourists every year.
An official nonprofit was established for the festival in the 1980s, but Stiletto says the festival is decades old at this point, and the street performers they attract are some of the best in the world.
Which can be intimidating for someone with just two years of sword swallowing experience. Which is why she went. “If you can perform at Mallory Square, you can perform anywhere.”
“They have regulars who have been busking [street performing] there for decades,” she says. “It’s very up close and personal, and if you’re not loud and you don’t stand out you will get passed by.”
Being passed by might have been something that worried Stiletto, or gave her anxiety in her former life. Not anymore.
“A lot of people feel more comfortable when they define themselves with fears. I basically do that, just in a completely different approach.”
