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Daily Record
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Hypnotist cures people's fears of spiders and snakes at live event
Fraser Penman, known as 'Penman: The Imaginator' teamed up with indoor rainforest Amazonia. A Lanarkshire hypnotist and mind reader who was inspired by Derren Brown to launch a stage career has helped people to cure their fear of exotic spiders and snakes. Fraser Penman, from East Kilbride, delivers a unique brand of hypnosis, mind reading and comedy despite having impaired vision. The 30-year-old recently teamed up with Amazonia, Scotland's indoor rainforest that is home to a range of exotic creatures, to perform the unique one-off live event. Known as 'Penman: The Imaginator', he used innovative visualisation techniques to help members of the public to face their fears head on. After spending just a few minutes with them, Penman performed rapid, instant hypnosis inductions to help them handle a royal python called Eva and a Chile rose tarantula named Val – creatures they were convinced they could never face. The special event held at the Alona Hotel at M&D's Scotland's Theme Park, was one of a series of high-profile stunts that Penman will be doing around the country, ahead of his headline show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Lewis Thomson, 32, from East Kilbride, who had a fear of snakes, was so excited when his fear disappeared that he said he felt like 'Ace Ventura', the Jim Carey pet detective in the hit Hollywood film. He said: 'When I was hypnotised it was so calming, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. You become the best version of yourself, and it gives you a renewed sense of confidence. 'I thought snakes were horrible and the thought of even going near one filled me with dread. I can't believe I had one around my neck.' Wendy Gifford, Glasgow, 56, was unable to go even a few feet near the tarantula. However, after being hypnotised, she was brave enough to stroke the spider and now wants one as a pet. She said: 'I was aware something was going on when I was hypnotised, it was like being in my own wee world and all I could hear was Fraser's voice. 'Even small spiders made me terrified, they made my skin crawl. I was always that person who was never going to be hypnotised. But after spending just a few minutes with Fraser my fears gradually disappeared and I'm now considering having a spider, such as a Tarantula, as a pet.' Amazonia, based at Strathclyde Park, is a temperature-controlled tropical house, home to over 60 different species, including monkeys, parrots, snakes, frogs, tarantulas and scorpions. Penman said: 'Using unique psychological techniques, I wanted to share with others the gift I have of being able to transfer your mindset like I did for myself to make life-changing outcomes. 'What better way to demonstrate my ability than to take exotic creatures most people have a fear of and seeing their shift in mindset go from panic to calm while holding these beautiful animals? 'Your mind is like a computer and the techniques I use is like giving it an update, such as you no longer have a fear of spiders or snakes. 'I've been exploring a bold, unconventional approach - something rarely attempted before to eliminate fear almost instantly. Using rapid, hypnosis inductions to bypass the slow descent into a deep trance, I can access the subconscious mind almost immediately - faster and more directly than traditional methods allow. Amanda Gott, manager of Amazonia, said: 'I don't fancy being put to sleep myself. But it was amazing to watch Fraser's live performance, it's incredible that someone can be cured of their fears within just a few minutes. 'It was fascinating to see how calming Fraser was with those taking part and the sensitive way he dealt with the tarantula and royal python. Many people come to Amazonia with preconceptions that all the creatures here are scary and strange, but at our education sessions we try and combat that.' Penman's Fringe show at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh gives a revealing insight into how the coping mechanism he initially used to deal with his limited sight has heightened his other senses, allowing him to perform numerous breathtaking stunts. He was born with Oculocutaneous Albinism (OCA) - the most severe form of the condition. The congenital disorder affects just one in 20,000 people and means he lacks pigment in his skin, hair and eyes as well as having a visual impairment. Penman, who describes himself as a 'psychological influencer', has hypnotised Pop Star Callum Beattie, some of Scotland's top TikTok social media influencers and renowned Scottish comedian Gary Faulds. With more than 2.5 million views on TikTok, he is determined to change the perception of those with albinism, and hopes his Fringe stage show will act as an inspiration for people with the condition. Penman added: 'When I was training to be a primary teacher in my twenties I was inspired by Derren Brown's storytelling and showmanship, I must have watched a DVD about hypnosis a thousand times. Once I read a few books and looked into the neuroscience behind it I realised that I had the ability to hypnotise someone almost instantly. It was like having a superpower, I was blown away. 'I had a difficult childhood growing up with albinism, so having this gift has allowed me to turn around my life and chase my dreams of one day having my own residency at Vegas. 'Many people with albinism are confined to the house wearing dark glasses but I'm determined to change that perception. I want to inspire others to show they have more within them than they may realise.' For the past six years, Penman has been holding down two jobs while honing his craft with performances at venues around the UK. His new Fringe show is the first time it will be performed before audiences in Scotland. Penman said: 'The show takes the audience on an innovative journey through my life while delivering a Vegas-quality entertainment experience. If you think you've seen a hypnosis show, then think again. Expect summer anthems and countless moments of unbelievable, impossible possibilities live in front of your very eyes, with a very special message for the audience to take away to help inspire their own life." *Don't miss the latest headlines from around Lanarkshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
Boston Globe
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Mara Corday, Hollywood starlet of the 1950s, dies at 95
Advertisement She began acting and modeling, landing a contract with Universal-International and appearing in Playboy as one of the magazine's Playmates of the Month in October 1958. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up As an actress, both with Universal and later as a freelancer, Ms. Corday was known for her roles in sci-fi films that captured - in however outlandish and low-budget fashion - Cold War-era anxiety about societal destruction. Some of her films, perhaps in spite of themselves, became cult classics. In 'Tarantula' (1955), opposite John Agar, Ms. Corday ran from a gargantuan hirsute spider that had escaped from a desert laboratory. 'The Giant Claw' (1957) put her up against a monster bird flying at supersonic speed. (Ms. Corday was newly pregnant while filming the movie and did not reveal her condition to on-set colleagues for fear that she would not be permitted to keep the part.) Advertisement Also in 1957, she acted in 'The Black Scorpion,' another of her credits whose titles largely speak for themselves. Ms. Corday 'was regularly menaced by these bugs-from-hell,' a journalist for the Toronto Star wrote in 1994, recapping her career in a 'whatever happened to' column. 'And somehow, as she screamed, she always managed to put her head back and throw into profile a figure we assume was enhanced by those bras much beloved of '50s moviemakers.' Ms. Corday confessed that she outsourced to a stand-in some of the more stomach-turning moments of her horror films - she declined to touch mice and rats, for example - and conceded that many of her movies did not strive for film-festival sophistication. 'You're at the mercy of the 'fright,' the 'horror,' or whatever,' she remarked in an interview published in the book 'It Came From Horrorwood' by Tom Weaver. 'You're at the mercy of the special effects people, 'cause if they don't do a good job, then the whole picture goes in the toilet. For instance, 'The Giant Claw'!' Although she attracted more notice for her thriller fare, Ms. Corday also appeared prolifically in westerns, among them 'Drums Across the River' (1954) with Audie Murphy, 'The Man From Bitter Ridge' (1955) starring Lex Barker, with whom she said she had an offscreen romance, and 'Man Without a Star' (1955) featuring Kirk Douglas. Her favorite part, she said, was as an alluring young Frenchwoman in 'So This Is Paris' (1954), starring Tony Curtis, Gloria DeHaven, and Gene Nelson, about romance-minded sailors on leave in the City of Love. Ms. Corday curtailed her acting career after her marriage in 1957 to fellow actor Richard Long and the birth of their three children, making her last on-screen appearance in that phase of her career in 1961. Advertisement She told interviewers that her husband severely restricted her professional opportunities, turning down roles without her knowledge or consent and attempting to 'sabotage' her. 'I divorced him ten times the first year of our marriage, getting a lawyer and everything, and thirteen times the second year. He'd plead - literally on his hands and knees, 'Please forgive me, I don't know why I did it, give me another chance,'' she said in an interview published in the book 'Westerns Women' by Boyd Magers and Michael G. Fitzgerald. Ms. Corday added that she loved her husband and remained in love with him decades after his death in 1974. She credited Eastwood, who had been a fellow contract actor at Universal early in their professional lives, with reviving her career after she was widowed. 'When my insurance ran out, he put me in 'The Gauntlet,'' she recalled, referring to the 1977 action thriller. She continued: 'When it ran out again, he put me in 'Sudden Impact,'' released in 1983. She also appeared with Eastwood in 'Pink Cadillac' (1989) and 'The Rookie' (1990), her two final credits. Marilyn Joan Watts, the younger of two children, was born in Santa Monica, Calif., on Jan. 3, 1930. According to an online biography, her family moved frequently during the Depression until her father settled into work as a certified public accountant. A profile published in The Washington Post in 1955 reported that he ran a laundromat and that Corday's mother was a stenographer. Ms. Corday once said her mother had been a bootlegger. Advertisement Ms. Corday recalled whiling away entire days at the cinema, falling in love with movies. She was 17 when she was accepted as a showgirl at the Earl Carroll Theatre in Los Angeles and said that her mother forged a birth certificate to help her pass as 18 - and therefore eligible to perform. 'You go over there and see what you can do, or you're going back to school and study stenography and learn typing, and stop this wishful thinking,' she recalled her mother saying. Ms. Corday excelled in her performances and moved on to dancing engagements in Las Vegas and theatrical productions. Modeling opportunities helped raise her profile. She had her first credited movie role in the seafaring adventure 'Sea Tiger' (1952) and appeared the following year in 'Money From Home' with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. She had three children, Carey, Valerie, and Greg, but a complete list of survivors could not be confirmed. Efforts to reach her family were not immediately successful. Ms. Corday's friendship with Eastwood, whom she likened to a brother, dated to their appearance together in 'Tarantula,' in which she had second billing and he had a small uncredited part. Decades later, their respective levels of prominence reversed, Ms. Corday contributed to one of the most memorable scenes of Eastwood's career. In 'Sudden Impact,' she played the hostage whose life is on the line during the scene in which Eastwood utters his immortal words: 'Go ahead. Make my day.'
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
2025 Deaths Photo Gallery: Hollywood & Media Obituaries
RELATED: More from Deadline Marcel Ophuls Dies: 'The Sorrow And The Pity' Filmmaker Was 97 Sacha Jenkins Dies: Journalist Behind Wu-Tang Clan, 50 Cent & Louis Armstrong Docs Was 53 Mara Corday Dies: 'Tarantula' Cult Film Star & 'Playboy' Playmate Was 95 Best of Deadline 2024 Hollywood & Media Deaths: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Remembering Shelley Duvall: A Career In Photos Martin Mull's Film & TV Career In Photos
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sacha Jenkins Dies: Journalist Behind Wu-Tang Clan, 50 Cent & Louis Armstrong Docs Was 53
Sacha Jenkins, a hip-hop journalist and documentarian known for Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (2019) and Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues (2022), has died. He was 53. Deadline can confirm the Emmy nominee's death after his wife Raquel Cepeda asked fans to 'please respect our family's privacy during this difficult moment' as they prepare an official statement. More from Deadline 'Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues' Uses Never-Before-Heard Audio Tapes To Reveal Complicated Man Behind Affable Public Persona Maverick TV To Adapt Howard Bryant's Book 'The Heritage' As Docuseries With Sacha Jenkins Executive Producing Mara Corday Dies: 'Tarantula' Cult Film Star & 'Playboy' Playmate Was 95 Born August 22, 1971 in Philadelphia, Jenkins launched the graffiti zine Graphic Scenes & Xplicit Language in 1989, and the groundbreaking hip-hop newspaper Beat Down shortly after. He co-founded the hip-hop magazine Ego Trip in 1994, which also launched the VH1 reality series The (White) Rapper Show in 2007. As a documentary filmmaker, Jenkins spoke to Deadline when he made his directorial debut at Sundance Film Festival with the 2015 urban fashion exploration Fresh Dressed. 'It's so amazing how there's so much love and respect for storytelling,' he said of the Park City, Utah film festival. 'Before I did this, I was a journalist, so storytelling is extremely important. And to see the dedication and respect that storytellers get, for me it's almost overwhelming how much love and support I'm getting. I'm like, 'Woah, it's not even about me. It's about the story, but thank you!'' Jenkins also served as a writer and producer on such docs as Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (2019), Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James (2021), Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues (2022) and All Up in the Biz (2023). Jenkins is survived by wife Raquel, son Marceau and stepdaughter Djali Brown-Cepeda. Best of Deadline 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg Everything We Know About Amazon's 'Verity' Movie So Far Everything We Know About 'The Testaments,' Sequel Series To 'The Handmaid's Tale' So Far
BusinessToday
22-05-2025
- Automotive
- BusinessToday
LIMA '25: Mildef Forges Strategic Pact With Turkiye Firm For Tarantula 4x4 Tech Enhancement
In a significant step towards strengthening bilateral defence ties and advancing local military capabilities, Malaysia's Mildef International Technologies Sdn Bhd has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Turkish defence giant Aselsan AŞ to upgrade the Tarantula 4×4 armoured vehicle with cutting-edge technologies. The agreement, signed at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition, positions Mildef as the main contractor and platform provider, while Aselsan will contribute key defence technologies, including remote-controlled weapon systems, communication systems, electro-optical sensors and command and control systems. 'This collaboration enables both parties to jointly submit technical and commercial proposals to the Malaysian government, ensuring shared responsibilities, confidentiality, and regulatory compliance,' Mildef said in a statement. The partnership also aims to promote cost efficiency, enable technology transfer and strengthen Malaysia's defence industry by integrating global technological expertise with local innovation. By aligning local industrial strength with international innovation, the agreement reinforces Malaysia's defence self-reliance agenda and strengthens its position within the regional defence ecosystem, while paving the way for future technological advancements in combat vehicle capabilities. Related
