The Great Farini

Shane Peacock
Biographer, Novelist, Playwright, Journalist, Screenwriter
Author of The Great Farini - The High-Wire Life of William Hunt

Introduction

Our next Ontario Tales is about a man who time has all but forgotten. And yet, during his prime time he was likely one of the most impressive entertainment figures in the world! William Leonard Hunt, better known as The Great Farini, excelled in most everything he did! Fortunately, Farini has not completely been forgotten because of the wonderful autobiography by Canadian/Ontario author Shane Peacock in his book entitled “The Great Farini – The High Wire Life of William Hunt”. Mr. Peacock has generously allowed us to use some quotes from his book to tell this fantastic “Ontario Tale”! In Shane’s introduction he introduced us to William Leonard Hunt and The Great Farini with these words … “When I was a child my grandfather told me a wonderful story about a man who walked on a high wire over Niagara Falls. He told it as we sat on the sun-porch of our farm in the rolling hills of Hope Township in southern Ontario. It was the stirring legend of a country boy from just a few dirt roads away, and the unsinkable determination that pushed him to try his terrifying feat. My grandfather said that Farini Hunt, though forgotten by his countrymen, was one of the most extraordinary men who ever lived. He was absolutely right. But years later I discovered he knew less than half the story. He didn’t know that after Niagara, Farini had many more lives: in the palatial theatres of London, high in the air at Madison Square Garden and in the depths of the Kalahari Desert; Farini would be an inventor, an artist, a Svengali; he would be, as one amazed spectator called him, “the most versatile man in history.”

NOTE: Mr. Peacock has written several books. His latest series is about "The Boy Sherlock Holmes" This is a wonderful look at the legendary Sherlock Holmes, in the beginning! To learn more about Shane and all of his works, please visit his website at http://www.shanepeacock.ca
(To Be Continued)