Jim Steinmeyer Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Epigraph

  ONE - “A BIT OF FUN”

  TWO - “CREATION”

  THREE - “THE MOTH AND THE FLAME”

  FOUR - “THE MYSTIC FOLLIES”

  FIVE - “DISINTEGRATION OF A PERSON”

  SIX - “THE APPOINTMENT”

  SEVEN - “THE MAGICIAN’S ASSISTANT”

  EIGHT - “ORIGINAL CARD PASSES”

  NINE - “THE REVERSED GIRL”

  TEN - “A STREET SCENE FROM THE ORIENT”

  ELEVEN - “THE LEVITATION OF PRINCESS KARNAC”

  TWELVE - “MAGICIANS PAST AND PRESENT”

  THIRTEEN - “DO THE SPIRITS RETURN?”

  FOURTEEN - “THE PIERCING ARROW”

  FIFTEEN - “BIRDS OF THE AIR”

  SIXTEEN - “THE GIRL AND THE RABBIT”

  SEVENTEEN - “SAWING A WOMAN IN HALF”

  EIGHTEEN - “FIRE AND WATER”

  NINETEEN - “CHUNDRA, WHO IS BURIED ALIVE”

  TWENTY - “MISS JANE THURSTON (SHE TAKES AFTER HER DAD)”

  TWENTY-ONE - “SHADOW PEOPLE”

  TWENTY-TWO - “SEEING THROUGH A WOMAN”

  TWENTY-THREE - “FINALE: THE TRIPLE MYSTERY”

  TWENTY-FOUR - “THE FLIGHT OF TIME”

  Acknowledgements

  INDEX

  JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England

  Copyright © 2011 by Jim Steinmeyer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Steinmeyer, Jim.

  The last greatest magician in the world :

  Howard Thurston versus Houdini & the battles of the American wizards / Jim Steinmeyer.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-48634-4

  1. Thurston, Howard, 1869-1936. 2. Houdini, Harry, 1874-1926. 3. Magicians—United States—Biography.

  4. Magic—United States—History. I. Title.

  GV1545.T5S

  793.8092’2—dc22

  [B]

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  INTRODUCTION

  “I WOULDN’T DECEIVE YOU …”

  Every work of art is a mystery. That’s the difference between a crudely painted portrait—which is too honest and functional to intrigue us—and the Mona Lisa, which gives and conceals at the same time. The mystery provides a peculiar and distinctive thrill. We return to puzzle over the subject, her sanguine features, or the astonishing techniques used by the artist to so perfectly capture a brief moment of changing expression. We concoct stories to explain this layered puzzle. It initially attracts on an emotional level, and then continually challenges on an intellectual level.

  Every performance is a magic show. The audience trusts the magician—depending on the performance, they might use the term actor, comedian, or playwright—who uses equal doses of deception and honesty to lure us through a transparent fantasy, and then engage us, bemuse us by the unexpected plausibility of it all, and ultimately delight us with a genuine surprise. If a magic show today seems old-fashioned or unnecessary, that’s because so many of its essential elements have been purloined by other forms of entertainment. The wires, trapdoors, and artful exaggerations, which were once the specialty of magicians like Howard Thurston, the subject of this book, have been integrated into much of our storytelling.

  I suppose this is a shame, for a good magic show, experienced in person, is uniquely, elementally entertaining. It encapsulates the experience of wonder and exploits our need for unadulterated fantasy. Modern audiences like to tell themselves that fashions have changed, or that unadorned marvels—magic for magic’s sake—are out-of-date or unsophisticated. Yet audiences have developed a taste for songs that further a story (a Broadway musical), as well as songs that are presented for their own sake (a performer in concert).

  It is the public’s fickleness with their magicians that has left Howard Thurston all but forgotten today. His story is one of the most remarkable in show business. During his life, from 1869 to 1936, he successfully navigated the most dramatic changes in entertainment—from street performances to sideshows to wagon tours through America’s western territories. He became one of the world’s most renowned vaudeville stars, boldly performing an act with just a handful of playing cards, and then had the sense to leave vaudeville, expanding his show into an extravaganza with over forty tons of apparatus and costumes. His touring production was an American institution for nearly thirty years, and Thurston earned a brand name equal to Barnum, Ziegfeld, George M. Cohan, and Ringling Brothers.

  Most remarkably, Howard Thurston was Houdini’s chief rival during the first decades of the 1900s, and Thurston won. He won with a bigger show, a more successful reputation, and the title of America’s greatest magician. Today Houdini may have earned legendary status for his daredevil feats. But Howard Thurston was the public’s favorite. After generations of “greats,” there’s no question that Thurston was the last, greatest magician in the world. His ultimate struggle was with an economic depression and competition from Hollywood films, a very different kind of magic. That’s when everything changed. After Hollywood, there was no longer any need for the great magicians of the past.

  For anyone who has ever watched a magic show and dared to ask “How is it done?” I hope that I’m able to provide a few answers. In return, Howard Thurston presents an intriguing mystery to the reader: “Why was it done?”

  INVARIABLY, at the start of the twenty-first century we perceive a magic show as old-fashioned because we imagine the common cliché of such a performance, evoking the dusty traditions of vaudeville, the bright footlights, and the rat-a-tat style of one indistinguishable performer after another
. We might imagine these vaudeville magicians as they often appear in comic books, anonymous miracle workers flapping a cape and attempting to impress us by sheer force of their deceptions.

  Of course, it was never really like this. By today’s standards—television standards—vaudeville performers were given extravagant amounts of time onstage, between ten and twenty minutes for an individual act. They chatted to the audience and were highly valued for their personalities. If Thurston were to perform today, I can say with some experience that his show would be every bit as marvelous to a modern audience. We might recognize changes of fashion—the pace of Thurston’s scripted patter, or the designs of his costumes or scenery—but there was nothing about the nature of his magic that would seem outdated or obsolete. The magic would still be miraculous because, like any talented magician, Thurston selected illusions that did not rely on the latest bits of technology, but on universal, fairy-tale themes: causing a person to float in the air, contacting the spirits, appearance, disappearance, destruction and restoration.

  Most of all, Thurston’s success depended upon his personality in front of his audience. These clues to a performer’s manner are difficult to summon in any theatrical biography, and doubly so for a magician. Harlan Tarbell, a fellow magician and friend of Thurston’s, wrote an influential course on magic, advising student magicians to remember that they must play “on a plane higher than the average person,” with “a bit of supernatural power to do things ordinary folks cannot do.” At the same time, a performer had to show deference and present himself as someone who could be trusted. “Audiences respect an artist who is sincere in his work…. He must make illusion seem like truth and must believe that the thing really happens.”

  Most magicians are remembered by their most sensational feats; my uncle used to tell me about watching Thurston at the Erlanger Theater in Chicago, describing the tremendous puff of smoke as an automobile, “loaded with pretty girls,” instantly disappeared onstage. These accounts of Thurston’s marvels imply a standoffish, grand character and ignore his appeal. In fact, there was no magic ever created without establishing a trust with an audience—without seducing them first. Howard Thurston was dependent upon charming his audience.

  AL JOLSON, one of Thurston’s contemporaries in the American theater, was famous for his dynamic and self-assured personality that seemed to wash over the footlights and overwhelm every member of the audience. Debatably, he may have been history’s greatest entertainer, a powerful and daunting force of nature. Onstage he was always the great man. But his appeal was clearly tied to the human qualities behind his greatness, the soft cry in his voice that followed the booming solos. In Herbert Goldman’s insightful biography of the singer, he described the death of Jolson’s mother when the boy was just eight years old. Summoned to her bedside, Jolson opened the door to see her sitting up in bed, eyes wide, screaming with terror. The young boy tried to run to her, but the doctor pushed him from the room.

  Years later, one of his most successful songs, “Mammy,” Jolson interpolated his own finale, partly sung, and then, when his voice seemed to crack, partly spoken. He used it in every performance and it appears in recorded versions.

  I’m a-coming, I hope I didn’t make you wait!

  I’m a-coming. Oh God, I hope I’m not late….

  Mammy, mammy!

  Don’t you know me? I’m your little baby?

  No spectators were ever given the key to these phrases; nor did these words ever make sense within the context of the song’s lyrics. But their meaning must have been sensed, on a deeply personal level, by thousands of audiences, and the emotion behind them gave a subconscious complexity to Jolson’s performance.

  There is similar evidence in accounts of Houdini. Most spectators remembered Houdini’s self-confident performances; the brassy mannerisms complimented his daring escapes and his overenunciation seemed to formalize his performances. But more perceptive spectators realized the contradictions suggested by his appearance. Houdini was small and unimpressive onstage; he was intense rather than handsome, challenging rather than commanding. He gave every impression of the Everyman, a David about to encounter society’s Goliaths: the police force, handcuffs, sealed tanks of water, straitjackets, and locksmiths.

  His New York East Side mannerisms were always perceptible, just beneath the surface at each performance. Houdini’s detractors—and there were many in the magic profession—sensed his pose and interpreted it as dishonesty or arrogance. But this was also a key to success: people sensed the conflict suggested by his performances, recognizing his overreaching as appealingly human. We root for the little man who tries hard.

  Howard Thurston captivated audiences with a similar dichotomy. Immaculate, artistic, and possessing a self-assured grandeur onstage, which allowed him to preside over the sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic spectacle of the world’s largest magic show, Thurston held his audiences in rapt attention. “My object is to mystify and entertain,” he told his audience in a distinctive baritone, evoking his well-publicized training for the ministry. “I wouldn’t deceive you for the world.” Ultimately, this returns to the question of why Thurston sought to mystify many people, including business associates, fellow magicians, ex-wives, and a stepdaughter.

  I actually feel that it was this simple phrase, uttered at every performance—“I wouldn’t deceive you for the world”—that provided the momentary glimpse to the complexity of Thurston’s performances and his appealing humanity. In retrospect, it was an astonishing promise for a magician, an appeal for legitimacy and acceptance. It was also the statement of a man who could believe and disbelieve simultaneously. We know that it echoed a desperate plea that had once been offered by a sad, dirty young street criminal who had reached his wit’s end and realized that there was only one path left to him: honesty.

  Then, once he was safe, once he had offered his promise and discovered the value of his word, he turned around and deceived them again.

  The function of the magician has characteristics in common with those of the criminal, of the actor and of the priest … and he enjoys certain special advantages impossible for these professions. Unlike the criminal, he has nothing to fear from the police; unlike the actor, he can always have the stage to himself; unlike the priest, he need not trouble about questions of faith in connection with the mysteries at which he presides.

  —EDMUND WILSON

  ONE

  “A BIT OF FUN”

  Houdini pulled at his cardboard collar, tugged at his rumpled tweed suit, and slouched forward to avoid being seen. He felt trapped, completely, hopelessly trapped. He had always been comfortable standing in the rarefied atmosphere onstage, where each of his gestures was magnified and each expression examined by thousands of unseen eyes. On a stage, encircled by a warm halo of limelight, he had learned how to read the roars, whispers, and laughter from the mysterious darkness on the other side of the footlights. He could propel his voice across the void, emphasizing each word. But now he realized how uncomfortable he was sitting in a theater seat, anticipating a performance. Every squeal of a child seemed amplified; the laughter, catcalls, and murmurs of the arriving audience combined to form an uncomfortable buzz in his ears. As the orchestra stumbled into the pit with a clatter of bows and the squeak of chairs—finally, finally, the show was about to begin!—all Houdini could think about was how strange it was to be on the wrong side of the footlights, and how torturous it was waiting for someone else’s magic show. He thumbed the program nervously—“Thurston, The Famous Magician.” The oversized type, the grandiosity of the title rankled him.

  In fact, Houdini had been scheming for years to become more than just a vaudeville escape artist, which is how he had earned his fame with the public. He was tired of putting on a bathing suit to perform water escapes, or organizing his career around publicity stunts that left him dangling upside down from buildings and escaping from straitjackets. He wanted to be a real magician, with an impressive magic show full of sophi
sticated wonders. Houdini went about it with his typical bravura—finding an enemy and viewing the challenge as a battle. He had fixed Thurston in the crosshairs.

  Standing behind the curtain, just out of sight of the audience, Howard Thurston heard the first notes of the ragtime overture. He instinctively began hopping up and down on the balls of his feet, then stopped to swing his arms. These little exercises, he found, allowed him to “get pep” for each performance. Then he stood closely behind the curtain, with his eyes closed. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to my show tonight. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you. God bless you. God bless you,” he murmured to himself, directing his thoughts to the nameless, faceless audience members who had just paid to see his marvels. The stage manager nodded to the magician. We’re ready. Thurston adjusted his starched shirtfront and smoothed the front of his elegant black tailcoat. He looked immaculate, elegant, ministerial.

  “He’s here, Governor,” said George White, peering along a crack at the edge of the curtain. Thurston stepped to the side of the curtain to look for himself. “That’s him, isn’t it?” Houdini was seated in the fifth row, on the aisle. Thurston had chosen the seat himself when he offered Houdini a complimentary pass. “Yes, that’s him. Good old Harry,” Thurston sighed.

  Thurston was technically one of Houdini’s old friends, a business associate, and a fellow member of the Society of American Magicians. He was also, in Houdini’s eyes, an ever-present rival. They’d met in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, at the very first midway (literally, the “Midway Plaisance”). There, a nineteen-year-old Houdini had found work by donning dark makeup, dressing in a tattered white robe, and working as an “authentic Hindu” mystic, sitting cross-legged in front of the Algerian and Tunisian Village. His tour de force was apparently swallowing a packet of loose needles, then a long piece of thread. He regurgitated the thread, with all the needles neatly spaced along its length.