Jim Steinmeyer

by The Last Greatest Magician in the World

  By the end of 1900, Howard was being bombarded by telegrams from Charles Morton, the manager of London’s Palace Theater, asking him to commit to a four-week engagement. Thurston avoided responding. But Morton was insistent, and after months of resisting the manager’s offers, Thurston announced that he and George would go to London and fill the dates.

  Grace had been waiting to see if she would be invited to London; when she heard that she wasn’t, she dutifully packed her husband’s trunks for the voyage.

  In fact, Thurston didn’t believe that he’d be gone for very long. He felt that four weeks was excessive and petitioned Morton to reduce the contract to two weeks, in case the card act didn’t click with London audiences. Thurston had so many good offers in America that he was afraid to leave the country for very long. Audiences wanted to see him now, and they could be fickle.

  In October 1900, Thurston didn’t realize that his associates—Houdini, T. Nelson Downs, and Billy Robinson—had already beat him to London, and all three of them had become stars. London had developed an insatiable taste for magic, and now they insisted on seeing “The World’s Premier Card Manipulator.” There was a growing prestige, a sense of royalty, with these unique performers. Thurston’s fame meant that he had been summoned to “The Palace.”

  EIGHT

  “ORIGINAL CARD PASSES”

  Every vaudevillian knew the phrase “The boat sails Wednesday.” It became a punch line symbolizing the vagaries of the business, but it originated—so the story was told—in the strange contrast between vaudeville and music hall. Vaudeville was strictly American. Music hall, the British version, had its own traditions and fashions.

  Willis Sweatnam was a popular comedian who made the transition from minstrel shows to vaudeville. He received a good contract for music-hall work in London. Determined to make a hit, he opened on Monday night with some of his best material, rapid-fire American dialect jokes. He didn’t get a single laugh. He walked offstage in silence. The music-hall manager came to his dressing room to offer solace.

  “Mr. Sweatnam, I’m afraid your sort of humor isn’t suitable for England. Now, you shouldn’t take it personally, but of course, you’ll have to be canceled. The boat sails Wednesday, and you can still book passage.”

  “You haven’t seen my best material,” Sweatnam insisted.

  “But I fear it won’t be acceptable for our audience’s taste. Now you’ll find that the boat sails Wednesday and…”

  Sweatnam wouldn’t give up. “Don’t be hasty! I’ve got lots of material. I’ve been doing this for years. I’ll put together an act that will have them cheering. I can prove it.”

  The manager reluctantly agreed. “You may go on the next show, but please remember, the boat sails Wednesday.”

  Sweatnam huddled with the orchestra leader, deciding that he needed good straight lines, like a minstrel show. The conductor was happy to help.

  “Look, I’ll walk out on the stage,” Sweatnam told him. “I’ll ask you, ‘Why is an old maid like a green tomato?’ And then you’ll say, ‘I don’t know, why is an old maid like a green tomato?’ And then I’ll say, ‘Because either way, it’s hard to … mate … her!’”

  They planned a long list of straight lines and jokes, the conductor placed his script on his podium, and it was time for the second show.

  Sweatnam walked onstage. “Maestro,” he growled, “I wonder if ya’ can tell me… Why is an old maid jus’ like a green tah-may-ter?”

  The orchestra leader responded, loudly, “I don’t know Mr. Sweatnam, why is an old maid like a green toe-maaah-toh?”

  Sweatnam paused just a moment, realizing that he was doomed. “Maestro,” he shouted, “the boat sails Wednesday!” And he walked offstage.

  THE PALACE THEATER of Varieties was built in 1880 near the busy intersection of Charing Cross Road and Shaftsbury Avenue in the West End of London, an imposing gingerbread of red brick and arched windows. It was Britain’s leading music hall, a former opera house that was now devoted to pure variety. By the turn of the century, the music hall had become big business, dominated by producers and circuits of performers. While vaudeville signaled an end to saloon entertainments—eliminating the smoking and alcohol—music hall had always been organized around the bar, attracting customers with the acts, and then serving them drinks.

  Charles Morton, the manager of the Palace, sat at a small table in the orchestra pit. If an act saw him lift his hands and tap them together, it was his sign that he was satisfied. If not, they could expect the worst, and his vengeance was swift. He ran the show like a military operation. Morton didn’t abide any lateness; when the act heard its music cue, it had to be ready to step onstage immediately, or it was dismissed.

  Even stranger was the claque system. Each act had money deducted from its salary to pay for a group of stooges, their claque, positioned in seats throughout the auditorium. The claque applauded on cue and naturally encouraged more applause from the rest of the audience. Acts were always suspicious that the claque weren’t really doing their job, but instead were merely “patty-caking.” The London music halls developed an early taste for magic and an appreciation for the distinct acts of the specialist. T. Nelson Downs, the convivial midwesterner who manipulated coins, had arrived at the Palace Theater of Varieties in May 1899 and was held over for a long engagement. At that time, Downs’s encore was a short trick, producing cards at his fingertips by using the backhand palm. Technically, he had beat Thurston to London with this move, but the public always remembered Downs by his billing, the “King of Koins,” and his feat of catching hundreds of silver half-dollars from the air, not his brief card manipulations.

  Chung Ling Soo, a Chinese magician, premiered at the Alhambra, another London variety theater, a year later, in April 1900. The magician was tall and bald; he worked silently with a bland smile and exaggerated comic or dramatic gestures. His assistant was Suee Seen, a tiny, delicate Chinese maiden. His act consisted of startling novelties. He caught goldfish in the air, at the end of a fishing line, and produced an enormous basin filled with water and ducks from beneath a shawl. Soo’s Oriental-inspired magic was a startling novelty and fascinated the London audiences.

  Theater professionals knew the truth. Chung Ling Soo and Suee Seen were actually Billy and Dot Robinson, the erstwhile assistants to America’s great magicians. After leaving Herrmann, they developed their act by copying a genuine Chinese magician named Ching Ling Foo, who had toured America in the last years of the nineteenth century. Shaving his head and wearing a long braided queue, dark makeup, and embroidered robes, Robinson completely submerged himself in the role, on- and offstage, and Chung Ling Soo became a music-hall star.

  And then, on July 2, 1900, Harry Houdini premiered in London at the Alhambra. Early in 1900, Houdini’s career was just beginning to attract audiences in vaudeville, but his new manager, Martin Beck, boldly calculated that a European success would jolt Houdini into stardom. It was a good plan, but Beck and his partners had bungled the deals. There were no actual engagements in place when Harry and Bess Houdini boarded the ship.

  In London, Houdini scrambled for attention. He arranged a special demonstration at the Alhambra for policemen from Scotland Yard and members of the press. The newspapers featured stories on the amazing young American who could escape from handcuffs and leg irons. The Alhambra booked him for a two-week engagement; during his first week, Houdini shared the bill with Chung Ling Soo, who was just completing his run at the theater. When Houdini was a hit, the booking was extended through the summer. His abilities were framed with a sense of challenge and triumph, and the nature of his act—the little man daring the world to hold him—seemed far beyond mere magic tricks. The Times offered an enthusiastic review, concluding, “Mr. Houdini frankly admits that his feats depend on trickery, but that does not lessen their cleverness or interest.”

  The fashion for specialization inspired a number of performers. Servais Le Roy, an inventive Belgian magician, instructed his wife, Talm
a, to perform an act in imitation of Downs. She appeared as the “Queen of Coins.” George Stillwell performed magic with handkerchiefs. Allan Shaw specialized in both cards and coins. Even P. T. Selbit, a young British magician who was just starting his career, worked as the “Card and Coin Demon,” although Selbit later found success by inventing a series of large-scale illusions.

  BY THE TIME Thurston arrived in London, at the end of October 1900, all he could think about were the lucrative offers that were waiting back in America. He was anxious to get back on the boat. As he settled in at a theatrical boardinghouse, he now felt contrite about leaving Grace in New York. He guiltily sent a number of wires that reported, “All is well. Home soon.”

  Charles Morton welcomed him to the Palace and was anxious to see the famous card manipulator at work. But after Thurston and George’s first rehearsal, Morton wanted cuts. He insisted on a brisk seventeen minutes; no more. The finish with spectator on the stage and the duck wouldn’t be necessary, he told Thurston perfunctorily. “Thank you, but we’ll just need your card manipulations, the rising cards and card throwing routines.” This meant that most of the act was completely silent, with Thurston barely speaking at all; only a few lines were left at the start of the rising cards.

  On his opening night, November 5, 1900, Thurston feared that his finely tuned act had been pushed and pulled in the wrong directions. He stepped to the footlights feeling slightly sick to his stomach. The audience seemed uneasy as well, watching intently, but suspicious of the young American in the swallowtail coat. Thurston reached out, produced a card at his fingertips, and then another and another, twelve in all, one by one, handing them to George in a wide fan. When he finished this first trick, the modest start to the act, he was met with a loud round of applause that cascaded over the polite clap-clapping of Thurston’s claque. He was stunned. The audience had been watching closely, and they approved. “It’s all right, George,” Thurston said.

  As the act continued, the Palace rumbled with applause and the audience cheered each effect. His new finish, card throwing, inspired increasing yells of “Bravo” and made spectators in the stalls stand so that they could watch the cards flying into the balcony. London had never seen anything like it. Thurston scaled individual cards to boxes, a single card aimed perfectly at each box on the first tier, and then he circled back and delivered cards to the second tier of boxes. The audience was still cheering when he then let loose a fusillade of cards, rapid fire, in the direction of the theater’s dome. The response was even more enthusiastic than his premiere at Tony Pastor’s. The audience brought him back for bow after bow, and the entire orchestra of forty musicians stood and applauded as well—this was considered the ultimate compliment for a music-hall artist.

  The next day, Morton welcomed the magician to his office and slid a new contract in front of him. Thurston was still woozy from the audience’s response. He’d quickly forgotten all his misgivings and had to admit that Morton’s edits to the act were exactly right for the crowd. He agreed to stay at the Palace for six months. And as a final compliment, Morton offered to let him pick his own time on the bill. Thurston chose to go on at 9:25 each night. Every day in the newspapers, the show at the Palace was advertised with Thurston’s name prominently featured and the starting time of his act. He costarred with over a dozen of the finest stars of vaudeville and music hall, including W. C. Fields, who was then presenting a tramp comedy and juggling act. The show concluded with selected films from the American Biograph Company.

  Of course, George White’s experience in show business was very different from his boss’s. He traveled in steerage, stayed in inexpensive boardinghouses, and lived frugally, devoting his time to preparing all the elements of the show. Using Herrmann’s comic Boomsky as a model, Thurston had intended George White to play the part of the comical Negro, indulging in stereotypical reactions. Early in their career together, Thurston even billed him as “Keno,” as if he were a character in the act.

  Grace sewed George a new costume, which she sent on to London. It was a handsome, jade green bellman’s uniform, with gold epaulets and lots of brass buttons. George cleverly avoided any stereotypes or cartoonish gestures. “The ‘darkie’ boy is possessed of a most expressive countenance,” wrote a reporter for The Black and White Budget, a popular British magazine, after meeting Thurston and George. “He does not, however, use such words as ‘sah,’ ‘yo,’ and ‘fo,’ he is not constantly singing ‘The Swanee River.’ He is much like one of our own boys.”

  Another London reviewer commented on George’s appearance during the act. “The young black attendant moves about with silent, feline step, more a machine than a man, all admirably appropriate to the character of the performance…. When he smiles, golly, it’s huge!” George was learning the power of slow, restrained motions on stage. When he punctuated one of Thurston’s tricks by looking out at the audience and suddenly smiling, it was a bit of precise timing, providing another sharp jolt for the audience to applaud, far more effective than Thurston’s claque at the Palace. George became adept at disappearing and then reappearing on stage—ignored and almost invisible to the audience, and then suddenly present for a moment of misdirection.

  GRACE HAD TIRED of waiting in New York and booked herself with a theatrical stock company that was playing in Massachusetts. But Thurston was anxious to see her again, to share his success. A telegram sent to New York was forwarded to Grace on the road: “I want you to join me.” She had already decided that she would not be won back so easily. But her resolve lasted exactly one hour, when a second telegram arrived: “Ticket at No. 1 Broadway. Sail on Minnihaha January 21.”

  When she arrived in February, Grace was thrilled at Howard’s success and stardom. His 9:25 performances left him time to accept private bookings at clubs and salons in London. If he arranged his schedule carefully, he could supplement his income with two or three well-paid shows each night. Edward, the Prince of Wales, was a fan of variety as well as magic, visited Thurston several times backstage, and chatted with Grace. Thurston offered the prince brief lessons in sleight of hand, showing him how to back-palm a card.

  As the famous American magician, featured in newspapers and magazines, Thurston was also in demand at parties, banquets, and balls, and Grace enjoyed mixing with high society. He was invited to a private party thrown by the Shah of Persia, where he pulled a duck from a spectator’s collar and dropped it in the shah’s lap. Thurston was also invited to the home of Baron Rothschild and performed his act. Rothschild returned the favor by performing some of his own favorite card tricks. “[Howard] fitted in as if he had been born to dukedom or educated at Oxford,” Grace marveled. “He could not spell a word longer than ‘cat,’ but he could talk like a man with a doctor’s degree.” She credited his smooth skills from being a confidence man. Now, instead of charming the customer to sell a cheap watch with paste diamonds, he was selling himself. “Howard Thurston’s a great man,” W. C. Fields remarked to Grace. “Only one I ever knew with complete confidence in his own con.”

  Grace also discovered that her husband had been charming some female admirers. She found herself in several awkward situations—accepting backstage visitors, or perfumed letters delivered to their hotel room—that made her suspicious of his affections. One night, as Grace waited in Thurston’s dressing room at the Palace, a beautiful, dark-haired woman appeared, insisting that she was going to dinner with her “Howie.” “You’d better run along dear,” Grace told her, “before you get your eyes scratched out. I’m Mrs. Thurston.”

  THURSTON ALSO HAD his own souvenir playing cards printed, with his portrait in an oversized heart, for the Palace Theater. These were special throw-out cards that he used to propel into the audience at the finish of his act. By using slightly heavier cardboard than normal playing cards, the cards could be thrown even farther.

  He also produced Howard Thurston’s Card Tricks, a slender book that was published in London early in 1901 to capitalize on his success. The cove
r showed Howard and George in the midst of their act. The book contained explanations of the Back Palm as well as the Rising Cards. All was supposedly written by Thurston, but it was actually the work of William Hilliar, an American magician and manager who was in London working with T. Nelson Downs. The previous year, Hilliar had written a similar book for Downs, describing his coin tricks.

  The book was nicely illustrated by Sidney Tibbles, the brother of English magician P. T. Selbit, and the section on the Back Palm provided a detailed account of the maneuver. But the explanation of the Rising Cards was a fraud. Hilliar invented another method to accomplish it, using a black thread on a spring-wound reel concealed in the performer’s coat. It looked good in print, but this arrangement couldn’t have duplicated Thurston’s masterful effect. Instead, the little book satisfied curious readers, made some money, and helped to throw magicians off the scent of the real secret.

  Thurston’s Card Tricks also started a series of nicely sanitized, highly exaggerated biographies of the magician. In this little booklet, and later interviews and articles, Thurston was standardizing his imaginary life story. He was now a nephew of U.S. senator John Mellon Thurston of Nebraska. His father was now the vice-consul in Algiers, where, at the age of three:

  Thurston was stolen by the Mohammedans, and for three years all of North Africa was hunting for him in vain. Strange as was his sudden disappearance, his return was even stranger, for three years from the very day he was kidnapped, he was mysteriously returned to his parents—how it was never ascertained. While in the hands of the Mohammedans, they never once mistreated him, nor did they seek ransom, though large sums of money were offered for the boy’s return. The only thing which seems to have affected the boy was that, at times, he would sit for hours in silent meditation, no one ever fathoming his thoughts. As a child of six, he began to show powers which appeared to those about him little short of miraculous.