The Last Greatest Magician in the World

by Jim Steinmeyer

  That final season together seemed to grant Kellar—an argumentative, poorly educated, and onetime Pennsylvania street waif—the exalted status as the approving monarch. It seemed to christen Thurston, a confidence man and sideshow talker, with the title of crown prince. Behind the scenes, it was a ragtag partnership, but in the bright lights of the stage, it had transformed both men.

  With Kellar’s death, Thurston assumed a new role. It was no longer just about retirement or succession. Thurston had learned a valuable lesson from the Sawing in Half illusion. Goldin had cleverly franchised other performers like Jansen to capitalize on his success. Now Howard could increase his profits by producing a show for another magician, supervising the tour, selling the act to vaudeville, or booking the new show in cities and countries he had been too busy to visit. It wouldn’t be a competition, and the Thurston endorsement would mean that a good, talented performer would be quickly established. He didn’t need to retire. He needed to expand his business.

  Within months of Kellar’s death, Thurston had worked out a deal with Harry Jansen. Jansen was working as foreman of the workshop and had joined Thurston on the road to help rehearse the new tour. But both men knew that these efforts were a waste of Jansen’s skills. Thurston urged him to put together his own show, which would be marketed as the “Thurston #2 Unit.” Jansen proposed a simple arrangement: Thurston would invest $50,000 toward building the show, payable in weekly fees, and would then be a half-owner in the property, entitled to his share of the profits.

  Thurston rechristened the new performer Dante. He’d liked the stage name since he first heard of the American, Oscar Eliason, who had found such success as Dante in Australia. Later, when Thurston was married to Beatrice, a friend reminded him how the pairing of names was appropriate—Beatrice and Dante. As he considered Harry Jansen’s new show, Thurston realized the name had the perfect devilish sound, while also seeming literary and European. Since Jansen had been born in Copenhagen, Thurston stretched the truth slightly and billed Dante as “Europe’s Famous Magician.”

  Thurston’s eye to the legacy was clear. “Thurston and Kellar Present Dante,” Thurston’s new advertising boasted. For more than a decade, he had eliminated Kellar’s name from his program, but now he announced Dante by including Kellar’s portrait next to his own, implying the step-by-step succession of one master magician to another. “For Forty Years, the World’s Greatest Magicians.”

  ONE SUMMER EVENING IN 1922, Thurston was working on some publicity materials at Beechhurst with writer Walter B. Gibson. The magician looked at his watch and told Gibson that he needed to hurry to the SAM meeting. The two men piled into the car and Thurston’s driver took them into Manhattan.

  As they crossed the bridge into the city, Thurston explained why he was obliged to attend the Society of American Magicians. He’d been asked to contribute to an article in the New York Sunday Evening Telegram about the deceptions used by fake mediums. This constituted exposure, since it explained how tricks were accomplished. The SAM was strict about published exposures, and Thurston was obliged to “ask permission” before contributing material to the article.

  “Of course,” he told Gibson, “they’ll approve it, because it’s about spiritualism, not magic.” And the whole thing was a bit of a farce, Thurston continued, since the article had already been written and set up on the press. The Sunday supplements for the big newspapers were often published days before they appeared. “It’s a technicality, Walter. I have to formally let them approve it, since I’m one of the officers of the club. I can’t tell them I’ve already done it.”

  As Thurston and Gibson entered the meeting room, Houdini was at the front table, gaveling the group to order. “Any old business?” he inquired. The treasurer’s report was read and approved. “New business?” Houdini snapped. Thurston waited for a few others to state their business. After a respectful pause, not seeming too anxious, he stood. “I’ve been asked by the Telegram to contribute some tricks used by spirit mediums.” He noticed Houdini look up at him. For the last decade, Houdini had made the exposure of mediums a personal crusade, which had garnered him headlines across the country. “It will run later this month,” Thurston continued, neatly fudging the imminent article. “As it doesn’t involve any real magic, I thought that it would be wise for me to do it, and it wouldn’t actually constitute exposure.” The council was about to vote on approving Thurston’s article, but Houdini interrupted. “Who was it for?” he impatiently called across the crowd. “It’s for the Sunday Telegram, Harry,” Thurston responded.

  “Oh, yes, the Telegram. They asked me to do that article. I know all about it.”

  The council approved Thurston’s request and moved on. But the subject had seemed to animate Houdini, who tried to catch Thurston’s eye and nod his approval. Walter Gibson noticed Thurston shake his head slowly; he knew that he’d transgressed into Houdini’s area of expertise, and his old friend wouldn’t let the subject die.

  With the meeting closed, Houdini stepped from the platform and pushed his way through the crowd, making a beeline for Thurston. “I know them. I know about that article,” he announced before even reaching him.

  “That’s good, Harry. The writer seemed like a good fellow.”

  “They wanted me to do it. Did they tell you that?”

  “They didn’t mention it, Harry. In any case, they’re not asking for much, and I should be able to handle it.”

  “I could still do it,” Houdini announced. “If I told them I wanted to do it, they would use me.”

  Thurston stared at him for a long beat as a group of magicians circled, drawn in by Houdini’s aggressive conversation.

  Thurston drew out his words slowly, as if trying to placate his comrade. “Well, I’m not sure that’s correct, Harry.”

  “Don’t you believe me?” Houdini responded, raising his voice. “Of course they want me to do it. I can do that article. I’ll bet you anything that they want to use me.”

  Thurston glanced at Gibson and shrugged. Just minutes earlier, the two men had been discussing the secret behind Thurston’s request: the article had already been written, and may have already been printed. Houdini noticed the dismissive shrug.

  “What do you mean by that? Howard, I’m telling you the truth. They wanted me, and I’d bet you a hundred dollars ...”

  Unlike Houdini, who reddened and became more excitable as he angered, Thurston gave no such clues. His expression froze and his eyelids closed slightly, as if fixing a soft, indefinite stare on his fellow magician. Thurston used to start the week with a stack of neat fifty-dollar bills, right from the bank, that he carried in a flat leather billfold inside his suit. As Houdini continued, Thurston slowly, gracefully reached into his suit coat, withdrew the wallet, snapped it open, licked the tip of his thumb, and counted two pristine fifty-dollar bills onto the table in front of him. He closed the wallet and slid it back into his pocket. Then he serenely sat back in his chair.

  The magicians watched expectantly as if counting down an explosion. Three, two, one, and Houdini erupted. He stomped in a tight circle, and his words tumbled out as he fumed about the article, about Thurston doubting his abilities, and about his own experience in exposing spiritualism. “I’ll take that bet!” he said. “You think that I won’t! But I’ll take that bet!” He reached into his pocket and emerged with a handful of crumpled bills. He hurriedly smoothed them out and threw them down onto the table, managing a defiant gesture. There were some fives and ones. After all his effort, Houdini had managed to produce barely twenty dollars.

  Counting the bills impatiently, Houdini erupted again. He ringed the room in a larger circle, soliciting money from the other magicians. “What’ve you got? What’ve you got? Gimme what you’ve got!” He returned to the table several times with crumpled bills. Now it was just over thirty dollars. Thirty-five. Thirty-nine. Someone tossed in a handful of change. Thirty-nine dollars and seventy-three cents.

  “That was the difference between
those two men, right there,” Walter Gibson later recalled the incident. “Right on that table. Two crisp fifty-dollar bills, and Thurston sitting behind them, expressionless, immaculate. On the other side of the table, a bundle of crumpled bills as Houdini turned his pockets inside-out, ran around the room, and worked himself into a frenzy.” The famous escape artist never did manage to assemble a hundred dollars. Friends of Houdini’s calmed him down and convinced him to put away his money. Houdini slinked back to the table, laughing nervously and pushing the wadded bills back into his pockets. Thurston picked up his fifties and left with Walter Gibson. Gibson noticed that, once Houdini exploded, Thurston had barely changed his expression and never uttered a word.

  THE DIFFERENCE might have been Kellar. When Harry Kellar had been alive, both magicians shared a bond, dealing with him as two sons would deal with a difficult father. Kellar played favorites, swapped gossip, and withheld judgment, but both Houdini and Thurston came to love the old wizard on his own terms. When he was gone, all that they faced were the brotherly squabbles over the inheritance.

  The finished Telegram article, “World’s Greatest Magician Reveals the Wiles of Fake Mediums,” from July 16, 1922, demonstrated a more curious contrast between Thurston and Houdini. The subtitle explained, “Most Spiritualist Phenomena Proved Fakes, says Magician, Who Believes in Spirits.” It was the words “Most” and “Believes” that rankled Houdini. Thurston was insisting on trying to thread a needle—exposing mediums while still accepting the possibility of the phenomena.

  Months later, Thurston was quoted in a United Press article, proposing that “spirits of the dead inhabit planets.” The reporter claimed that Thurston was an investigator of “so-called spirit deceptions, and heretofore a skeptic,” but that his own experiments with a radio set installed at his home generated a series of mysterious sounds and voices that convinced him that these voices were originating from the planets.

  The story was reproduced in The Sphinx, and the journal seemed to understand that it was intended as an outrageous bit of publicity. The Sphinx noted wryly that “Houdini will have to look to his laurels as the most prominent and successful advertiser, for Thurston is beginning to get there rapidly.”

  In his book Our American Adventure, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle reflected on his difficult relationship with Houdini. Their friendship was later dissolved over the subject of spiritualism. Doyle used the example of Thurston to make his point.

  Talking of the views of conjurers, which are generally not only unintelligent, but quite spiteful about phenomena, as though they regarded them as some form of illicit competition, it interested me to find that Mr. Howard Thurston, who is, next to Houdini, the chief magician in America, has showed great patience and acumen in investigating mediums. He has naturally found fraud, but has also admitted that he has several times encountered real psychic gifts, which are in a different category to tricks. By this admission he has placed himself in an enlightened band who number several of the greatest magicians of the past.

  But Thurston’s beliefs required too much finesse for the usual newspaper article. After Houdini complained about his beliefs, Thurston wrote a letter to his colleague to clarify his point.

  I am very particular to have you know how I stand in this matter. Instead of saying, “the man who believes and the man who does not believe,” I claim to have encountered some psychic effects, which I have not been able to explain or understand.... I lean to the belief that these effects are produced by an intelligent force, which can manifest itself mentally and physically to some people under certain circumstances. The above is exactly what I believe in the matter of spiritualism.... I do believe in spiritualism.

  But when Houdini’s book on the subject, A Magician Among the Spirits, appeared in 1924, the name Thurston was not included in the text. Houdini included a long chapter on Palladino, and another analyzing various magicians’ experiments and opinions on the subject—it took a certain amount of dancing around these subjects to omit Thurston. Perhaps it was intended as a favor to Thurston, writing him out of the story so he didn’t seem ridiculed. For example, Conan Doyle was not granted this favor, and Houdini made the author look foolish. Or it was much simpler. Houdini simply considered Thurston’s opinions on the subject too trivial to include.

  EIGHTEEN

  “FIRE AND WATER”

  When Thurston found a good foot soldier, he invariably assigned him in some of his messiest jobs. Unfortunately, Thurston’s business practices were often careless or badly planned. As a well-respected gentleman of the theater, Thurston’s first impulse was to settle these difficulties quietly and professionally. But as a former denizen of carnivals and con games, he also knew another way. Invariably Thurston looked for an associate to step in and strong-arm the situation. At the end of 1922, loyal Harry Jansen took a break from preparing his new show as Dante. He was given a letter granting him power of attorney and pointed toward Zanesville, Ohio.

  A young, touring magician named Grover George had been performing a show that contained versions of several Thurston illusions, including the Lion Illusion. George suspected that theater managers had been pressured to cancel his engagements, and Thurston sent messages to George, threatening and cajoling him to change his program. The letters hadn’t intimidated George. Instead, the scattershot entreaties had merely twisted the situation into knots. Thurston continued to receive reports about George’s poor show.

  Jansen arrived, lectured young Grover George about originality, and warned about Thurston’s influence in the profession. He insisted that George remove the similar tricks and fire the employees who had worked with Thurston in previous seasons, like George’s musical director, Edward Trout. Jansen and Thurston were convinced that these employees had been imparting secrets and routines from Thurston’s show.

  George hesitated making the promise, and Jansen followed him to the next city, Wilmington, Ohio. Reluctantly, George signed a contract, agreeing to take certain illusions out of his show. In exchange, he could keep the Lion Illusion in his show, with Thurston’s permission.

  Jansen was confident that he’d accomplished Thurston’s goal, but as soon as he had left town George changed his mind, insisting that he’d only signed the contract “based on false representations from Jansen ... continued threats, coercions and intimidations.” Thurston and Jansen sought an injunction against the show, but George’s father was a local attorney and the Ohio magician made a strong case in front of the court. He pointed out the various books, catalogs, and performers that featured tricks like the Levitation, Floating Ball, Card Manipulations, Vanishing Lady, and Egg Tricks. These were all “common, stock tricks,” and George’s versions were markedly different from Thurston’s. Jansen had also objected to George’s practice of having spectators come onto the stage to assist with the tricks; he thought elements of the young magician’s patter sounded like Thurston’s. In court, George ridiculed these suggestions.

  Jansen found himself blindsided by Thurston’s own correspondence from many months earlier, now read into the court record. As part of his awkward carrot-and-stick technique, Thurston wrote to George that he had been “contemplating or had a desire to assist in some way and possibly enter into some sort of combination” with the young magician. He’d tried the same trick with Blackstone, teasing that he’d be looking for a successor, with the same disastrous results. The judge seemed confused about Thurston’s sincerity and quickly dismissed the injunction.

  “Am indeed sorry and feel very bad at the results of things,” Jansen wrote back to Thurston, licking his wounds. “One never knows what a judge will do.”

  KELLAR’S DEATH seemed to trigger dozens of little skirmishes between Thurston and his fellow magicians. He fretted over many of these; it seemed as if the dam had just broken and his reputation were under assault. Blackstone the magician had recently been advertising his show with a new poster portrait; two red imps now sat on Blackstone’s shoulder, with one of them whispering in his ear. In 1923 T
hurston sent a curt note to the younger magician, warning him to stop using the imps and reminding him to remove all of Thurston’s tricks from his own show, like the Dancing Handkerchief and the Girl and the Rabbit.

  Part of Thurston’s ire must have been genuine—his increasing concern with his legacy. Although the little red imps were never protected as a trademark, Thurston considered them an inheritance from Kellar and an important motif for his show; he had incorporated them into all of his advertising and even had woven them into bedtime stories for his daughter, Jane. But now Thurston was also looking for an excuse to pick a fight. Blackstone had just premiered a Vanishing Horse in his show. It was a sensational idea that generated wonderful publicity. Thurston quickly put Dante to work creating a Vanishing Horse for the Thurston show, and then wrote to Blackstone. “If you think it is fair to use my tricks without my consent, it is only fair for Dante and myself to treat you the same.... I will decide accordingly whether I will do the Vanishing Horse.” His past experience demonstrated that the young magician would be defiant. Thurston was going to make the most of it.

  Kellar’s death also inspired a discussion of who might become the next dean of the Society of American Magicians. Dr. Wilson, writing in The Sphinx, mentioned that Houdini and Thurston had both been discussed for the honor, but he felt that neither was qualified, as the title deserved a person “of ripe experience” and “retirement.” Early in 1923, Henry Ridgely Evans, a respected writer and historian of magic, contributed an article to Billboard and The Sphinx, asking “Is Magic Decadent?” and excoriating Thurston for including secrets of simple magic tricks in boxes of candy that were sold during his performances. Evans quoted Thurston, in a private conversation, saying that his intention was to “popularize” magic by educating the public about its secrets. As always, it was the subject of exposure that seemed to obsess amateur magicians, causing them to predict the downfall of the art. Evans’s criticism was particularly stinging, as he had been a good friend and admirer of Thurston’s, part of a small group of Baltimore magicians, including Thomas C. Worthington and Fulton Oursler, who had socialized with Howard, Leotha, and Jane.