Famous Magicians of the Golden Age
Dai Vernon
b.June 11, 1894
d.1992
Known in the magical
fraternity as "The Professor,"
Vernon was honored as "The
Patriarch of Magic" and "The
Man Who Fooled Houdini."
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Duff Johnson 2004-2024
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Famous (?) Golden Age Magician Photo
Chicago 1910
Can You Identify this Magician?
Famous Magicians Photos
Adelaide Herrmann
b.August 11, 1854
d.February 19, 1932
Wife of Alexander,
Herrmann had a very long
career in show business;
credited with presenting the
first silent magic act,
predating Goldin's.
Imro Fox
b.May 21, 1852
d.March 3, 1910
Fox was a hilarious comedic
magician and a perennial
audience favorite worldwide.
Fredrick Eugene Powell
b. March 1, 1856
d.February 27, 1938
After Kellar's death Powell was
honored as "Dean of American
Magicians"
T. Nelson Downs
b.March 16, 1867
d.September 11, 1938
Downs was the undisputed
"King of Koins," a master
manipulater with dexterity
perhaps unequalled to this
day.
Chevalier Ernest Thorn
b.September 22, 1855
d.May 21, 1928
Thorn presented "An Hour in
Dreamland" during a very long
run as a globetrotting
illusionist.
Carl Hertz
(Leib Morgenstern)
b.May 14, 1859
d.March 20, 1924
Born in San Francisco,
Hertz did not achieve his
great success until
venturing to England.
His fanciful autobiography
is Modern Mystery
Merchant
Horace Goldin
(Hyman Goldstein)
b.December 17, 1874
d.October 22, 1939
Goldin was a very
successful contemporary
of Thurston known for his
fast-paced silent act.
Harry Houdini
(Eric Weiss)
b.March24, 1874
d.October 31, 1926
Though not a great magician,
more has been written about
Houdini than any other
performer of his era. See our
Magic Links page for the best
Houdini websites.
Jack Gwynne
(Joseph McGwynne)
b.April 12, 1895
d.December 7, 1969
Gwynne was highly regarded
as a successful, skilled
vaudevillian with an
immaculate show and stage
presence.
Blackstone
(Harry Boughton)
b.September 27, 1885
d.November 16, 1965
Blackstone enjoyed great
success in the vaudeville and
movie theaters, best known
for his Dancing Hankerchief,
Vanishing Canary and Cage,
and The Bear Illusion.
Brief History of Magic (Stage
Conjuring)
(See our Magic Bibliography and Recommended
Reading pages for an in depth look at the literature of
magic history.)
Performances we would recognize as conjuring have
probably been practiced throughout history. The same
ingenuity behind ancient deceptions such as the Trojan
horse would have been used for entertainment, or at
least for cheating in gambling games, since time
immemorial. However, the respectable profession of the
illusionist gained strength during the eighteenth
century, and has enjoyed several popular vogues.
Successful magicians have become some of the most
famous celebrities in popular entertainment.
From 1756 to 1781, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats
of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific
exhibitions, throughout Europe and in Russia. Modern
entertainment magic owes much of its origins to Jean
Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), originally a
clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in the
1840s. His speciality was the construction of
mechanical automata which appeared to move and act
as if they were alive. The British performer J N
Maskelyne and his partner Cooke established their own
theatre, the Egyptian Hall in London's Piccadilly, in
1873. They presented stage magic, exploiting the
potential of the stage for hidden mechanisms and
assistants, and the control it offers over the audience's
point of view.
The greatest celebrity magician of the twentieth century
(or possibly of all time), Harry Houdini (real name Ehrich
Weiss, 1874 - 1926), took his stage name from
Robert-Houdin and developed a range of stage magic
tricks, many of them based on escapology (though that
word was not used until after Houdini's death). The son
of a Hungarian rabbi, Houdini was genuinely highly
skilled in techniques such as lockpicking and escaping
straitjackets, but also made full use of the whole range
of conjuring techniques, including fake equipment and
collusion with individuals in the audience. Houdini's
showbusiness savvy was greater than his performing
skill. There is a Houdini Museum dedicated to him in
Scranton, PA.
In addition to expanding the range of magic hardware,
showmanship and deceptive technique, these
performers established the modern relationship
between the performer and the audience. In this
relationship, there is an unspoken agreement between
the performer and the audience about what is going on.
Unlike in the past, almost no performers today actually
claim to possess supernatural powers (although there
are exceptions to this, they are regarded as charlatans).
It is understood by everyone that the effects in the
performance are accomplished through sleight of hand
(also called legerdemain), misdirection, deception,
collusion with a member of the audience, apparatus
with secret mechanisms, mirrors, and other trickery
(hence the illusions are commonly referred to as
"tricks"). The performer seeks to present an effect so
clever and skilful that the audience cannot believe their
eyes, and cannot think of the explanation. The sense of
bafflement is part of the entertainment. In turn, the
audience plays a role in which they agree to be
entertained by something they know to be a deception.
Houdini also gained the trust of his audiences by using
his knowledge of illusions to debunk charlatans, a
tradition continued by magicians today such as James
Randi and Penn and Teller.
Magic has come and gone in fashion. Today, the art is
enjoying a vogue, driven by a number of highly
successful television and Las Vegas performers.
Many of the basic principles of magic are comparatively
old. There is an expression, "it's all done with smoke
and mirrors", used to explain something baffling, but
contrary to popular belief, effects are seldom achieved
using mirrors today, due to the amount of work needed
to install it and difficulties in transport. For example, the
famous Pepper's Ghost, a stage illusion first used in
19th century London, required a specially built theatre.
Harry Houdini led the field of vanishing large objects,
by making an elephant disappear on stage, although
not using mirrors, and modern performers have
vanished objects as big as the Taj Mahal, Statue of
Liberty, and the Space Shuttle, using other kinds of
optical deceptions.
The Misuse of Magic
(see our Swindles, Scams, & Con Artists page)
In modern conjuring, it is not considered fully honest to
give a performance which claims to be anything other
than a clever and skillful deception. In today's skeptical
world, claims of actual supernatural powers would
likely be greeted with ridicule, although many people
believed that the hugely successful 1970s illusionist Uri
Geller had a paranormal ability to bend spoons, for
example.
Other performers have capitalized on popular belief in
ESP and other paranormal phenomena as a way of
presenting magic tricks. However, there are dishonest
performers who use the techniques of conjuring for
fraudulent goals. Cheating at card games is an obvious
example, and is no more than a form of theft. During the
height of the vogue for spiritualism and the wave of
popularity for séances in the late 19th century, many
fraudulent mediums used conjuring methods to
perform illusions at séances designed to convince
those present of actual supernatural events, for
financial gain. The great escapologist and illusionist
Harry Houdini devoted much of his time to exposing
fraudulent mediums. Spiritualists and mediums at work
today tend to shy away from effects such as making
knocking sounds in darkened rooms, and objects
apparently moving without being touched, as these
were devices often used in the past by fraudulent
practitioners.
Many simple conjuring tricks continue to be used to
defraud the innocent, however often they have been
exposed and debunked. The three card trick, also
called "Find the Lady" or "Three-card Monte", is an old
favorite of street hustlers and conmen; also, the shell
game, in which a pea is hidden under one of three
walnuts. Although these are well known as frauds,
some people are willing to lose money on them just for
the entertainment value. There are other street hustles
which use conjuring techniques and methods such as
misdirection to commit theft.
The above articles are adapted and edited by the House of Deception
from Wikipedia Encyclopedia and may be read in their original,
uncredited form at Wikipedia.org.
Below are pictures of Famous Magicians of the
Golden Age, 1875-1948, and a brief history of
magic (stage conjuring).
If you have photos of noted Golden Age
magicians you would like to see included here,
please contact us.
The Great Leon
(Leon Harry Levy)
b.1876
d.
A talented Vaudeville
showman, Leon was
known as a gifted
inventor of illusions,
including The Doll House.
Carter the Great
b.June 14, 1874
d.Febuary 13, 1936
Like Nicola and
Raymond, Carter found
it more profitable to
work abroad rather
than to compete with
Kellar or Thurston. He
made a fortune.
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