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Title: Servais Le Roy - Monarch of Mystery Author: Mike Caveney & William Rauscher Description: 320 pages measuring 9 by 11 1/2 inches. Hardbound with full color dustjacket. #9 in our series of Magical Pro-Files. Printed endsheets. 28 rare posters reproduced in full color. Limited to 1,000 hand-numbered copies. Published in 1999. Price: $ 85 |
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| As a performer and inventor of magic and illusions, Servais Le Roy had no peer.
Harry Houdini praised him, Howard Thurston feared him and Harry Kellar called him
the most finished artist he had ever seen. Mrs. Le Roy, known around the world as
Talma: The Queen of Coins, was often compared to that great sleight-of-hand expert,
T. Nelson Downs, and the rotund Leon Bosco induced gales of laughter by switching
the heads on two living birds. Together, as Le Roy, Talma and Bosco - The Comedians
de Mephisto, they produced a full evening of magical entertainment unlike anything
the world had ever seen.
This is the story of their rise to fame starting with Le Roy's early visits to Egyptian Hall in London with his boyhood friend David Devant, his first success in England's music halls and American vaudeville during the 1890s, and finally, international fame as a recognized star of the Variety stage. During Le Roy's amazing life he rubbed shoulders (and did battle) with many of the biggest names in show business. Drawing on a number of primary sources including William Rauscher's long friendship with Le Roy's chief assistant Elizabeth Ford, Le Roy's previously unpublished notebook and on years of dedicated research, the authors were able to include previously unpublished illusion secrets, Le Roy's inspirational rise to international fame and finally, his catastrophic final performance and heartbreaking demise. If you enjoyed Mike Caveney's biography on Carter the Great and William Rauscher's book on The Great Raymond, you won't want to miss Servais Le Roy - Monarch of Mystery. The book measures 9 by 11-1/2 inches, contains 28 posters reproduced in full color, over 150 rare photos and drawings and is protected by a beautiful color dust jacket. This is #8 in our series of Magical Pro-Files. $85. SPECIAL OFFER: Until our supply runs out, we will include absolutely FREE, a 9 by 23 inch reproduction of a Le Roy, Talma and Bosco advertising herald, PLUS a reproduction brochure that Le Roy used during his 1915 season. Supplies are limited so don't delay. A PEEK INSIDE SERVAIS LE ROY - MONARCH OF MYSTERY [Servais Le Roy added the manipulative skills of his talented wife Talma and the comedic abilities of Leon Bosco to his existing show of original illusions and by 1906, Le Roy, Talma and Bosco were music hall headliners. During a triumphant engagement at London's Alhambra Theatre, Le Roy presented The Asrah Levitation, a Le Roy creation that some historians consider the greatest illusion of the 20th century. Writing in his private notebook, Le Roy included these memories of Princess Asrah.] Its success that night [in London] was very great. The manager of the theatre, a Mr. Scott, came on the stage after the act to compliment me on what he described as the greatest illusion he had ever seen. We were able to keep the Asrah Illusion a secret for many years as we did all we could to fool would-be imitators. Finally the wire frame was stolen from its locked box at the Alhambra Theater of Paris, France. It still remained partly a mystery though finally I gave full instructions to Halton and Jansen on the effect, actually showing the apparatus to Halton himself in Nuremberg, Germany. The copies were still quite indifferent and the ability of all imitators to obtain the full effect is still missing. Le Roy casually mentions that the wire frame was stolen in Paris but offers no further details. A more complete version of this story was discovered in a letter he sent to his friend Max Sterling. The engagement at the Alhambra Theatre in Paris concluded on October 31, 1910. It was 4:00 a.m. before Le Roy's crew had finished packing the show and were able to catch a few hours of sleep. They returned to the theater at 8:00 a.m. and hauled the equipment to the train station where it began the arduous journey by rail and sea to the north coast of Africa. It wasn't until the evening of November 4, when they were setting up backstage at the Casino in Algiers that they realized something was awry. They had been robbed. It was finally determined that sometime during the four hours that the show sat unattended in Paris, someone had crept backstage, broken into the levitation crate and stolen the form. They took probably the only piece of apparatus in the entire show whose absence could not be detected by its weight, or lack thereof. Discovering this fact backstage in Algiers was, as Le Roy himself said, " ...Quite an unpleasant moment." While writing in his journal, Le Roy included some fascinating theories regarding his Asrah Levitation.
Le Roy's heart would surely sink if he could see how modern day magicians insist on "improving" his classic creation. A simplified arrangement of the threads has produced an illusion that is easier to set up and perform but no longer allows for a hoop to be passed over the floating figure. Le Roy specifically stated that eliminating the hoop pass "greatly detracts from the effect." And his thoughts on replacing the standard hoop with a long piece of flexible cane that can be bent into a full circle is as brilliant as it is simple. The spectator who automatically assumes there is a split in every hoop would have his theory dashed by this length of cane. |
A woman is hypnotized and is then lifted to a high table. There she remains fully
extended. She is now covered with a white silk sheet. She slowly begins to float
into the air to a height of some eight feet. The table is then removed and the
performer now walks around the floating body. A large wooden hoop is then passed
about the body. The hoop can be examined. The performer now stands in front of the
floating figure, seizes the edges of the white sheet and pulls on same, only to find
the silk floating to the stage. The woman had disappeared. The effect is then
concluded by the girl walking on from the wings. A good performer and excellent
music helps greatly, as it always does. The extremely rapid covering of the girl
with the silk is of great importance and not at all difficult. Not to pass the hoop
over the floating girl greatly detracts from the effect. Indeed many imitators
dispensed with the hoop altogether. It must be passed over very neatly, not too
fast and not too slowly. This is very important. Here is a system that is not known,
as I very seldom used it, and only when I felt no one would specially see it. I used a
single length of thick cane, some 14-feet long which I bent to form a hoop holding
both ends. This I passed over the body. To the audience it was far more convincing
than the regular hoop and the latter was, invariably explained by one secret joint.
With the single cane system the audience would not even try to examine the cane.
It was too convincing. That, my friends, is magic!