The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards [Hardcover]

Jim Steinmeyer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 3, 2011

Here is the seminal biography of the magician's magician, Howard Thurston, a man who surpassed Houdini in the eyes of showmen and fans and set the standard fro how stage magic is performed today.

Everyone knows Houdini-but who was Thurston? In this rich, vivid biography of the "greatest magician in the world," celebrated historian of stage magic Jim Steinmeyer captures the career and controversies of the wonder-worker extraordinaire, Howard Thurston.

The public's fickleness over magicians has left Thurston all but forgotten today. Yet Steinmeyer shows how his story is one of the most remarkable in show business. During his life, from 1869 to 1936, Thurston successfully navigated the most dramatic changes in entertainment-from street performances to sideshows to wagon tours through America's still-wild West to stage magic amid the glitter of grand theaters.

Thurston became one of America's most renowned vaudeville stars, boldly performing an act with just a handful of playing cards, and then had the foresight to leave vaudeville, expanding his show into an extravaganza with more than forty tons of apparatusand costumes. His touring production was an American institution for nearly thirty years, and Thurston earned a brand name equal to Ziegfeld or Ringling Brothers.

Steinmeyer explores the stage and psychological rivalry between Thurston and Houdini during the first decades of the twentieth century- a contest that Thurston won. He won with a bigger show, a more successful reputation, and the title of America's greatest magician. In The Last Greatest Magician in the World, Thurston's magic show is revealed as the one that animates our collective memories.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Expanding on his chapters on Howard Thurston in his history of magic, Hiding the Elephant, Steinmeyer produces an engaging full-length biography of the man Orson Welles called œthe master. While Houdini™s daring stunts were legendary, Steinmeyer says Thurston was the public™s favorite, captivating audiences with his œself-assured grandeur. Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Thurston gained fame in the early part of the 20th century with his œRising Card Trick, in which he levitated cards named by audience members. He successfully changed with the times, going from street performances to wagon tours through the West. He then became a top vaudeville star, but wisely left the vaudeville circuit to produce more ambitious spectacles involving 40 tons of magic apparatus and colorful costumes, a variety of animals, and more than two dozen assistants. Tracing the magician™s rise to fame, this volume neatly juggles his marriages and his magic with his triumphs, travails, showmanship, and marketing ballyhoo (œThe Wonder Show of the Universe). Steinmeyer recovers, from the shadows of his greatest rival, a figure whose grandiose productions were an American institution for almost 30 years. (Feb. 3)
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Review

"There is no greater expert on the history of stage magicians than Jim Steinmeyer. His deep knowledge of the subject, combined with a remarkable mastery of magical know-how, makes this book a smart, fantastic read. I can't recommend it enough!"
-Neil Patrick Harris

"Jim Steinmeyer knows the outside-in world of magic from the inside; he is a celebrated 'invisible man' - inventor, designer and creative brain behind many of the great stage magicians of the last quarter-century... Steinmeyer writes about events a century ago as vividly as if he had been there; and in a sense, he has been... No author has ever better conveyed the way the love of conjuring consumes a magician's life with magic's joys, terrors and longings."
-Teller (of Penn and Teller), The New York Times Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher; First Edition edition (February 3, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585428450
• ISBN-13: 978-1585428458
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Magic

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars HOWARD THURSTON LIVES AGAIN! February 3, 2011

By B. Robinson

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Jim Steinmeyer's excellent new biography of Howard Thurston (1869-1936) is a welcome addition to the literature of the theatre and that of the history of magic. The dogged research by the author is noticeable on every page as we find our subject first on the outskirts of society as a petty thief and then rising to the heights of being an American institution -- parading the largest touring magic show ever. Thurston made his success in Europe at the turn of the century at the same time another young Hungarian emigre named Erich Weiss also left for England to seek his fortune. Of course, Erich had changed his name to an appropriation of France's greatest magician: Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, and began calling himself brazenly HOUDINI. That HOUDINI has become a legend is undeniable, and this book seeks to settle a score, if only for historical accuracy, that, in their day, the early 1900's Thurston was the King of Magic. Thurston was never eclipsed by the syllable accenting American Houdini. In fact, it is clearly shown by this expertly written tome that Houdini was a top of the bill vaudeville star with his name spelled in letters twice the size of any other act, while Thurston appeared in legitimate theatre and at the White House several times. Thurston made woman float in the air, and sawed women in halves, and gave a three-hour extravaganza that took several train cars to carry, even providing a full orchestra as well. The problem that brought his downfall was the Great Depression and the rise of the "flickers" which we all know today as the movies. Thurston was as much a part of the Roaring Twenties as Al Capone or Babe Ruth and that his star has faded is a shame. Yet, like the great phoenix he was, this book, brilliantly written and researched and engendering the same kind of thrilling enthusiasm Thurston brought in his audiences, brings back the master magician in all his glory, if only in a slightly bittersweet way. Bravo to Jim Steinmeyer for a wonderful read. I unreservedly advise all who love a good tale, love magic history, and love the truth of the early 20th century theatre to run out and buy this book. You will not regret it. 5 stars!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid, exciting magician's bio--would make a great movie! February 3, 2011

By Pageturner in NYC

Format:Hardcover

Steinmeyer's THE LAST GREATEST MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD is a supremely entertaining historical biography that rescues Howard Thurston, a show-business legend who has been overshadowed over the years by the legend of Harry Houdini. History may be myopic in its appreciation of this master magician, but in his day, he was more popular than Houdini. Steinmeyer, who is not only an acclaimed author (HIDING THE ELEPHANT) but also a historian and designer of magic illusions, has an infectious enthusiasm for his subject matter. He's particularly adept at recreating Howard Thurston's exciting early years when he spent parts of his youth traveling through America--riding the rails, hobo style. Steinmeyer writes: "Today the public has forgotten the name Thurston....when most people imagine a great magician of the 1920s, they summon the name Houdini. But few understood what Houdini's show really looked like--gazing at a curtained cabinet and waiting for him to escape... It was Thurston who presented the magic show of our collected memories, the bright, fast miracles that complimented the 1920s--the floating princess, the painted boxes suspended over the heads of the audience, and the gunshots that caused handfuls of fluttering showgirls to disappear." This is a smashing page-turner--colorful, exciting, and full of historical facts. This is not a dry biography--it reads like great fiction and would amke a tremendous movie! If you're a fan of magic, vaudeville or historical biographies...pick up this great book!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Reversing the Disappearing Act March 15, 2011

By R. Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

You might expect if you go to a magic show that the magician will, among other things, make himself disappear, only to reappear somewhere else. Jim Steinmeyer has performed this feat on the behalf of the great Howard Thurston. Steinmeyer, himself a magician, a designer of magic effects for others, and an explainer of magic and magicians, has written a full biography of Thurston, a magician who has disappeared into the mists of history but who, before radio, movies, and television, performed the world's largest magic show and was well known all around the world. The title of the book is no exaggeration: _The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston Versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards_ (Tarcher / Penguin). Thurston outlived Houdini and was performing at a time when there were battles among magicians, not only for fame but also over tricks, priorities, and patents. There are still famous magicians, but in the Golden Age of American magic, everyone wanted to see Thurston's "The Wonder Show of the Universe."

There were good reasons for this; Thurston would tour with tons of secret equipment for his tricks, and his effects could be spectacular. Part of Steinmeyer's story is how Thurston would collaborate with technical assistants (such as Steinmeyer himself) to pull them off, and how the secrets got stolen or betrayed to other magicians as assistants moved from the camp of one magician to another. Except for his obvious talents, he was otherwise a fairly ordinary fellow. He could levitate a woman on stage, but he could find little happiness in marriage, although he tried four times. He was an awful businessman, and was constantly borrowing from Houdini, or from his brother who organized hootchie-kootchie and other midway offerings but who had money to lend. Thurston had much less antipathy toward spiritualism than Houdini, who gained fame as a medium-buster, and Houdini who looms largest in the book as Thurston's competition. Everyone knows Houdini's name now, and few remember Thurston's. Steinmeyer explains that Houdini did a superb job of making himself a historical presence. No one can deny that Houdini's skills in his brilliant escape tricks (and his skills in self-promotion) made him a historic figure. He was not, Steinmeyer explains, much of a magician or a stage showman. Steinmeyer traces the sometimes respectful, sometimes acrimonious relationship between the two magicians from when they first crossed paths at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, where Thurston was working as a barker for an African exhibit and Houdini was in greasepaint as a Hindu mystic. Another relationship explored here is that with Kellar, who preceded the two in any claim of "World's Greatest Magician," and who appointed Thurston as his successor in that role (although Thurston campaigned for it hard by flattery and forming a business partnership). Among the most successful relationships (Thurston didn't have many) was his work partnership with George White, whose father may have been a freed slave. He joined the act when he was but twelve years old, offering service as a stage presence, a foil, and a general assistant. He would continue such work until Thurston's death in 1936.

Steinmeyer's biography brings us back to a time when magic had a degree of importance that it no longer has, due to other magical entertainments like movies and television. While Thurston simply is not the most colorful or likeable personality, he worked hard within the realm of the magic of his times, and Steinmeyer is very good at describing how the technology of the illusions was developed, shared, sold, and stolen. Houdini's will remain the known name; but Steinmeyer has for now shifted Thurston into the "now you see him" category and out of the "now you don't."