Jim Steinmeyer (17 page)

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 cover 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:

So much for the Nim Kid. These stories were usually ignored as press puffery typical of many performers. Houdini’s official biographies contained similar foolishness. But it was more specific exaggeration that raised the ire of the magicians, especially Houdini.

Thurston had sent a copy of his card book to Houdini, who was then making headlines with his escape act in Berlin. Houdini noted that Thurston had simplified the story of his Rising Card performance in Denver. He now fooled Herrmann the Great, and all of his staff, with his amazing trick. He had been appearing at the nearby Orpheum Theater at the time, and Herrmann was at the Tabor Grand.

Houdini had his doubts. He couldn’t calculate how Thurston had ever mystified Herrmann the Great (Alexander Herrmann), who died in 1896. Houdini wrote to his friend Billy Robinson, Chung Ling Soo, for clarification. Robinson was appearing in Vienna at the time, and replied to Houdini’s letter. No, he insisted, it was Leon Herrmann, not Alexander. “He says he fooled The Great Herrmann. He did not,” Robinson wrote. And no, Robinson was certainly not fooled as well. “I gave him a black velvet set instead of a light scene, so the thread could not be seen. Ask him if he remembers that, and then he will change his mind about fooling me.”

When Thurston arrived in London in 1900 and discovered that Billy Robinson—now Chung Ling Soo—was a star, he may have tried some quick fence-mending. In an interview for an English magazine, he credited William Robinson with important help during his early career. Thurston must have known that Robinson would see this as a peace offering.

THURSTON TOOK
short breaks in his Palace contract to work other English cities, and Grace found work for her own act in short runs at English music halls. When Queen Victoria died in January 1901, entertainments stopped in England during the mourning period. Thurston and Grace accepted offers from the Continent. He opened at the Winter Garden in Berlin, where Thurston’s “Zenda Waltzes” was played by a fifty-two-piece orchestra—including twenty-one violins. Thurston performed a private show for the Kaiser, and in April went on to Copenhagen, where Howard and Grace met four monarchs—King Christian IX of Denmark; his son King George I of Greece; Edward VII of Great Britain; and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia—who were riding through a park in a carriage. It was a celebration of King Christian’s birthday. Thurston later reported that he greeted the rulers by reaching out and producing four playing cards, the four kings. The tale of Thurston’s trick seems to have been a publicity boast, and it became an official part of his enlarging biography.

In July 1902, Howard and Grace appeared with their own acts on the bill at the Folies-Marigny in Paris for one month. Then they returned back to England to appear in Douglas on the Isle of Man. Thurston returned to London for another long run at the Empire Theater.

In London, they settled in at a theatrical boardinghouse near the British Museum, at Number 10 Keppel Street—a home away from home for many American vaudevillians. Filled with successful, extroverted performers who were experiencing London as a great adventure, the house had the atmosphere of a party. At times the Thurstons were joined there by the Houdinis, T. Nelson Downs, W. C. Fields, and a host of other performers, like Charles Aldrich, a quick-change artist; Fred Stone, the famous song-and-dance man; and Everhart, who performed a beautiful juggling act with wooden hoops.

Thurston’s busy schedule left him moody and unpredictable. He now needed a frame of dark curtains surrounding his bed, a sleep mask, and ear-plugs, in order to get a full night’s sleep. He second-guessed Grace’s motives, even her laughing conversations with the Prince of Wales or the fun, flirtatious atmosphere at 10 Keppel Street.

Howard and Grace’s marriage was crumbling. Thurston’s dark moods often ended in arguments, or noisy chases down the stairs, out the front door, and through the street. When Howard bought a new gown for Grace, it inspired a laughing remark from W.C. Fields: “I wish I’d seen you first, before that card tosser caught you.” Thurston marched his wife back up the stairs, told her that her flirting was a disgrace, and had her remove the dress so that he could burn it, bit by bit, in the flame of the gas jet. He left her sitting on the bed, sobbing, and marched out of the flat. Hours later he returned, proffering an apology and a new set of diamond earrings.

On another occasion, when Thurston’s temper raged and he lunged for her, Grace grabbed a chair and swung it, knocking him to the ground. Thurston stumbled from the room, quiet and contrite, then returned with a bandage on his scalp. He never mentioned the incident. “Looking back,” Grace wrote, “I wonder if I should have broken more chairs.”

Grace had become inured to the bickering and threats, and was surprised when one of her friends at Keppel Street, a young dancer named Jimmy Polk, pulled her aside and told her, “Everybody knows what goes on. He hits you.”

 

 

GRACE PLAYED
dates through England while Howard and George returned for a quick trip through midwestern cities in America in the spring of 1902, fulfilling long-standing engagements on the Orpheum circuit. In June, they met back in Paris to begin another tour of the Continent. Thurston was calculating how long he’d have to work, how much he’d have to earn, to take the next step.

In fact, Howard Thurston was never really a vaudevillian. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he hadn’t been seduced by the new trend in entertainment. In 1900, most stars in vaudeville or music hall could only imagine long, lucrative careers; the circuits were expanding and the public couldn’t get enough of the acts. But Thurston saw his act as a means to an end. Perhaps it was a unique bit of business acumen or his natural restlessness. More than likely, he had fixated on his childhood dream to become a great magician with a great, elaborate show in the Herrmann tradition. In vaudeville, there really was no place for a great magician, just “another magician.”