Word: thurston
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...spark of stage wit, the faculty of knowing when and how to break away from the regular routine speech with an immediate answer for every question, is that which distinguishes a Houdini, a Thurston, from the magician Blackstone, the feature of this week's Keith-Albee bill. Mr. Blackstone exhibits a complete performance of the accepted sleight-of-hand tricks with the ease of Keller, but he lacks the vital touch of spontaneity...
...LIFE OF MAGIC-Howard Thurston -Dorrance...
...years Thurston, successor to the late great Kellar, has been extracting rabbits from the collars of old gentlemen's overcoats, smashing expensive watches, bisecting young girls, making them disappear, float in the air. He has had three challenges (in foreign countries) from young men whom he humiliated in public by demonstrating that they concealed a duck on their persons. He began with $00.25, and now has a home on Long Island. In this book he tells his adventures as a showman...
...Thurston is now Houdini. He describes his tricks, but never explains them. His most sensational "illusion" was chopping off a friend's head. Because women fainted he never repeated it. He is contemptuous of Oriental "magic." Out of three thousand fakirs he examined in India, not one had even heard of the rope trick. (A rope is thrown into the air, is mysteriously suspended while a boy climbs up it, disappears.) The easiest people to fool, says Thurston, are scientists, men-of-letters, psychologists. The hardest are lawyers and preachers because "they do not lose their poise" when invited...
...Thurston was a great success in China. He likes the Chinese. Once he gave a performance at the White House, borrowed Calvin Coolidge's watch, seemingly smashed it to bits. Mr. Coolidge was imperturable, said nothing. Thurston returned the watch unharmed, congratulated the President on "setting the standard of discretion for the world...