talkmagic.co.uk

Hey all, I'm new here, but am on a couple other sites, if you are a member of SoMF, you probably know me. For those who don't, I am a pretty good performer, but I love History of magic. At SoMF, I am the Moderator of the history section, so I thought I would post my knowledge here too.


Almost every magic trick now-a-days, is based of one mans work, even though his magic career only lasted 10 years. . . Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin.

Born Jean Eugene Robert (row-bear) in France on December 7, 1805. In 1830, he married the daughter of a Persian watchmaker, which then they moved to Paris. For some weird reason, they decided to use his wife's maiden name, (houdin).

After moving away from mechanics and watchmaking, he decided to focus his life on magic. From his start, he was different. He used formal dress, to be more like a gentleman, doing experiments, instead of witchcraft and wizardry.

With his skills of watchmaking, he began making automatons, (self-working robot-type-things that don't rely on electricity, but gears) to use in his act. One of his most famous automatons was the Orange tree, which was in the Prestige, (or maybe illusionist). It has now been recreated by only a few people, including John Gaughan.

And then there is Antonio Diavolo, a 34 inch high automaton. Antonio is actually still "alive", 150 years later, today. Loved and restored by John Gaughan (a illusion designer and collector). On a swaying bar, this little guy controlled by just gears, no controls, can do handstands, sit on the bar, even hang by his legs and go no handed.

Now, back to Eugene. Not only did he differ by moving off the street and onto the stage, he also built his own stage. He had an advantage there because he could put in trap doors wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

In that stage, is where he created the second sight illusion. For those who don't know it would be where an assistant/magician is blindfolded, and randomly selected people from the audience would bring up objects, and they would know what it is.

And then there's the broom levitation. Yup, that was his idea too.

His probably best feat IMO is that he stopped a great deal of bloodshed from happening. Yes, with a simple magic show, he stopped a war. Now that's why we do magic. Actually it wasn't much of a war, but a fight. All these shaman people were doing all this VooDoo stuff. So they sent Robert-Houdin over to settle the nonsense in Algeria. So now he had 2 choices. . . expose them, or show them up. And he took the obvious path by showing him up.

He had an apple stuck on the end of a sword and said "fire at me and I'll catch it in the apple", they do and he catches it. The Shamans don't seem to care though. So he says to fire again, but before he grabs the sword, they fire, and BOOM, he catches it in his teeth. Now they were freaked.

But the trick that really stopped the war was the light and heavy chest. He said that he was so powerful that he could weaken even the most strongest/toughest men.
The light and Heavy box has been recreated many times, but is actually still around today. IMO stopping a great deal of bloodshed with a single magic show, is a great miracle. Just imagine if we could stop the war in Iraq with a magic show. . .

In 1858, he finished his first autobiography. Some magicians even call it the "bible of magic." In the book, (which I have never read) it tells about a mentor of Robert-Houdin, a magician named Terini (sp?), who aided him in his early performing years. Most people ignore this though because they don't think that someone could actually teach/mentor the greatest magician of all time.

Even Robert-Houdin's grandson admitted that it "was just something made up by my grandfather."

After that, Robert-Houdin lived another 13 years. On that fateful day on June 13, 1871, The Great Father of Magic, passed away, but however, his legacy moved on. . .

Everyone obviously knows that he was the reason Erich Weiss got his name, thinking adding the "i" would mean "like Houdin." Even though that's not what he meant.

When Houdini was older, he was doing something in France and decided to go visit Robert-Houdin's grave, and place a wreath of flowers there. But he got very pi**ed when Robert-Houdin's widow wouldn't see/talk to him at all. And then she didn't give Houdini permission to place the flowers in his honor. Some people know that Houdini couldn't take rejection well so he decided to write a book called "The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin" In the book Houdini tried to discredit all of Robert-Houdin's tricks, saying that he stole them from other magicians

He said that he was not the father of Modern Magic, he was not the first one to go on stage in a formal dress. So basically he tried to destroy Robert-Houdin's rep. Houdini even said in the book that his autobiography wasn't even written by him!

Thank you! Very interesting reading indeed! I find it far more interesting reading about the "old" masters of the art rather than some street magic kid running around doing a decent ACR/levitation or someone that uses camera tricks and stooges (as I said, that's my opinion), and I'm sure you all know what/who I mean. Anyway.... thank you very much for taking your time and contributing with some very interesting material!