10 ILLUSIONS

IN ADDITION TO HUMAN ODDITIES AND working acts, a third major class of sideshow features is represented by what is known as an illusion show (figure 10.1). In earlier times, this could mean simply a magic show, particularly one that featured some of the larger effects. “Illusion shows became popular on midways,” says Al Stencell (2002, 139), “and by World War I they were competing with the new 10-in-1s and holding their own.” Such a show was the Temple of Wonders that operated at Palisades Park, New Jersey. A 1926 photograph shows banners for a “Prof. of Magic,” the “Burning of She” (a cremation illusion), and many other features, including, on the bally, a suspension illusion (Barth and Siegel 2002, 54).

The J. L. Cronin Shows, which operated from 1922 to 1931, had a mystery and illusion show called The Demon of Doom. Billed as the “World's Greatest Mystery Show,” it featured among its small troupe an escape artist who, in Houdini fashion, wriggled out of a straitjacket (McKennon 1972, 1:101). Another illusion show had an unusually frank approach. Operated by Dufour and Rogers at the 1939 New York world's fair, it was dubbed the Fakertorium. Explains Dufour (1977, 121): “Everything in the show is a fake—illusions, and so on, with an exposé of how the four-legged girl was presented, etc.—and that is how the show was sold to the public.” More recently, an illusion show might be just a single-O that features one illusion (Ray 1993, 14). In this chapter, after first looking at the working acts of magicians and psychic marvels, I describe several famous sideshow illusions.

Magicians

Among the familiar working acts of the sideshow is the conjurer or stage magician (figure 10.2). The great Harry Houdini (born Ehrich Weiss, 1874–1926) had his start in such venues. After entertaining at the Chicago world's fair in 1893, he performed in dime museums at Coney Island and elsewhere and traveled with medicine shows and the Welsh Brothers Circus sideshow. As the “King of Cards,” he did up to twenty platform shows a week for a salary of $12. He later added a handcuff-escape act and became a vaudeville headliner, then progressed to his own full evening show that incorporated magic (including sleight of hand and illusions), dramatic escapes, and exposés of spiritualistic trickery (Christopher 1962, 182–87; Dawes 1979, 193–202).

FIGURE 10.1. Hall & Christ's Wondercade was a type of illusion show. It appeared at the 1981 Ohio State Fair and then went on tour. Note the buzz-saw illusion depicted at right. (Author's collection, gift of Sandy Lesniak)

Many other famous magicians debuted in fairs and sideshows. As noted in earlier chapters, Isaac Fawkes was a major attraction at the annual Bartholomew Fair in the first half of the eighteenth century. His banner proclaimed his “Dexterity of hand.” Fawkes performed up to six shows each day at the height of the fair season. Following his death in 1731, his son carried on the tradition of fairground conjuring. Still others followed, including a Monsieur Gyngell—“emperor of cards” and exhibitor of “necromancer's powers”—who was at the famous fair in the early nineteenth century.

FIGURE 10.2. A magician performing in the Houdini tradition as an escape artist is depicted on this Coney Island banner. (Photo by author)

Like Houdini, the great illusionist Howard Thurston (1869–1936) left home as a youngster and traveled with circus sideshows, performing prestidigitation with cards and doing other small platform magic. He went on to become “an American theatrical phenomenon,” presenting an evening show with such features as levitation, a vanishing auto, the East Indian rope trick, and other wonders over some three decades. Thurston's contemporary, Carl Hertz (1869–1924), also toured with a circus before traveling the world with a successful magic show (Christopher 1962, 16–19, 179–90).

Many well-known Canadian magicians likewise had their start in carnival and circus sideshows, among them vaudeville magician Harry Smith of Toronto. I knew Smith and his wife, Sophie, when I was a young magician in the late 1960s and early 1970s and frequently visited them at their Arcade Magic and Novelty Store, where they were in semiretirement. Harry told me that he joined the Steve McGrow Carnival in Pennsylvania at the age of fifteen, where he was a magician, fire-eater, puppeteer, and talker. From about 1920 to 1930 he worked a variety of carnival and circus sideshows, including the Frank West Wonder Shows and Simms Greater Shows (Nickell 1970).

Raymond Lowe was another Canadian magician who did a stint in the carnival, working one year with the Stanger Shows out of Winnipeg. Still another was Bill McClory, who traveled with carnivals throughout his native country as well as the United States. At one time or another, McClory juggled, did rope spinning, rode a unicycle, and played fifteen musical instruments—as well as performing a magic act (Nickell 1970).

One of Canada's most famous magical exports to the United States is Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, now a naturalized American citizen better known as James “The Amazing” Randi. Born in Toronto in 1928, Randi became Houdini's great successor as a sideshow performer, stage magician, escape artist, and nemesis of phony spiritualists, psychics, and similar claimants. (He also became my mentor, colleague, and friend of over thirty years.)

Many now-forgotten magicians enjoyed careers in the sideshows. Photographs of old midway scenes show the banners of some of them. A double banner in the Dailey Brothers Circus Museum (sideshow) banner line, for example, featured a “Master Magician” and promised “Mystery & Fun.” Another was headed “Illusionist.” A turbaned “Hindu Magician” was depicted on a banner of Happyland's Big Circus Sideshow, with various wonders emanating in a mist from the magus's magical vase. A similar motif was included on a “Master of Magic” banner painted by Fred G. Johnson. And a banner line of a ten-in-one at an unidentified carnival featured a “Prof. De Lenz, Magician” (Johnson et al. 1996, 8, 30, 32, 69).

Sometimes a magician is recognizable as such in an old group photograph of human oddities and working acts. For example, in a 1924 photo of the Harlem Amusement Palace (a dime museum), the house wizard appears, along with a tattooed man, fat lady, living skeleton, snake charmer, man with trained monkeys, musicians, and others; he holds a giant fan of cards in one hand and a magic wand in the other (Barth and Siegel 2002, 53).

Psychic Marvels

Another class of sideshow mystifier is the purveyor of some form of alleged extrasensory power. There are basically two types on the midway: the mentalist and the fortune-teller.

Mentalists are simply magicians who perform mind reading and other “psychic” tricks. In the sideshows they are billed in various ways. For example, there was “Princess Nanna,” wife of showman W. D. “Mexican Billy” Ament, who performed at the Midway Plaisance of the 1893 Chicago world's fair. Others were “Mlle. Corina, Mind Reader,” “Lady Yava, Mentalist,” and many similar performers. Among them was “Madame Bailey, the Girl with a Thousand Eyes,” but others were similarly styled, including “Leona LaMar, the Girl with 1,000 Eyes,” who worked her act with Hugh Shannon (Stencell 2002, 25–26; Johnson et al. 1996, 32, 33; McKennon 1972, 2:158; Dufour 1977, 49).

LaMar's pitch book (figure 10.3) describes her act, which was a typical one. “The Professor” (her partner) went among the audience and picked out common articles, such as a comb or handkerchief, which the blindfolded LaMar named. She would even call out the date on a coin, the name on a calling card, or the denomination of a piece of paper money, thus supposedly proving that she used “mental telepathy” (LaMar n.d.). Although LaMar performed in lowly state fair midways of the 1920s, the act she and Shannon offered was reportedly “far superior” to that of her rival, Eva Fay, who was herself “a sensation as a mind reader on the Keith Orpheum circuit.” LaMar and Shannon were soon signed by Terry Turner (who had taken the teenage conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton out of the Clarence Wortham Shows and onto the vaudeville stage). The duo was soon receiving $2,500 a week (Dufour 1977, 48–49).

Rather than mental telepathy, such acts usually depend on a clever code that the “professor” and “mind reader” have memorized and rehearsed. How the former asks the question signals the category of object. For example, “What is this?” could signify money, while “What am I holding?” might indicate an item of jewelry. An additional phrase, such as “Now concentrate,” could provide another piece of information. When the mentalist answers, say, “money,” the professor replies, “Good” or “That's right” or some other word or phrase that further identifies the item. Magicians call the routine “second sight.”

FIGURE 10.3. Booklet of mentalist Leona LaMar billed her as “The Girl with 1,000 Eyes.” (Author's collection)

The secret is ancient and appeared in print as early as the sixteenth century, when Reginald Scot (1584, 191) debunked all manner of superstitions and supernatural claims in his The Discoverie of Witchcraft. It was subsequently developed by magicians such as Pinetti in the eighteenth century and Robert-Houdin (from whom Houdini took his name) in the nineteenth. The renowned mentalist Julius Zancig performed second sight with his wife, and the couple was billed in vaudeville shows as “Two Minds with a Single Thought” (Dexter 1958, 187–204; Gardner 1962, 96; Christopher 1962, 162).

A mentalist act need not involve the studious second-sight routine or even a partner. Numerous tricks that are simple to perform, yet astonishingto the audience, have long been available. For example, the performer writes a “prediction” on a small pad of paper, then asks a member of the audience to name, for instance, any number under 100. When the person complies, the mentalist shows the pad, on which is written that very number! The secret is a little gimmick called a “nail writer,” a device containing a bit of pencil lead that fits on the thumb. To work the trick, the performer initially only pretends to write something. Then, after the audience member states the number, the performer jots it with the nail writer just before revealing it, the pad concealing the thumb's movement (Schiffman 1997, 72–73).

Mentalists often do mind-reading tricks with playing cards. For instance, a spectator is invited to insert his finger into the deck as the mentalist riffles it, remove a card, and concentrate on it. With appropriate byplay—in which the wizard apparently reads the individual's mind—the color, suit, and number of the chosen card are revealed in turn. For this effect, the mentalist uses an apparently ordinary deck, casually flipping through it so the spectators can see that it consists of different cards. In reality, it may be a “forcing” deck, in which every other card is the same and is cut slightly short. Thus, when the deck is riffled, the cards fall in pairs, and the spectator always gets one of the duplicate short cards (Hugard 1980, 272–74).

I demonstrated and sold such “Svengali” decks (as magicians call them) when I was a carny pitchman at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in 1969 (Nickell 1970). Rather than just riffling the cards to show that they were all apparently different, I would spring them slowly from my left hand to my right so that the entire tip could get a look at the cards. Of course, once these decks began to be sold at fairs and carnivals, sideshow mentalists avoided them, using sleight of hand and other methods to accomplish the same and similar feats.

Like mentalists, carny fortune-tellers also take advantage of the widespread belief in psychic phenomena to make a buck off credulous patrons. However, instead of representing a working act and performing before an audience, fortune-tellers operate a concession known in carny parlance as a mitt camp. Such fortune-telling booths can be individual enterprises (like the ones I have seen in recent years at some fairground midways) or they can be a screened-off area inside a ten-in-one (like a mitt camp I visited at the Canadian National Exhibition around 1970). “Whether the seeress has a canvas banner showing the lines of the hand, or ‘mitt,’ or whether the sign shows a human head with the bumps identified according to character traits for phrenology,” explains Gresham (1953, 115), “it's a mitt camp to the carnies.” The same applies to astrology, tarot card reading, or some other form of divinatory or character “reading.” (See figures 10.4 and 10.5.)

FIGURE 10.4. Mitt camp offers palmistry at the 2004 Canadian National Exhibition midway. (Photo by author)

One canvas banner, by 1930s artist G. M. Caldwell, simply features a giant open hand, displaying the lines and symbols of palmistry and reading “Votre Future.” (It has been repainted and once bore the words “Past, Present & Future” and “Man Know Thyself.”) Another banner—a double one produced by artist George Bellis of Sunshine Studio, Wichita, Kansas, circa 1940—features a “Mystic Reader” who is alternately studying the skies (for astrological indicators) and gazing into his crystal ball (Johnson et al. 1996, 19, 43).

Some of the mitt camp operators were gypsies, a term derived from Egyptian due to a mistaken notion about their ancestry. They were actually exiled from northwestern India in the first millennium A.D. and in the Middle Ages sought asylum in Romania, hence their other designation as Romanies or (as they prefer) Roma. As an ethnic group, they tend to live outside the culture of whatever country they reside in and often treat nongypsies as fair game for such scams as fortune-telling and curse removal (Nickell 2001, 179–80; Randi 1995, 148).

FIGURE 10.5. Mitt camp offers psychic readings at the 2004 Canadian National Exhibition midway. (Photo by author)

One old gypsy woman advised a young girl of the tribe:

When thou wilt tell a fortune, put all thy heart into finding out what kind of man or woman thou hast to deal with. Look keenly, fix thy glance sharply, especially if it be a girl. When she is half-frightened, she will tell you much without knowing it. When thou shalt have often done this thou wilt be able to twist many a silly girl like twine around thy fingers. Soon thy eyes will look like a snake's, and when thou art angry thou wilt look like the old devil. Half the business, my dear, is to know how to please and flatter and allure people. When a girl has anything unusual in her face, you must tell her that it signifies extraordinary luck. If she have red or yellow hair, tell her that is a true sign that she will have much gold. When her eyebrows meet, that shows she will be United to many rich gentlemen. Tell her always, when you see a mole on her cheek or her forehead or anything, that is a sign that she will become a great lady…. Praising and petting and alluring and crying-up are half of fortunetelling. There is no girl and no man in all the Lord's earth who is not proud and vain about something, and if you can find it out you can get their money. (Leland 1882)

Because of unsavory practices, gypsies became unpopular among carnival operators, who sometimes ran ads in Billboard reading, “mitt camp, no gypsies.” Eventually, most of the soothsayers came to be what the gypsies call gorgio (nongypsies). However, Gresham (1953, 116) recalls one “strikingly beautiful gypsy girl” sitting at the table in her fortune-telling concession at a midwestern amusement park. She was bored and leafing through a tabloid, but when he approached, she sprang up with a “swirl of nylon skirts and petticoats,” her black eyes taking on the intense “Romany gaze” as she launched into her pitch: “For one hand, one dollar, gentleman. For both hands, two dollars, giving full life reading, telling about future dangers, how to escape them, who you will fall in love with and who will fall in love with you, likewise business enemies for you to watch for.”

Whether gypsy or not, the midway fortune-teller relies on some standard methods. One technique—still used by today's “psychics” and “spiritualist mediums”—is called “cold reading.” Psychologist Ray Hyman (1977, 22), himself a palmist during his college years, explains how the “reader” first sizes up the client, then,

On the basis of his initial assessment he makes some tentative hypotheses. He tests these out by beginning his assessment in general terms, touching upon general categories of problems and watching the reaction of the client. If he is on the wrong track the client's reactions—eye movements, pupillary dilation, other bodily mannerisms—will warn him. When he is on the right track other reactions will tell him so. By watching the client's reactions as he tests out different hypotheses during his spiel, the good reader quickly hits upon what is bothering the customer and begins to adjust the reading to the situation. By this time, the client has usually been persuaded that the reader, by some uncanny means, has gained insights into the client's innermost thoughts. His guard is now down. Often he opens up and actually tells the reader, who is also a good listener, the details of his situation. The reader, after a suitable interval, will usually feed back the information that the client has given him in such a way that the client will be further amazed at how much the reader “knows” about him. Invariably the client leaves the reader without realizing that everything he has been told is simply what he himself has unwittingly revealed to the reader.

The less skilled pretender to clairvoyant powers, who has not yet mastered the art of cold reading, can fall back on a stock spiel, such as this one (quoted in Hyman 1977, 23):

Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary and reserved. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. You pride yourself on being an independent thinker and do not accept others’ opinions without satisfactory proof. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety, and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. Disciplined and controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside.

Your sexual adjustment has presented some problems for you. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a strong need for other people to like you and for them to admire you.

Some fortune-tellers convince themselves that they really do have clairvoyant powers, while others rationalize their deceptions and illusions as harmless entertainment or as valuable counseling at a bargain rate.

Torture Box Illusions

A number of sideshow illusions utilize a coffin-size box into which the magician's lovely assistant is placed and then—well, terrible things are seemingly done to her. The box might be sawed in half, intersected with blades, set on fire, or treated to other horrors, but the lady always emerges unharmed. How do they do it? Well, very carefully, as the old magicians’ joke goes.

Let's start with the classic, sawing a woman in half. An effect similar to it was done by a French conjurer named Torrini in the early nineteenth century, but it properly dates from 1920, when British magician P. T. Selbit performed it in London. Horace Goldin created another version in New York. According to Milbourne Christopher (1962, 190), “During the 1921–22 season the illusion was such a great draw in vaudeville theaters that Goldin sent out six road companies and Selbit toured with nine units.”

In the most common version of the trick, two girls are used. The magician's assistant enters the box, sticks her head out a hole in one end, and draws her knees up to her chin. At the same time, another girl (who is concealed in the platform on which the box rests) enters through a trap, puts her feet out two holes in the opposite end of the box, and places her head between her knees. From the spectators’ point of view, it appears that a girl has entered the box and that her head and feet are in view. Instead of her being cut in half, the saw blade passes harmlessly between the two doubled-up girls (Hay 1949, 398). A simplified version of the trick requires only one girl. In this case, the box is somewhat short and bottomless, which allows the middle of the girl's body to sag into the platform below, thus being out of reach of the saw (Gibson 1967, 117–18).

The most dramatic version of the illusion dispenses with the box and uses a table and a buzz saw to slice the assistant in two. The secret is that, under her gown, she is wearing a special corset made to retain her shape when her middle sags into a recess in the table. It is this corset that the rotating blade cuts into, with a safety bar to keep it from cutting too deep (Wels 1977, 95–96). Sometimes a bag of fake blood and gore is affixed to the corset for added realism (as in a version I saw in a live stage show in the 1970s). The buzz-saw illusion was introduced by Horace Goldin and was exhibited on the midway by magicians such as Noel Lester, who used his wife Phyllis in the role of victim on the Strates Shows circuit in the 1950s (Stencell 2002, 130–31).

In another box illusion, the magician's hapless assistant loses her middle. The effect is known variously as the “Invisible Middle Girl,” “No Middle Myrtle,” and other appellations (Brill 1976, 149, 158). In a wonderful banner illustrating the effect for Bobby Reynolds's traveling sideshow museum (figure 10.6), the box is omitted for exaggerated effect. In reality, the box (figure 10.7) is divided into three vertical sections. The small central section simply hides the girl's midriff by means of two mirrors joined at an angle. Each mirror reflects one side of the box, giving the overall appearance that one is seeing the back of the box and thus making that section look empty.

In an interesting variant called the “Sword Lady” (Brill 1976, 144), the assistant's head extends above a two-section box. The lower section is open, but the upper one has doors that cover her torso. The magician thrusts a number of swords into this area from the sides, and then the doors are opened. Spectators see the swords crisscrossing the space where the lady's torso should be but isn't. In this version, mirrors are unnecessary. Instead, matte-black panels are used, being relatively invisible when the entire interior of the compartment is similarly painted.

One of the most common sideshow illusions is known as the “Coffin Blade Box.” Indeed, “No magic or side show should be without this one,” states an ad in a showmen's catalog. “We've sold plans of it to all the big shows.” The ad continues, “use it as a stage presentation, a free act on the bally platform, or as a side show act” (Brill 1976, 142). Usually known simply as a blade box, the illusion was especially popular around the end of the nineteenth century and continues to be in use today (figure 10.8). In fact, while doing research for this book, I watched it being presented at Coney Island's Sideshows by the Seashore.

The act involves a young woman lying in the box, which is then intersected by a number of wide blades inserted through holes in the hinged lid. It seems that there is no room left for the lady. Has she vanished, or—? The secret? For that, one pays an extra charge (a form of aftercatch, also called a ding) to come up on the platform and peer inside. To provide extra incentive, the magician often uses a clever ploy involving his scantily clad assistant. When the blades are being inserted, one seems to catch on something, whereupon the illusionist reaches in and pulls out a bra; the blade then proceeds unhindered. Another blade sticks, and another article of clothing is removed. When all the blades have been inserted, the magician (or talker—often the same person) begins to pitch the aftercatch. Here is the spiel of the late showman Howard Bone (2001, 35–36): “I now invite you to come on stage, up these steps to your right. Walk by the box and look inside to get an eyeful of exactly how she is in there, and then walk down the other set of steps. All this for a small donation of one dime, one tenth of a dollar. If you need change, I’ll make it for you. Remember folks, the young lady receives all the money. It all goes to her. [A lie.] Someone start it off and the rest will follow. Thank you ma'am, thank you sir…move right along.” Of course, the articles of clothing were duplicates, and most people accepted that the joke was on them. They did, however, get to see how the girl's body snaked around the blades; there was room for her after all. From their original vantage point below the platform, spectators could not perceive the depth, so the blades seemed closer together than they actually were.

FIGURE 10.6. “No Middle Myrtle,” contrary to its banner depiction, is a magician's illusion (see figure 10.7). (Photo by author at Bobby Reynolds's traveling sideshow museum)

FIGURE 10.7. The illusion uses a box with mirrors to conceal the young lady's midriff. (Photo by author at Bobby Reynolds's traveling sideshow museum)

FIGURE 10.8. Famed showman Bobby Reynolds exhibits a blade box, long a sideshow feature. (Photo by author)

Not as common as the blade box, but much more dramatic, is the cremation illusion. There are several variants, one of which is called “Flaming Mamie” (Brill 1976, 155). The magician's assistant is helped into the coffin-like box, and then a lighted match is dropped inside. Instantly, real flames leap up and blaze through the length of the casket. Then, suddenly, the sides and ends drop down, revealing only smoldering bones. As an ad for the plans promised, “You use the same girl in the next performance, but it creates a startling illusion” (Brill 1976, 155). The secret is a shallow metal tray, containing a small amount of naphtha or similar fuel, attached on the inside of the lid. After the assistant is placed in the casket, this tray drops down and is stopped by an inner frame. It thus protects the assistant from the brief blaze and conceals her when the box's sides fall down (Wels 1977, 157–59).

With these torture box effects, as with most illusions, it is the magician's assistant—not the illusionist himself—who does the hard work.

Living Heads

A decapitation illusion, probably dating from the Middle Ages and recorded by Reginald Scot in 1584, was sensational for its day. It featured a young boy who was placed facedown on a box. The magician covered the boy's head with a cloth and, reaching underneath with a knife, apparently severed the head, which he then lifted (still covered in the cloth) and placed on a platter at the other end of the box. He removed the cloth and showed the living head before reversing the procedure and revealing the boy fully restored.

The trick actually utilized two boys—the second boy concealed in the box (figures 10.9 and 10.10). The top of the box had a round hole at either end, which could not be seen by the audience, since the box was on a raised platform. After the magician placed the first boy on the box, he picked up the cloth, which contained a dummy head. As the boy's head was covered, the youth ducked it into the hole, while the wizard pretended to decapitate him. When the “head” was carried to the opposite end of the box and seemingly placed on the platter, the hidden boy pushed his head through the hole there (and through the platter's matching hole). The cloth was then pulled away, and the living head was revealed (Gibson 1967, 31–32; Hopkins 1898, 48–50).

A very different type of animated head was inspired by the popularity of spiritualism. Among the “spirit effects” created by magicians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a “talking skull.” One such version was not only sensational in its own right but was also a prototype for many illusions that followed. Known as the Sphinx, it debuted on October 16, 1865, at London's Egyptian Hall. The exhibitor was a “Colonel Stodare,” supposedly “a well educated Frenchman,” but in reality, Liverpool-born Alfred Inglis (1831–1866). Stodare entered carrying a small box, which he set on a three-legged table, the emptiness of the area underneath the table being plainly visible. Lowering the box's front, the magician revealed a head of Egyptian appearance, whose eyes he commanded to open. The Sphinx complied and then, following other commands, smiled and proceeded to give a speech. Finally, Stodare closed the box and explained that the magical charm, which had enabled him to revivify an ancient Egyptian's ashes, lasted just fifteen minutes and had expired. When he opened the box again, the head had been replaced by a heap of ashes. Stodare enjoyed great but brief success. He performed the Sphinx for Queen Victoria but succumbed to consumption only one year after the Sphinx was introduced.

The clever illusion depended on the table, which appeared to be empty underneath but actually concealed a confederate. This was accomplished by the use of two mirrors. They filled the space between the table's legs in such a way that they not only hid the accomplice but also reflected the carpeting on either side; thus, audience members thought that they were seeing the carpet beneath the table. The actor could insert his head into the box, withdraw it, and substitute a pile of ashes at the appropriate time (Dawes 1979, 152–54; Hoffmann n.d., 531–32).

A sideshow version of the Sphinx was advertised in A. Brill's Bible of Building Plans. For $5 a showman could obtain the secret and the working drawings for constructing the box and “see-thru” cabinet. Brill (1976, 199) promised that construction was “a simple carpentry job” and that the completed cabinet easily broke down into panels for transporting. Another sideshow version was advertised by Brill (1976, 146) as “Ideal for a Grind Show” (recallthat a grind show is a continuous presentation). Billed as the “Decapitated Princess,” it utilized a “throne” with a living head that rested on the blade of a sword placed across the chair's arms. The “princess” could smile, speak, and otherwise respond to spectators. Once again, a mirror was used, this time concealing the upper portion of the lady's body. The mirror was the width of the chair seat and was placed at a forty-five-degree angle—its bottom edge at the rear, and its top edge concealed by the sword. Thus the seat was reflected, appearing to be the back of the throne, with an apparently unobstructed view under the sword. The girl knelt behind the throne with her knees underneath the seat, pushed her head through a trapdoor in the lower chair back, and rested her chin on the sword (Dexter 1958, 51–52).

FIGURE 10.9. Dating back to at least the sixteenth century (probably earlier), this decapitation mystery is revealed in figure 10.10. (Nineteenth-century illustration)

FIGURE 10.10. As shown, it requires a dummy head and a second person. (Nineteenth-century illustration)

An interesting version of the living-head illusion was used by a Syracuse, New York, department store in about 1947. A local newspaper headlined a story on the effect, “Circus Trick in Window Draws Crowds; Sells Hats.” Passersby were startled to see, among the several mannequin heads resting atop pedestals, one living head. I obtained the accompanying photo of the display (figure 10.11), a scrapbook news clipping, from an antiques dealer. The display was slyly titled “Fashion Reflections” and utilized two mirrors framed by pedestals (just like those of the three-legged table used in the Sphinx illusion). The bottom edge of each mirror was camouflaged by placing it on a seam of the tile flooring.

When I was resident magician at the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Canada, from 1970 to 1972, we had a living-head illusion in our big window on Centre Street. The part was usually played by a vivacious redhead, Rusty, whose voice was carried outside by a speaker. She could thus get the attention of passing tourists, gather a tip, and then turn the tip by directing people to the adjacent ticket window.

An elaboration on the living-head illusion was to place the head on the body of a giant spider to create the famous “human spider” or “spider girl” illusion. A. W. Stencell (2002, 136) credits its creation to prolific illusionist Henry Roltair (1853–1910). Roltair transformed his touring stage show into a traveling midway illusion show in 1891, introducing his Palace of Illusions at the Sydney Exposition. He later had shows at the San Francisco Mid-Winter Exposition (1894), the St. Louis Expo (1904), and elsewhere, including a spectacular “Creation” show that ran for several years at Coney Island's Dreamland Park.

FIGURE 10.11. A young lady has her wits about her—but where is her body?—in this living-head illusion. (Author's collection)

FIGURE 10.12. This Spidora illusion is more effective with a living head, rather than a mannequin one, as seen in this version exhibited in Bobby Reynolds's sideshow museum. (Photo by author)

The spider girl illusion became a permanent fixture of the midway, eventually becoming known as Spidora (figure 10.12). In 1917 showman James A. “Fingers” Wallace wrote a letter of complaint to Billboard magazine. Wallace stated that for five seasons he had operated a spider girl show on the midway, but during the present season, showmen were revealing the secret as an aftercatch for . Urging that the practice be stopped, he said, “They have no regard for brother showmen who come in after them” (Stencell 2002, 139).

Nevertheless, Spidora flourished. One embodiment appeared on a 1928 midway as a single-O feature of the Conklin & Garrett Shows. (That western Canadian carnival was a gilly show—i.e., one moving between dates by boxcars. It was a partnership of J. W. “Patty” Conklin and “Speed” Garrett from 1924 until 1929, when the latter was bought out by Patty's brother Frank.) At that time, the illusion was in a round top between a ten-in-one and an at’show (a carny term for a show that features athletic contests between wrestlers and boxers traveling with the show and local contenders [Bone 2001, 131]). A single large banner showed a giant, human-headed spider approaching a hapless man. Headed “Spidoro [sic],” it claimed in smaller letters, “From Death Valley.” Painted on the side of the ticket box was the question, “How Can She Live?” (McKennon 1972, 1:102).

Spidora continued as a sideshow staple for decades. Byron G. Wels (1977, 31, 32), magician and author of The Great Illusions of Magic, reminisces:

Your author first saw this illusion at a Coney Island “Freak Show” on the Midway back in his youth and was completely taken in by the barker's [talker's] spiel.

“Step right up folks, meet ‘Spidora,’ the Spider Girl. Born with the head and face of a beautiful girl and the body of an ugly spider, she survives in total misery, for no man could love her.” He went on to explain that she lived off her earnings by displaying herself in this manner, that she ate flies and other insects. He spoke to her, she answered him, and she was, obviously, very much alive. The barker then closed the curtain and moved on to the next exhibit. The problem occurred when we thought we recognized the same face on a girl who was doing a “cross escape” three exhibits down the line!

There are different versions of Spidora—some apparently manufactured by professional illusion fabricators, others created from workshop plans or improvised from a little behind-the-scenes knowledge. All work on the same basic principle. Spidora is in a cabinet, resting on her web, through which a stair-stepped interior is visible. The illusion works much like the “Decapitated Princess” described earlier, with a mirror concealing the girl's upper torso. The “web” is made of white twine, and it (along with a backing) supports the body of the arachnid, which is fashioned of fake fur (the legs sewn into tubes and filled with lengths of coil spring). The girl can secretly reach up and move the body slightly to impart a bit of “life” to the model (Wels 1977, 31–33).

Some other human-headed monstrosities that were apparently inspired by Spidora are the “human butterfly” and “snake girl” illusions. The butterfly version was among the offerings of an illusion show, the Temple of Wonders, at New Jersey's Palisades Park in the 1920s. The banner promised—correctly, if somewhat tongue in check—“Alive” (Barth and Siegel 2002, 54). The human butterfly probably works rather like the snake girl, which is “essentially Spidora with a snake's body substituted for the spider's” (Taylor 1998, 95). A Hall & Christ single-O show featured a “Snake Girl Alive,” as its banner promised, with suitable illustrations. More disingenuously, signs proclaimed, “No Arms, No Legs, No Bones in her Body.” The illusion did so well that the showmen put a second snake girl on the road (Hall 1981, 97, 100, 111).

Headless People

Complementing the living heads are various “headless” illusions. One of these consists of a coffin-like box that stands vertically and is divided into two compartments: one, for the head, has a door; the other is for the rest of the body, which is in full view throughout the presentation. Called “Where Does the Head Go?” this illusion is similar to the “Sword Lady” described earlier. In this presentation, the door to the upper compartment is closed, swords intersect the chamber, and the door is opened to reveal that the lady's head has vanished. Then the door is closed again, the swords are removed, and the assistant steps out unharmed.

Once again, mirrors are used. They are hinged so that they fold back against the head compartment. A simple mechanism, operated by the illusionist after his assistant is in place, moves the mirrors together to form a wedge pointing toward the audience. To conceal the front edges where they meet, a sword is placed downward through the center of the compartment. Then the other blades follow, all being guided by slots to ensure that they miss the head in its rear compartment (Wels 1977, 251–53). This illusion is excellent for the stage and can be part of an illusion show. However, because it has to be performed, a different version—needing only to be exhibited—is perfect for a grind show. Known as the “Headless Girl” or—as listed in Brill's Bible (Brill 1976, 145)—the “Headless Illusion” (figure 10.13), it has an especially realistic look.

The headless girl illusion was created by Egon “Dutch” Heineman, a refugee from Hitler's Germany. He had exhibited it in Blackpool, England, before coming to America in 1937 and joining the Goodman Wonder Shows. Goodman's superintendent (and later carnival historian) Joe McKennon (1972, 1:137) framed Heineman's first American show, which was “the big attraction on Depression-era midways.” It subsequently became a popular sideshow act and, after World War II, a single-O operated as a grind show (Stencell 2002, 143). What the public saw was “Dr.” Heineman and a “nurse”—suitably garbed in hospital attire—attending their remarkable patient. She was seated in full view, with tubes arcing from her neck. Her head was simply missing.

FIGURE 10.13. The headless-girl illusion—like this circa 1940s version—is ideal for a grind show. (Author's collection)

Showmen quickly copied the act. One sold workshop plans for the illusion for $100. Harry Lewiston concocted the story of Olga, a girl from Hamburg who had been partially decapitated in a wreck of the Orient Express. Luckily, Lewiston reported, another passenger was a Dr. Landau, who had been conducting experiments (shades of Dr. Frankenstein) in the life support of headless bodies. To save Olga, the medical genius had to completely remove her head, the result being viewable for a mere . “How Long Can Science Keep Her Alive?” asked the sign of one single-O grind show (McKennon 1972, 1:137–38; Stencell 2002, 143, 145–46).

FIGURE 10.14. Advertisement for a decapitated Hollywood starlet “kept alive thru the miracle of science.” (Photo by author)

New stories were continually scripted. “Hollywood Starlet Decapitated,” read a bogus news story hyping one early 1990s single-O show (figure 10.14). It told how a “showgirl and model was Beheaded when her car ran under a truck.” The illusion was billed as “The Headless Woman—Still Alive.” More recently, the show was framed as the “Headless Bikini Girl,” who had supposedly lost her head to an attacking shark while surfing (Ray 1993, 30).

There were different schematics for the headless illusion, but Brill's (1976, 145) utilized “a special chair” that cleverly hid the head from view. Fred Olen Ray, in his Grind Show: Weirdness as Entertainment (1993, 30), notes that the only drawback is that “a living girl with a good figure was required to sit in the illusion for hours on end while the scattered patrons passed by.” Sometimes the problem was solved by using two girls, the second one playing “nurse” and the pair periodically switching roles to provide a break from the tedium. The headless girl could not sit entirely motionless, however, lest it be thought that the body was a mannequin, so she would occasionally shudder or twitch to add necessary realism.

Floating Lady

This classic of magic, which appears to defy gravity and suspend a woman in midair, is termed a levitation. It is distinguished from a suspension, which is the early form of the trick. In a suspension, there is a visible connection between the person and the ground, although it nevertheless seems impossible that he or she could be so precariously balanced. Of course, it is impossible and is actually a trick. The most common sideshow version was the broom suspension illusion, sometimes used as a bally act. According to Brill (1976, 150): “The girl stands on a low stool, [and] rests with a broom under her armpit. The magician makes several magic passes, and she is ‘hypnotized.’ He removes the stool and lifts her legs, first to a 45 degree angle and finally to a horizontal position. She stays there…. Finally she is ‘de-hypnotized’ and lowered to a standing position, where she walks away.” The illusion depended on the girl wearing a special frame made of leather and steel under her clothes, with a ratcheting mechanism that allowed her to be raised and locked into place. The broom was specially made so that its “handle” was actually a disguised pipe that fit into a special flange in the platform to anchor it firmly. The pipe's other end extended upward through the broom straw to engage the mechanism in the harness (Wels 1977, 196–98).

In contrast to suspensions, levitations lack (to use a familiar phrase) any visible means of support. Of course, there is one, but there are various methods of concealing it—mirrors being an obvious one. In the classic floating-lady illusion, the magician's “hypnotized” assistant seemingly becomes lighter than air and floats up and then back down on command. As in the broom suspension, the lady wears a supporting frame beneath the flowing costume. The illusion is conducted close to the curtained back of the stage or platform. From an opening in the curtain, a metal rod—hidden from the audience's view by the girl's body—emerges and engages a socket in the supporting frame. Behind the curtain, another of the magician's assistants operates a crank that raises and lowers the support rod. (A variation—see figure 10.15—simplifies the operation by placing the girl on a supporting platform.)

FIGURE 10.15. The floating lady is a classic magic feat, but it is only an illusion, as shown in this nineteenth-century illustration.

Brill (1976, 188) said of the mechanism: “It is a simple machine, made like an auto bumper jack, about 9” square, and no part of it over 54” long. It is easily disassembled for transporting…. This is not a complicated machine. You can build it with an electric drill and a hacksaw, or you can save time by having most of it constructed in a welding shop where they have power saws for metal. The easy-to-follow plans include ‘exploded view.’”

To convince the audience that there are no “invisible wires” supporting the lady (there aren't) or support of any kind (there is), the magician passes a hoop along the length of his “floating” assistant. The hoop would hit the secret lifting rod, except that it has a long horizontal gooseneck in it near the girl's body (Hay 1949, 290–92; Gibson 1967, 114–16).

In his memoir Side Show: My Life with Geeks, Freaks & Vagabonds in the Carny Trade, the late Howard Bone (2001, 49–50) gives an idea of the behind-the-scenes problems of the assistant who works the lifting mechanism. The magician's command to the girl to “Rise!” was Bone's signal to begin cranking the mechanism—as smoothly as possible. Once, as he knelt tuning the crank, he saw someone trying to crawl under the canvas to get into the show for free. Bone could neither shout at him nor leave his job at that crucial point, so he used one hand to toss a pair of pliers at the intruder. That caused him to duck back outside, but the magician later complained about the levitation shaking “like an earthquake.” “From that point on,” says Bone, “I ignored anyone who lifted the sidewall during an illusion.”

A sensational version of the floating lady was known as the “Levitation Asrah.” In this presentation, the lady lay on a low couch, was draped with a large cloth, rose high in the air, and—when the magician suddenly whisked away the cloth—vanished. The Asrah was performed for years “on the big magic shows, in vaudeville and on state fair midways” (Brill 1976, 189). Sometimes, as a finale, the girl would reappear in a surprising way: shouting, “Here I am!” she would come running down the aisle from the back of the theater or tent.

The trick involved levitating not the girl but a lightweight wire form made to resemble her shape beneath the cloth. The form was hidden on the back side of the couch and brought into place by an offstage assistant using a lifting mechanism and arrangement of cords (made of braided fish line). As the magician lifted the cloth to cover his “hypnotized” assistant, she quickly entered a recess in the couch at the same time that the wire form was lifted from its hiding place. While the magician seemingly caused the girl to levitate, other assistants pushed the couch offstage. This permitted the girl to emerge from the couch, run out the back of the theater or tent, and reenter from the front—with a wink to the ticket seller. (As to the wire form, it never disappeared but was effectively invisible against a “tapestry-figured background” (Wels 1977, 9–10).

Gorilla Girl

Among the most dramatic and dazzling of carnival illusions is the girl-to-gorilla show, in which spectators see Beauty transformed into Beast before their very eyes. I caught the single-O feature in 1969, at the Canadian National Exhibition midway, while on a break from my own work as a pitchman. I joined spectators in the sideshow top to see Atasha the Gorilla Girl standing inside a cage. As a voice chanted, “Goreelya-goreelya-goreelya-ATASHA-GOREELYA!” Atasha's features were slowly transformed into those of a large gorilla. Suddenly, the beast rushed from the unlocked cage and lunged toward the crowd, sending some spectators screaming for the exit, which got the attention of midway passersby and helped draw the next tip (Nickell 1970; Teller 1997). Of course, the apparent metamorphosis was illusory. Often the grinder or talker slyly noted that the Gorilla Girl was in “a legerdemain condition” (legerdemain being French for “sleight of hand”), thus indirectly admitting that the transformation was a trick.

The illusion debuted in the 1960s, a presentation of showmen Hank Renn and George Duggan for Carl Sedlmayr's Royal American Shows (Stencell 2002, 142). However, it was a variation on an old effect originally known as Pepper's Ghost. This was an illusion devised by London chemistry professor John Henry Pepper, together with civil engineer Henry Dirks, in 1863. By way of explanation, magician Will Dexter (1958, 34) asks: “Have you ever carried a lighted candle to a dark window, and looked out? What have you seen? Who is that other figure, surprisingly like yourself, carrying a lighted candle on the other side of the glass?” Dexter answers, “That is Pepper's Ghost.” In other words, the illusion worked on the principle that a clear sheet of glass could—with proper lighting—be transformed from a “window” into a “mirror.”

Pepper's Ghost illusion was used for many magical appearance, disappearance, and transformation effects. In Pepper's original presentation, a man who was assailed by specters hacked at one shrouded figure with his sword, which passed ineffectively through the phantom; then the man collapsed, whereupon the ghost suddenly vanished. Other presentations made possible by Pepper's Ghost were bringing a mummy back to life, turning a living man into a skeleton (figure 10.16), transforming a statue into a lady, and other theatrical effects, including substituting one person for another (Dexter 1958, 33–47; Stencell 2002, 141–42; Wels 1977, 292–94).

FIGURE 10.16. The Pepper's ghost illusion uses lighting to turn clear glass into a “mirror” and thus produce eye-catching transformations, as shown in this nineteenth-century illustration.

Versions of Pepper's Ghost were part of midway ghost shows that became common after Captain W. D. Ament introduced his to North American fair-goers in 1902. The following season, Ament ran his London Ghost Show for thirty weeks with the Robinson Carnival Company, becoming the top-grossing feature. Others hastened to frame their own ghost shows, but Ament observed, “Not one in 50 can run a ghost show after being shown how.” Adding to the difficulty of framing and performing such a show, “the hard part,” according to A. W. Stencell (2002, 135–36), “was getting that large plate of glass from town to town safely.”

With all these illusions, the method is essentially the same. In the case of the gorilla girl, for example, the glass was set at a forty-five-degree angle across the cage, and there were two sets of overhead lights—one in front of the glass, the other behind. With a gorilla-suited man at the rear of the cage (behind the glass) and “Atasha” (Darleen Lions) in a hidden recess to the side, the stage was thus set (so to speak) for the transformation. With only the front light on, the audience saw Atasha, apparently real but actually a reflection. With someone working the two dimmer switches, the front light began to go down while the rear one came up. As a result, the gorilla began to be seen through the glass, so that the two images were superimposed. The effect was that Atasha began to take on beastly features, much like the effect in the famous movie in which Dr. Jekyll becomes the monstrous Mr. Hyde. Once the front light was completely off and the back light was fully on, the transformation was complete. At this point, the light would flicker off momentarily while the glass was slid back, giving the gorilla an unobstructed path to the front. Suddenly, the “beast” threw open the cage door and lunged forward, scaring the entranced spectators.

Showman Bobby Reynolds (2001) told me about one spectator who was allegedly killed by running head-on into the top's center pole. Stencell (2002, 143) comments on the risk of audience stampede: “They may be skeptical, but when the gorilla charges, they run. That is why the main person on the show is not the girl or the gorilla, but the guy who yanks the curtain on the exit at the right time.” He adds, “You don't want the crowd running out through the side wall and falling on stakes or being cut by guy ropes.” Reynolds (2001) notes that insurance costs for such a show could be “astronomical.”

During one of my several sideshow visits with Bobby—during which we cut up jackpots (had a gab session)—I was able to meet a former “gorilla.” One of Bobby's helpers, Dave Spencer, had played the part when Bobby ran a show featuring Zambora the Gorilla Girl, who—the tip was promised—“turns from a 110-pound girl to a 500-pound GORILLA!!!” David and Bobby made a sketch of the illusion and went over it with me. Bobby had had the technically demanding job of operating the two dimmer switches, but Dave had the most physically grueling one. It was so stiflingly hot in the gorilla suit that he had to take it off and stand before an electric fan between shows. The show was also demanding in other ways, requiring a large number of workers (Reynolds 2001):

Inside:

Girl (“Atasha”)

“Gorilla”

Dimmer-switch operator

Exit-curtain puller

Outside:

Second girl (for bally)

Talker

Ticket seller

Roughy (to help set up, take down, collect tickets, etc.)

 

Nevertheless, Teller—of the magical duo Penn and Teller—is not alone when he states, “Girl-to-Gorilla is my favorite attraction on the midway.” He witnessed the metamorphosis of Zahara at the Meadowlands Fair in New Jersey (Teller 1997). The illusion was also featured in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.

Girl in the Goldfish Bowl

This illusion features shades of Barnum's Fejee Mermaid, only this time she is “Positively Alive,” according to a sign advertising “Myrna the Mermaid: The Little Girl in the Goldfish Bowl.” The sign asks, “Were the Old Sailors’ Tales Really True?” Banners flanking the show's entrance depict Myrna being caught in a net and displayed in a small fishbowl. “$1000.00 Reward if Not Alive,” promises another banner, with appropriate midway cheek. Myrna is the subject of a grind show by Tim Deremer from Canton, Ohio. Deremer, according to Stencell (2002, 147), is “one of the last operators of big illusion shows on midways.” Of course, “big” here is relative, since the show is only a single-O, and Myrna is billed as “Only Inches Tall.”

The show is merely the latest embodiment of a long-standing and popular illusion called the “Girl in the Goldfish Bowl.” In contrast to Barnum's mummified fake, “later exhibitors have preferred to equip normal young girls with fraudulent fins and green hair, then let them splash about in tanks to keep the ‘marks’ happy” (Fiedler 1993, 169). But these post-Barnum showmen added the eye-catching novelty of shrinking the bedecked “mermaid” down to goldfish size. “Sure she's not a real mermaid,” one ticket-stub holder may acknowledge to another, “but she's so tiny. And look, she's waving at us! She's real!” (See figure 10.17.)

FIGURE 10.17. The girl-in-a fishbowl illusion is a study in miniaturization, as depicted in this sideshow banner at the 2004 Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. (Photo by author)

Indeed, she is both real and alive, but also illusory. The girl that spectators see only appears to be in the fishbowl; she is actually in an adjoining compartment, and her image is projected into the bowl (which is filled with clear mineral oil instead of water). As usual, there are various modifications. Originally, a “reducing lens” was used (Doerflinger 1977, 153). However, the version sold by Brill (1976, 160) was lensless and thus economical. I obtained a 1954 copy of the Brill workshop plans for “Girl in the Fish Bowl.” In this embodiment, the bowl rests atop a decorative cabinet that conceals the reclining girl. The interior is covered with black cloth, but the girl is lit with small spotlights, and a mirror reflects her image to the rear of the globular bowl (which fits partly into a hole in the cabinet).

The girl-in-the-fishbowl illusion was shown in a bit of byplay in the 1991 made-for-TV movie Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star. The rumpled detective is seeking an informant, Darlene, at a nightspot called the Aquarium. The bartender indicates that she is the miniature mermaid swimming in the fish tank (which obviously gives the place its name) and tells Columbo to go downstairs. In the cellar he finds Darlene, who is suspended by two cables that enable her to seemingly swim and turn somersaults as if she were in water.

That the “mermaid” is not actually underwater recalls an incident related by Deremer. The girl was smoking a cigarette in her secret chamber. “A guy came out and said, ‘If that mermaid is under water, how can she be smoking?’ I had to go back and tell her, ‘Don't be smoking in there. God, give me a break!’” Deremer ran his fishbowl illusion on the same midways as his girl-to-gorilla show. As a strategy to eliminate the performers’ boredom, he says: “What I did with the mermaid and the gorilla show was switch the ape girl with the mermaid girl every two hours. That way, as the mermaid she can relax and get the air conditioning while lying there. When she is the gorilla girl, she has time to stretch her legs, get a drink, go to the bathroom, and walk around a bit behind the tent between shows. So that worked out good” (Stencell 2002, 147).

Brill (1976, 210) also had a “Girl's Head in Goldfish Bowl,” which combined the mermaid illusion with a headless-girl effect. “They actually see her head in a fishbowl,” the ad promised. “It talks.” Brill's 1954 workshop plans for “Girl in the Fish Bowl” also mentioned the possibility of conversation. For the holidays, it was suggested that an elf-like Santa Claus could be used, with a microphone and hidden speaker allowing Santa to speak. So that he could hear the children's questions to him, there would be “a hidden opening in the design of the scrolls on the face of the cabinet.” The possibilities are endless.

Other Illusions

Among the numerous other illusions that have been exhibited on midways, one became a staple of the bally platform. Brill (1976, 195) called it “a favorite sideshow bally.” Known as the “Cross Escape,” it involves an attractive girl being tied to a cross at the neck, waist, and wrists. Suddenly, she walks away! The basic secret is that the ties are made with double (side-by-side) lengths of soft, pliable rope. Each set of ropes has been secretly tied with a piece of fine thread around it. Although the double ropes make the ties seem twice as strong, in reality, the thread permits the ends of the ropes to be switched with a deft move. Thus, instead of two side-by-side lengths, each rope is actually doubled on itself, so that only the thread is holding them together. When the girl is tied, these junctures are hidden at the back of the cross. All the girl has to do is give a hard tug, breaking the thread, and she is free (Wels 1977, 183–85).

Another well-known sideshow illusion is “Shooting Through a Woman,” depicted, for example, on a circa 1940 banner by George Bellis (Johnson et al. 1996, 45). One of several versions of this trick is described by Brill (1976, 203) for sale to showmen: “The girl holds a card, preferably the Ace of Spades, to her breast. A sheet of glass is suspended behind her. A shot is fired, the glass breaks, the card has a bullet hole through it—but you use the same girl for the next performance.”

This is a good example of how an illusion's effect can be broken down into its components in order to create, modify, or—in this instance—explain the illusion. First, obviously, the girl is not shot; nor would a real bullet ever be fired in a sideshow. Therefore, the gun shoots blanks. The illusion that a projectile passes through the magician's assistant is created by two simple occurrences: the appearance of a hole in the playing card, and the shattering of the glass behind the girl. These are accomplished by switching the card for one with a hole in it and using a hidden spring mechanism that, when triggered, strikes the glass instantaneously (and unnoticeably) before returning to its hidden recess.

A few other sideshow illusions have been created in imitation of certain popular human oddity exhibits. However, they are magic—not gaffed—versions. Evoking such human oddities as Johnny Eck, Jeanie Tomaini, and other “half” people (see chapter 5), the “Living Half Lady” illusion (figure 10.18) has several forms. Originally, it worked on the same principle as the talking-head illusion, in which a lady's head rests on a platter on a table, her body being concealed by mirrors (as discussed earlier). By extending more of the woman above the tabletop, the mirror arrangement conceals only her legs, and the living half-woman is created.

FIGURE 10.18. The living half-lady illusion imitates the human oddity of the same name.

Indeed, the talking-head and half-woman illusions are so similar that they were illustrated in side-by-side diagrams in the April 7, 1883, issue of Scientific American (figures 10.19 and 10.20). The magazine headed the double feature “Side Show Science.” The magazine also described “a very ingenious improvement” in which a four-legged table was substituted for the old three-legged model. This seemed to eliminate the possibility that mirrors were used to hide the woman's lower body, since the mirrors also would have blocked a view of the table's rear legs. But the mirrors were there nonetheless: The table sat in an alcove, at the front corner of which were two decorative pillars. Behind each pillar, a dummy table leg was hidden so as to reflect in the respective mirror. Thus, spectators on the left saw one on their side, and those on the right saw the other—in each case, appearing as if it were beneath the table's rear corner. Byron Wels (1977, 212–14) comments on the effect of this version:

There is no way that this girl could live or survive in her present condition, but survive she does; she talks to the magician, jokes with him about her missing nether parts, and the audience can plainly see that she exists only from the top up.

This is another of the old “sideshow” illusions that brought people into the freak show tents off the midway at many an old carnival.

“Step right up, folks!” the barker would holler. “See the world's only Living half lady!”

As an aside to the men in his audience, he would ask, “Who in his right mind would marry a girl like this?”

FIGURE 10.19. The talking-head illusion invokes the expression, “It's all done with mirrors.” (Illustration from Scientific American, April 7, 1883, p. 210)

FIGURE 10.20. The half-woman illusion is similar to the talking head. (Illustration from Scientific American, April 7, 1883, p. 210)

As might be imagined, however, the viewing angles were critical, making setup difficult. Besides, audiences were growing suspicious of tables—in part due to exposés such as that in Scientific American. A new illusion was therefore developed, exhibited as the “Girl in the Swing.” In this case, the swing hung trapeze-like in an alcove lined with curtains. To prove that no mirrors were used (they weren't), and to demonstrate that the girl had no lower body (although she did), she would grip crossbars situated between the chains that held the swing and lift herself up so that the magician could pass a sword between her body and the swing seat. He could also pass the blade beneath the seat to prove that there was nothing there. The secret was that, although the lady's head, neck, shoulders, and arms were real, the remainder of her “half-body” was fake. It consisted of “a dummy form encased in a type of corset or foundation garment extending downward from the girl's bust.” The rest of her body was in a prone position extending directly behind her false front, which blocked her real body from frontal view. To prevent spectators on the sides from catching a glimpse, the lady's body was encased in black tights, which, given the black interior of the alcove, was effectively invisible (Gibson 1967, 112–14). (Magicians call this black-on-black invisibility the “black-art” principle [Hay 1949, 23].) To hold her securely in a horizontal position, the girl's feet were secured to the alcove's back wall. Therefore, “Her smile was the most difficult part of the trick,” writes Walter Gibson (1967, 113), “for the girl was in a very strained and uncomfortable position.”

Another illusion inspired by real human oddities is the two-headed girl. An illusion show featured it on midways in the 1960s, and Ward Hall was favorably impressed. He believed that it could be a good draw as a single-O if properly framed and given a large front. He and his partner Chris Christ built the show in their backyard. It had beautiful signage depicting a double-headed beauty styled “Elaina Maria.” The show debuted at the 1977 Milwaukee Summerfest. Midway passersby were intrigued by the questions painted on the facade: “Heredity? You Be the Judge…. Am I My Own Sister?” However, Hall conceded, “In practice the two heads didn't work.” Hall & Christ sent the show back “to winter quarters” for a remake. It reopened the following season and was “letter perfect.” But there was another problem: “It didn't attract business” (Hall 1981, 91, 97).

Bobby Reynolds also exhibited the two-headed girl illusion. “One of the girls I married was German,” he says, “and she brought that illusion with her.” He adds, “It's a neat illusion. Both heads talk to each other. It's positively alive.” How does it work? Bobby explains, “Piece of glass and lights. Similar to the gorilla show [girl-to-gorilla illusion] but backwards. One laying down and one sitting up” (Taylor and Kotcher 2002, 226).

Many other magic tricks and illusions have appeared in sideshows, dime museums, and similar venues. They are far too numerous to be dealt with here, but interested readers can consult such works as Albert A. Hopkins's Magic: Stage Illusions, Special Effects and Trick Photography (1898), Byron G. Wels's The Great Illusions of Magic (1977), Nathaniel Schiffman's Abracadabra! Secret Methods Magicians and Others Use to Deceive Their Audience (1997), and Herbert L. Becker's All the Secrets of Magic Revealed: The Tricks and Illusions of the World's Greatest Magicians (1997).