Magic Detective Show Upcoming News

This Friday, Oct 19, another episode of The Magic Detective Show will air on Youtube. You'll want to check this one out because it's the first one to feature HOUDINI. The feedback from the two previous editions has been very positive, so thank you everyone who has contacted me about the show. The number of views is actually pretty decent at the moment too. I know it's mostly magic folk viewing the show and that's fine, as they are the target audience right now.

By the way, I found out more information on who the real George Waldo Heller was and added that to the end of the article from yesterday

See you all on Friday!

Don't forget to enter the Magic Detective History Contest going on this month! The contest ends on Oct 30th, 2012, and the answers will be revealed on a Special Edition of The Magic Detective Show!

http://www.themagicdetective.com/2012/10/magic-detective-magic-history-contest.html

Robert Heller's Nephew, Maybe

Imagine my surprise to discover a performer who claimed to be the nephew of Robert Heller. I found  him quite by accident. I was looking for posters belonging to Robert Heller and came across the one to the left thinking it was an unusual Robert Heller poster. But the picture didn't quite look like Robert and upon closer examination, I saw the name Geo W. Heller in the upper left hand corner. Who was this guy?

His name was George Waldo Heller, not be be confused with George Washington Heller, who was one of the early members of the S.A.M. and served as Vice President under Houdini. No, George Waldo Heller was very different indeed and is a bit of an enigma. He was apparently born in New York in 1860 and claimed to be the nephew of Robert Heller. Is this possible? Well, Robert Heller had two siblings, Angelo C. Palmer and a sister Fannie Palmer. According to ship records, when Robert Heller came to America the first time in 1852, be brought along a brother 'Ernest Heller' who likely was actually his brother Angelo. So perhaps George Waldo Heller was the son of Angelo/Ernest. Or it could be that there is no relation and he made it up for publicity reasons. It's impossible to tell.

One thing I do know is George left the U.S. to go to Australia in 1889 as part of Hiscock's Pavilion Company. He stayed in Australia and continued to perform until 1927. Heller helped Will Alma get his start. And when Heller had his own touring company he hired Harry Cameron, known as The Great Carmo to be one of "Heller's Entertainers".

But it's Will Alma who gives us some insight into who George Heller was. Alma say's that Heller would go overseas to do business with Conradi and Willmann, the magic dealers. I also know that he had Stanyon build apparatus for him because I found records of this in Stanyon's Magic Magazine. His act consisted of illusions and small apparatus routines. The illusions included 'The Bridal Chamber', 'Gone', 'Cannon and Boxes', and 'Black Art.' He also presented a Second Sight act and a Spirit Cabinet, both routines featured by Robert Heller. Among his smaller prop routines he used Stanyon's Billiard Ball Pedestal, Confetti Doves & Flowers, The Drum That Cannot be Beaten, And a host of Telescoping Flagstaffs which can be seen in the poster at the top of the page.

Alma mentions that George Heller toured India as well as Australia and I was able to find a record of Heller in New Zealand in 1909 also, where his entertainment was described as first class. During a tour of North Queensland, floods ravaged the area and the Heller company was forced to travel by boat. In 1927, Will Alma formed a partnership with Heller called "Alma-Heller's Wonders," but they only presented three shows. George Heller became ill and the tour was cancelled. He died of cancer 1932 and was survived by his wife Maudeena. They apparently had no children.

Heller had a number of very beautiful full color posters, but his appearances within magic literature are quite small. In fact, if it were not for Will Alma, we would know precious little about George Waldo Heller.

Of the various magic sources that mention George Heller I did find some facts to be questionable. A couple sources say that Heller in his later days became a businessman. But I can find no record of what business he went into. He did provide touring entertainment and hired other magicians as well, so he very well may have gone into producing or acting as an agent. His final tour, which lasted three shows, he only showed movies with an Edison projector. So it's also possible the 'business' that is referred to was showing movies rather than performing. Also, several sources say that Heller performed in 1930 and 1931, but according the Will Alma, Heller never recovered from his ailment in 1927.

I'd like to add one more thing about the possibility that he was related to Angelo Palmer, the brother of Robert Heller. I cannot say for sure if this is true, however, I did find that Angelo lived and died in Australia. He did not however have anything to do with the magic business, Angelo was a lawyer. The one jarring thing is that Angelo went to Australia in 1853. So he likely only stayed in the US for a year before coming to Australia. If he traveled back and forth, I have yet to find the record. He did return to England when his father died, but eventually went back to Australia. Angelo C. Palmer died August 10th, 1912 at the age of 80. It is always possible that George Waldo Heller was actually born in Australia  and later traveled to NY, rather than being born in NY. There are a lot of questions and sadly, not a lot of answers.

UPDATE
Well, George Waldo Heller was NOT related to Robert Heller. It took me a while to find the proof, but I found it. Angelo Palmer who was Robert Heller's real brother denied that George was related to the family. And another performer who had worked with George prior to his name change gave the REAL NAME as Robert Wezner. Thanks to an issue of MUM from 1923 the mystery was solved!

The Odd Dr. Slade

A friend of mine sent me information on the grave of Dr. Henry Slade, but I couldn't quite recall who he was. I thought he had something to do with 'spiritualism' but was not totally certain so the research began. His name shows up in magic periodicals and even magic books. So who was Dr. Henry Slade?

He was born in Johnson Creek New York in 1836 and at an early age showed signs of having some sort of psychic ability. The claim was he had some sort of telekinetic power and could cause objects to move and even levitate. Let's stop right there for a moment and get some historical perspective.

In 1848, two sisters, Margaret and Katie Fox of Hydesville NY began to produce spiritualistic manifestations in the way of rapping sounds. This unusual phenomenon had never occurred before and when the news got out the world of so-called spirit communication took off. By 1954, two brothers, Ira and William Davenport were presenting something they called 'The Spirit Cabinet' in which manifestations also took place. The brothers were from Buffalo NY. And guess what town sits right in the middle between Buffalo and Hydesville............Johnson Creek.

Henry Slade would have been 12 when the Fox Sisters started their 'spiritualistic work'. As I mentioned before, as a boy Henry showed 'signs' of some sort of unusual power. Quite interestingly, the two young Davenport boys also showed 'signs' of unusual powers at a young age, all of this right after the word of the Fox Sisters hit the newspapers. For the record, people who could create these manifestations were referred to as  'Spirit Mediums'.

Slade moved to Michigan when he was 20. His title of 'Dr' apparently was not a medical doctor but rather a 'spiritual doctor'. His signature spiritualist manifestation was called 'Slate Writing'. At the time a very common item was a small square or rectangular piece of chalkboard or blackboard that was used by school children, these were called slates. Dr. Slade would show the several slates to have no writing upon them and during the course of his seances, writing would appear. This writing, he claimed, were messages from the dead. And to make his 'slate writing' even more exciting, the words were often written in different languages.

The spiritualist community recognizes that Dr. Henry Slade inventing or discovering slate writing. He certainly gets credit for it's popularity. If you're wondering how this fits into magic history, well let me explain that the Fox Sisters and the Davenport Brothers all later revealed that what they were doing was fake. In other words, they used what we would call 'magical methods' to create their effects. Magicians of the time knew this and that's why many of them included 'fake spirit effects' in their shows. Others, like Harry Kellar actually exposed the methods used by fake spirit mediums in their performances.

Slade apparently made millions of dollars over the course of his career by presenting seances and slate writing exhibitions. He traveled to Europe and performed before many of the royal families. At the height of his career it was near impossible to get a sitting with Dr. Slade. Even with the exposures in the press and by magicians like Kellar and by scientific investigators, his popularity continued.

That popularity stopped when he was beaten and robbed one evening in NY. He lost $10,000 worth of money and diamonds, likely everything he had. Ten Thousand dollars in the late 19th Century would be about $250,000 today, he could have lived on that the rest of his life. But now the money was gone and on top of that he developed some sort of paralysis after his injuries. He continued to give sittings but now at the discount price of .50 cents. His frail body, lack of money and constant exposure of mediums in the press and in theatres brought his career to an end. He would up in a Sanatorium in Detroit. And died on September 9th, 1905 and was buried in a paupers grave in Battle Creek Michigan.

But the story doesn't quite end there. A number of famous spiritualists of the time found out about Slade being buried in Battle Creek and began to take up a collection to have his grave moved to Albion Michigan. It was discovered that Slade owned a plot in the Riverside Cemetery there. They did get his grave moved and now he rests beneath a very large monumental tombstone with the following inscription on it "Henry Slade, renowned throughout the world as the first spiritualist medium for the independent slate writing. Retired to spirit life September 8,1905 after an earthly visit of 69 years, 5 months and 22 days. With toil now finished, with soul set free, he now enters eternity."

So was Slade the genuine spirit medium that he claimed or was he like the Davenport Brothers, the Fox Sisters, Anna Eva Fay and others of the time, a fake? Well, he had been exposed a number of times. The most damning exposure came from Remigius Weiss who caught Slade in the act and forced him to sign a document stating that his manifestations were all done through trickery. Weiss later gave the document to Harry Houdini to be used in his book A Magician Among the Spirits.