Horace Goldin
| Horace Goldin | |
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| Born | 17 December 1873 |
| Died | 22 April 1939 (aged 65) |
| Occupation | Magician |
Horace Goldin (17 December 1873 – 22 April 1939) was a stage magician who was noted for his lightning fast presentation style and who achieved international fame with his versions of the sawing a woman in half illusion.
Goldin was of Polish Jewish descent and was born Hyman Elias Goldstein in Vilnius, which was then part of Russia but is now the capital of Lithuania. Sources differ as to his date of birth, some give it as 17 December 1873 and some as an unspecified date in 1874. An accident when he was young left him with a speech impediment. It has been said he showed a talent for magic tricks when he was young after he began learning from a gypsy performer. When he was 16 his family emigrated to the United States and settled in Nashville, Tennessee, where they ran a store. Despite the combination of a strong accent and a speech impediment, young Goldstein managed to make a living as a salesman.
His introduction to a performing career came when he was apprenticed to touring showman Adolph Veidt, who influenced him to take the stage name Horace Goldin. Goldin began performing magic on a part-time basis around 1894, combining tricks and jokes and billing himself as "The Humorous Conjurer". After he received poor reviews from newspapers he tried again with a new act, for which he hired assistants and adopted a rapid presentation style said to have been inspired by seeing German-born magician Imro Fox (1862–1910). Goldin did tricks quickly one after another without speaking and became known as "The Whirlwind Illusionist". With this act he found success in vaudeville and began touring the United States. In 1901 he went to London to perform at the Palace Theatre. His British shows made sufficient impact for him to be invited to do a private show for King Edward VII and royal guests at Sandringham in November 1902. In 1905 he appeared in a short comedy film made in the UK and titled Comic Conjuring. In 1915 he set out on a long tour of the Far East but this ended in disaster in 1918 when a boat carrying his equipment sank at Lahaina, Hawaii. Worse still, Goldin distrusted banks and carried his money with him (reputedly in gold) and that went to the bottom along with his props. He was forced into bankruptcy on returning home. However he was about to enter the most successful phase of his career with his development of the illusion sawing a woman in half.
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