The Greatest Magician You’ve Never Heard Of

Since I doubt that you keep close track of prestidigitators, illusionists, and escape artists, I’ll prove it.  His name was Sigmund Neuberger, but his stage name was The Great Lafayette.

Neuberger was a contemporary of Harry Houdini, who was a close friend:  the two magicians worked together before Neuberger became famous and toured by himself.  At the height of his fame, Neuberger played before audiences of thousands of people and was earning £1000 a week (the equivalent of $4 million a year in today’s money).

Like his act, most of Neuberger’s early life is a mystery, with only bits and pieces available—and much of that information may be fiction that the performer made up to enhance his reputation.  Born in Munich, he immigrated with his family to the United States in 1889.  Within a few years, Neuberger was touring Western mining camps as part of a vaudeville troupe, performing as a trick shot artist with a bow and arrow, who was occasionally billed as a quick-change artist.  Both skills would later be incorporated into his magic act.

By the turn of the century, Neuberger was traveling across America in private railway cars and touring England, billing himself as The Great Lafayette and performing spectacular tricks in which he would vanish, only to reappear seconds later across the theater in a flash of light while a cloud of smoke rolled off the stage towards the audience.  As time went on, the performance included animals (in particular, a lion and a horse).

Neuberger was particularly devoted to Beauty, a dog given to him by Houdini.  When the dog accidentally escaped his handler and ran off the stage towards the audience, people clapped and cheered, believing that it was part of the act.  From then on, the magician not only made his dog an integral part of the act, but quickly realized that the press was far more likely to write favorable articles if his dog was the center of the act.  Beauty wore a diamond-studded collar, stayed in the finest hotel rooms, slept on silk beds, and ate the most expensive items listed on the menus of the finest restaurants, from a custom golden bowl five times a day.  Predictably, the press loved it.

Now highly successful, Neuberger bought a fine London home to which he affixed a plaque that read: “The more I see of people, the more I love my dog.”  Guests were cautioned that they could drink the performer’s liquor and eat his food, and they were free to issue orders to his servants—but they had to treat his dog with respect.

Beauty died on May 4, 1911 (perhaps as a result of an overly rich diet).  Heartbroken—at least in the press—the magician predicted that without his beloved Beauty, he would soon die, himself.  Neuberger turned out to be eerily correct, and his death would result in his most amazing illusion.

The Great Lafayette’s finale was a reenactment of one of Scheherazade’s tales from the Arabian Nights, the story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou.  The 25-minute act included multiple costume changes, with Neuberger appearing, vanishing, and reappearing at multiple points on the stage.  The elaborate act ended with the magician galloping across the stage to rescue the princess, who had been locked in a cage with a real lion.   As the hero leapt from the horse, whereupon the lion’s head came off, revealing the Great Lafayette inside the costume.

On May 11, one week after the death of Beauty, halfway through the finale, a faulty lamp above the stage set some decorations on fire.  The fire quickly spread through the elaborate decorations on the stage, engulfing the front of the theater.  The heavy fire curtain was lowered, but the mechanism jammed with the curtain still three feet above the stage, causing a chimney effect, sucking in a strong draft of fresh air under the curtain, greatly fanning the flames.    

The audience, believing that the flames and smoke were just another illusion, remained in their seats until the orchestra started playing the national anthem.  While the audience safely exited the theater, those working backstage found it difficult to escape as Neuberger had ordered the stage doors locked to prevent escape of the lion.  (And to prevent his rivals from learning the secrets of his tricks.)

Neuberger briefly escaped, then slipped back under the fire curtain in an effort to save his horse.  (Nobody, but nobody, tries to rescue a real lion from a burning building.)  Whether it was the heat or the smoke that killed him was never discovered, a total of eleven people backstage died in the fire, including the Great Lafayette.  

The body of Neuberger was cremated and a ceremony was planned to inter his ashes between the paws of his beloved dog, Beauty.  Shortly before the ceremony, as workmen were picking through the ashes of the theater stage, the real body of Sigmund Neuberger was found under the stage.  The magician evidently had sought to escape the fire by crawling through one of the many hidden trap doors he used during his act.  Eventually it was determined that the first body was actually that of a double the magician had used in his many vanishing and reappearance stunts.  

When the body of the real Neuberger was finally interred, a quarter of a million people turned out to watch the funeral procession.  The Great Lafayette’s last—and greatest—stunt was dying twice in the same fire.

Because he died in 1911, before the age of mass media, it means that Neuberger is not nearly as famous today as Harry Houdini.  There are a few photos, but the only video even remotely connected with the magician is a grainy black and white film—available on YouTube—of workmen recovering the charred body of the unfortunate lion as they pick through the rubble of what had been the stage.

Today, other than the grave marker, the only reminder of the famous illusionist is the Lafayette Bill.  Familiar to anyone who has attended the theater in London, the Bill requires all British playhouses to briefly lower the heavy fire curtain and then immediately raise it back up before every performance, in order to ensure that the safety device works correctly.