THE GREAT LEVANTE ADDRESSES ROTARY CLUB MEMBERS

Wanganui Chronicle, 8 November 1949, Page 4

THE GREAT LEVANTE ADDRESSES ROTARY CLUB MEMBERS

Members of the Wanganui Rotary Club had as their guest speaker yesterday the distinguished magician, “The Great Levante.” For half an hour he kept his hearers entertained with a running commentary on an adventurous and colourful career of magic and magicians. He is an Australian by birth, of Scottish parents. ■

A chance visit to his father’s farm by an itinerant showman with a wagon and couple of horses changed the whole course of his life. He ran away from home with the showman, who was more than an average magician, and absorbed the art of magic the hard way. That was the beginning of a life of high adventure, which has taken Levante to all the leading capitals of the world.

He made Wanganui’s first acquaintance in 1920, when he was under the Fuller-Hayward banner, and appeared in the Majestic Theatre. It was on this visit that he made a spectacular jump from the Town Bridge into the Wanganui River after being police handcuffed and legironed. The feat was done in the presence of 5000 people, including many Maoris, and a collection was taken up to assist a distressed Wanganui family, which had been bereaved by a fire tragedy. He recalled yesterday that he had not allowed for the current, and when he came to the surface he was> almost a quarter of a mile below the bridge, and it was with difficulty that he was taken aboard a boat, which was detailed for his rescue from the river. In 1939 Levante had the unique honour of being invited to America to attend a convention of international magicians, and after being duly decorated at the gathering was acclaimed as the best man in the world of his profession. Returning to England, and while playing in London in 1939, he was invited by J. and N. Tait to go back to Australia and in 1941 he toured New Zealand in “How’s Tricks-” a magical revue. He was back again in 1942, under the J. C. Williamson banner, in the pantomime “Ailadin,” playing the “Wicked Magician.” The following year he was again in the Dominion with the “Crazy Show.” Levante has personally met the late Harry Houdini, the noted escapologist and handcuff king. Mr. Levante said yesterday that Houdini’s real name was Erich Meiss, and that, his father was a Polish rabbi. Houdini, said Mr. Levante, was the first man to fly an aeroplane in Australia, a feat he performed in 1910. In the early twenties in America Houdini made a thrilling mid-air leap from the wing of one plane to another underneath. He died in 1926, and with his death passed one of the most flamboyant figures of the world of magic, added Mr. Levante. “Many magicians meet violent deaths,” added Mr. Levante, who recalled that Chung Ling Soo, when appearing at the Wood Green Empire, London, in 1919, was killed during a bullet catching trick. Another noted magician, Lafyette, lost his life in a theatre fire in Edinburgh. The thanks of the club to Mr. Levante for his address was voiced by Mr. C. Horne.