Michael Lauck is a columnist for iTricks. His work appears on Mondays.
Many popular performers started as magicians; perhaps the most successful was Vernon Castle.
Vernon Castle could demand more money for an hour dance lesson than most Americans earned in a year and even crossed paths with Houdini. Even though largely forgotten, Castle and his wife Irene were best selling authors, nightclub owners, early champions of African-Americans and stars of stage and screen.
Most people who recognize the names Vernon and Irene Castle today are either ballroom dancers or big fans of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Back in 1939, Astaire and Rogers released their last RKO feature together, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. It was based on the lives of the popular husband and wife dance team, and Vernon s tragic early death during the course of his duties as a World War I pilot. Even though the film was the only time the duo worked with Oscar Hammerstein II, it is remembered mainly for being the last of their RKO films (they would make one other film a decade later for MGM).
In their day, though, the Castles were superstars. Had Vernon survived long enough for the couple to dance into the era of radio and the talkies, they would probably be much better remembered today.
Vernon Castle was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England in 1887 as William Vernon Blyth. As a young man he became taken with the magicians he saw at St.
George s Hall and dedicated himself to sleight of hand. Although he studied engineering, he decided to try his fortunes as a performer. His sister and her husband were both successful, if not extremely famous, actors.
He moved to New York with them in 1906 and was earning a living as a magician by the time he was 20. In addition to conjuring, Vernon Castle was also an actor and dancer who specialized in a comedic dance that portrayed a gentlemen trying to dance after drinking a little too much.
More after the jump
In 1910 he met an aspiring dancer named Irene Foote and helped her to get her first professional job. They married the next year and were both in the Lew Fields production The Hen-Pecks.
Vernon was featured and began to get real notice. Max Sterling s Magical World covered his appearance in the show, calling Castle a well known musical comedy comedian and a clever magician if given a chance and later said he was scoring a big hit with his magical stunts. The March 1911 issue of The Sphinx also mentioned the new show, stating Vernon Castle has introduced some new magic in his role at Broadway Theatre.
Soon after the couple headed to Europe to star in an ill-fated dance review.
The failure of the project, however, was actually a lucky break for the Castles. They ended up stranded and accepted a position at the Caf de Paris. Here they introduced, or at least popularized, American ragtime and jazz and the new dances that went with the music (a full dozen years before Josephine Baker would dance in Paris).
They were a smash hit in France, and word of their success spread back to the United States.
They returned to New York as stars on Broadway. The March 1913 edition of The Sphinx reported Vernon Castle, the English Magician and Dancer, is a big hit in The Sunshine Girl, now playing in New York. The following year they starred in Watch Your Step, a show written for them and the first musical to boast an Irving Berlin score.
It was in this show that the Castles started the Fox Trot craze. They couple opened not only a New York dance school but also a night club. The Castles were internationally famous; the May 1914 issue of The Sphinx summed up their booming popularity:
The entire East is Castle crazy.
Vernon Castle, by clever press work and excellent showmanship, has startled the entire dancing world. Vernon is cleaning up on everything he is doing. New York is daffy about him.
The merchants are naming neckties, shoes, hats and books after him. Castle came into prominence when with Lew Fields he did a magic stunt in a production of the Henpecks. Vernon is English, and started as a magician in London several years ago.
He is now on tour of the leading cities and plays twice daily at a salary of one thousand dollars a day.
The Castles were making a huge impact. They were not only spokesmen for Victrolas, they released recordings of their nightclubs orchestra. Irene was a fashion icon and introduced American women to the bob, sometimes referred to as The Castle Bob in the years before the Roaring Twenties.
They also championed jazz music and insisted on traveling with black musicians, which was extremely rare at the time. Joe Laurie Jr. wrote that when a venue would not let their black musicians sit in the orchestra pit they took advantage of a loophole in rules and sat their musicians on the stage!
The Castles also wrote a best selling book on dancing and starred in a 1915 feature film. Laurie also wrote that at this time the couple could make as much as $30,000 a week touring!
Although Vernon Castle seems to have left magic behind when his dance career took off, he did cross paths with Harry Houdini. In 1913, Houdini was leaving for Europe when he was given a clipping from The New York Press which stated that Vernon Castle had provided handcuffs from Norwich that Houdini could not defeat.
Houdini was livid. Max Sterling s Magical World reprinted a letter the King of Handcuffs sent the dancer:
To Mr. Vernon Castle, Broadway Theatre, New York.
Sir,
A clipping from the New York Press has been handed me, and in it you try and gain publicity by a false statement, and at the expense of my reputation.
You claim that you handcuffed me at the London Hippodrome, with a handcuff from Norwich Castle, and from which I failed to re-lease myself.
YOU KNOW THAT IS A DELIBERATE LIE!
I demand a letter from you explaining this statement, and you will find my home address on this letter-head, where you may send your reply.
I shall sail May 21, on the Kronprinz Wilhelm from Southampton, England, and my first steps will be to correct your deliberate mis-statement.
Yours,
HARRY HOUDINI
P.S. I never heard of you and wonder how you dare make use of my reputation in such a contemptible manner and certainly far from being BRITISH fair play.
The magazine also featured a reproduction of Vernon s handwritten response (right). It is a bit challenging to read, but in it he wrote he was quite ignorant of the clipping you mention, having never seen it and that I can only say that I am not in the least interested in handcuffs or your line of business and my publicity in New York is quite satisfactory.
Castle also added I will be pleased to see you personally on the matter at any time.
The Castle/Houdini incident never erupted into a full feud. Soon, World War I was beginning and Castle, still a British citizen, undertook pilot lessons. In 1916 he joined the military and was assigned as a pilot to the infamous Western Front.
He completed 300 combat missions and had two confirmed kills. He was even awarded the French Cruix de guerre. He was promoted to captain and charged with training new pilots.
In 1917 he was sent back to the United States to train pilots. It was in this capacity that he was killed in a crash near Fort Worth, Texas on February 15, 1918.
Years later, the Linking Ring would report that a young soldier named Sigmar Hofeller was also supposed to be on Castle s plane. Some type of mistake kept his orders from being confirmed and he was held back from the flight.
He would go on to be a popular Texas performer under the name Sigmar the Magician.
Irene Castle, who was uncomfortable dancing without Vernon while he was in the military, continued to perform for several years after his death. She made silent films and appeared on stage, but basically retired from dancing after the birth of her son with her third husband in 1929. She would devote a great deal of the rest of her life to animal rights causes, eventually passing away in 1969.
Reportedly, Irene Castle was not a fan of the Astaire and Rogers film based on her memoirs.
Posted by Michael on Monday, September 15th, 2014 at 4:30 pm.
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The Magic Touch Of Vernon Castle
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