Robert Heller: The Strange Man On Broadway

"As Houdin is in Paris, so Heller is in New York," says the New York Clipper ad. The Salle Diabolique "nightly thronged with the elite of the city," who came to see "Magic's Most Illusory Deeds, Music's Most Entrancing Charms, [and] Mirth's Most Hilarious Seasoning" performed by "The Strange Man On Broadway."

This was Robert Heller, magician, musician and (as the Brooklyn Eagle calls him in the ad below) "amusing talker." Robert Heller (1828-1878) was an Englishman who became one of the most famous magicians of the 19th century. He was born William Henry Palmer in Canterbury, England, son of the organist at Canterbury Cathedral. He was a talented pianist who had played for Liszt as a child. When he was a 14 year old student at the Royal Academy of Music, Palmer/Heller was so enchanted with the magical skills of his idol, the famous French magician Robert-Houdin, he decided to become a magician himself.

He arrived in New York City in 1852 and debuted in a performance in the basement of a theater called the Chinese Assembly Rooms. This was an invitation-only show, for actors and journalists. Heller thought that people wanted to see a Frenchman, like Robert-Houdin (whose first name he adopted) so he actually put on an accent and a black wig, and dyed his enormous mustache black to match.

But those initial performances were not successful. He moved to Washington DC for several years, where he taught music and married the daughter of a wealthy local. Heller eventually returned to magic, focusing more on creating illusions in his act, not in his nationality. This worked out much better.

Heller was famous for several innovations, especially the trick known as "the Second Sight Mystery." In this, the magician's assistant stands in the audience selecting people. The magician on stage tells them what they are holding (concealed from him), as if by magic. Heller and his assistant pulled this off by communicating through a clever code. The code was roughly as follows:

1. Each letter is assigned a number relative to its position in the alphabet (1 for A, and so on).

2. A series of common phrases such as "let us know" and "please" and "tell us" are assigned a letter and number.

3. A list of common objects (that audience members would be likely to have are assigned a letter and number, three per letter (A1 = glove, A2= mirror, A3=purse, for example). A cue word or phrase would signify whether the assistant was referring to the first, second or third item.

4. Sometimes there would be a third person concealed behind a peep-hole under the stage, where he could see the audience but they (of course) could not see him. He would have a speaking-tube leading to the assistant (when on stage) to tell him what the items were.

This would be quite complicated to memorize but once you had done so, it was very effective. Physical signals were added to aid the performers, such as fingering one's tie or putting a hand in a pocket. If this was done, the magician would wear a blindfold to throw clever people off - making sure that it was sheer enough to see out of, of course!

Another one of Heller's tricks was called the Hat-Fake (fake being magician's slang for trick). This would be performed before the assistant came on stage. The magician would borrow three or four items from audience members and put them into a soft felt hat. In the hat, he had already put a few of his own things (like an odd coin, for example). He would go to fetch the assistant and whispered to him what the borrowed things were. The assistant then, of course, names all the things perfectly - and he can go into impressive detail when he talks about the magician's items, naturally.

In this 1864 Clipper ad, Heller is giving his performance of music and magic with a little comedy thrown in, at the Salle Diabolique. This was the former French Theatre at 585 Broadway; it was one of the longest-running one-man shows in the history of New York theater. Heller became nationally famous when he went on tour in 1869. He was on tour for an amazing 6 years. Then he retired from magic and returned to his first love, the piano, for the three years remaining to him. Heller died of pneumonia in Philadelphia in 1878. He stipulated in his will that all his magic inventions and apparatus were to be destroyed, but they were not. But where are they now? (I wasn't able to find out, but if you know, please tell us in the comments!)

Photograph of Robert Heller from Picture History. Advertisement from May 1864 New York Clipper. Brooklyn Athanaeum ad for "Robert Hetler" [sic] from April 27, 1866 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 3.

OTHER SOURCES

Bell, J. Bowyer and Barton Whaley. Cheating and Deception (Transaction, 1991), p. 139.

Cook, James W. The Arts of Deception: Playing With Fraud in the Age of Barnum (Harvard UP, 2001), p. 67.

Curry, Paul, Martin Gardner and Julio Granda. Magician's Magic (Dover, 2003), pp 175-79.

Mussey, June Barrows, Henry Hay, and Hans Jehnek. Learn Magic (Dover, 1975), p. 245.

Schwab, Arnold T. and James Gibbons Huneker. James Gibbons Huneker; Critic of the Seven Arts (Stanford UP, 1963), p. 5.

"The Secret of Second Sight, By An Ex-Conjuror," The Century (v. 21, Scribner, 1881), pp 65-69.