Word: houdini
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...shows-animal acts, jugglers, monologu-ists-are dogged reminders that vaudeville is as dead as the day before yesterday. The old troupers are legend now, larger than life in sentimental memories. But the best of them never needed such exaggeration. Carnival Buff William (Nightmare Alley) Gresham's biography, Houdini, The Man Who Walked Through Walls (Holt; $4.50), serves its subject well, simply by telling the story straight. "As the archetype of the hero who could not be fettered or confined," writes Biographer Gresham, "he became the idol of a million boys, a friend of presidents and the entertainer...
This last quality is supplied in abundance by Mr. Aaron, who handles the spookery with a deftness Houdini might not have scorned. He has a remarkable ability to keep the spectator's eye just where he wants it and his blocking is easy and effective. Both by blocking and by a contrast in acting styles, he keeps it clear that the Six Characters are part of a fundamentally different order of being than that of the troupe whose rehearsal they invade. The style he has found for the Characters is a shade overblown for my taste...
...limiting such "junk" items as foreign aid, health and welfare, farm subsidies and veterans' benefits. Humphrey's frequent visits are beginning to wear on White House aides. Cracked one Ike assistant to Humphrey: "Who's going to ram your plan through the Democratic Congress, George? Houdini...
...proudly pointed out that her papa had ceased to be a Goodman, was now legally Bernard Bara, to conform with her screen name. During World War I Lady Randolph Churchill (néee Jennie Jerome of Brooklyn) unaccountably failed to list Winston as her son. A correction from Harry Houdini: "I am not a magician, but a mystifier." General Electric Co.'s Wizard Charles Steinmetz described...
...place to play. Skaters drifted in from all over Canada. Veterans came out of retirement. Bernie ("Boom Boom") Bathgate brought 15 years of experience to the team; Mike Shebaga, 32 years old and scrawny as hockey players go, pulled on his pads and turned out to be a stickhandling Houdini...