From medieval sorceresses to witches and tarot readers, history is filled with spellbinding women who tapped into the supernatural. Now author Kaz Cooke has brought their fascinating lives back into the spotlight in her new book. “These women had grit and glamour in tough times,” Kaz says.
“I couldn’t wait to tell their stories and bring them to life because they’ve all been erased from history.”
Great escape
Esme Levante was one of Australia’s most famous magicians, cabaret artists and escapologists. Born in 1921, she performed for royalty across Europe from the 1930s to ’60s.
Her career was controlled by her illusionist father Les “The Great Levante” Cole, who took Esme on tour with him around the world.
She began performing violin recitals and puppet shows when she was just five years old. Moving into escapology at 16, Esme became famous for exiting a swimming pool while wrapped in thick metal chains. She also regularly escaped from a padlocked trunk.
At 19, she married stage manager Bobby Butt on the stage of Adelaide’s Tivoli theatre between performances.
“Immediately after the ceremony, Esme’s father did his ‘Magic Kettle’ act for reporters and reminded them to mention that his show was on at 8pm that evening,” says Kaz.
“They performed as usual that night, including the act where he impaled her with a bunch of swords. Then Les gave Esme two days off for her honeymoon.”
Esme divorced Bobby in the ’50s and would later marry her magician’s assistant George Hunt. She was 67 when she died in Brisbane in 1989. She had one son, Maxwell Hunt.
The queen of magic
Famous at a time when magic was dominated by male performers, English-American vaudeville star Adelaide became “the Queen of Magic” thanks to her sleight-of-hand tricks, legendary bullet-catching act and disappearance stunts.
Born in 1853 and nicknamed Addie, she began her career in the 1870s while she toured alongside her magician husband Alexander.
They quickly became one of the world’s most popular touring acts.
“I do not intend to be a mystic nor wish to pose as a woman who is in league with the devil,” Addie insisted in 1899. “I am but a simple woman who knows a few things about the gentle art of fooling people.”
When Alexander died suddenly in December 1896, Addie began performing her late husband’s tricks and went on to become the first female headlining magician.
She toured the globe performing illusions such as “the Phantom Bride”, in which she levitated and then disappeared.
Her magnum opus, the “Noah’s Ark” act, involved dogs dressed as birds, leopards, lions, tigers, zebras and even elephants. The Queen of Magic could also make a lion vanish before the audience’s eyes.
Addie died from pneumonia at age 78 in February 1932.
Spirit of Houdini
Not only was Bess Houdini great at vanishing from boxes in the magic shows of her husband, legendary escapologist Harry, but she was also skilled at exposing phony psychic mediums and the tricks they used to fool unsuspecting audiences.
In the first half of the 1920s, Bess and Harry toured the US with their show dedicated to debunking local mediums, who were popular at the time. This led the couple to testify in 1926 at a US government hearing into “spookology” in support of an anti-fortune-telling bill.
After her husband died at age 52 of a ruptured appendix in October 1926, grief-stricken Bess turned to the occult to try to contact her late husband from beyond the grave, while also generating publicity for her own illusion shows and movies. For 10 years, on the anniversary of Harry’s death, Bess held séances with her new boyfriend Edward Saint in an attempt to contact Harry, but they were always unsuccessful.
“Edward was the master of ceremonies at the last séance, held on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in 1936,” says Kaz. “That attempt to contact Harry failed, with Bess literally clutching her pearls. Every year, they used the publicity from the failed séances to promote a new act or film project.”
Mystic head reader
Purportedly arriving in Sydney from France in 1867, Madame Marie Sibly – whose real name was Marie Element – claimed to be French, but magician and theatrical historian Dr Jo Clyne has since discovered she was only pretending to be Gallic.
Despite the ruse, Marie quickly established herself as a successful phrenologist and mesmerist. Phrenology involved interpreting the shape and bumps of a person’s head to assess their character and abilities.
Marie assessed David Jones, who would later go on to establish the famous department store brand, telling him he should pursue a career in shopkeeping!
She also once punched an audience member for disrupting her show.
But Marie’s hustle was also a way of getting around laws that made fortune telling illegal.
Along with her hypnotism and phrenology, Marie also created a range of remedies that she claimed could treat gout, rheumatism and neuralgia.
Her daughter Blanche, who was known by her stage name “Zel the Magnetic Lady”, also toured with Marie before she retired from the stage to run a store in rural New South Wales.
Marie died at the age of 64 in 1894.
