...also Houdini

What's this? Scandal baby Evelyn Nesbit receives top billing over Houdini who is relegated to a mere footnote; "also Houdini." Can it be? The mighty Harry Houdini playing second fiddle to the Kim Kardashian of her day!?

Okay, while this is a real newspaper advert from 1919 (which I recently nabbed on eBay), it is not advertising Nesbit and Houdini in person. These are their respective movies sharing the bill at the Empire Theater.

Nesbit's Woman, Woman was released on January 19, 1919, and this could be an ad for opening day. The reference to "Houdini" is actually The Master Mystery, his 15 part serial which was rolling out chapter by chapter at the Empire and, of course, would play second fiddle to a feature. Here's another Empire ad that makes this a little clearer.

Still, you have to think this kind of supporting player billing would rankle Houdini. It's probably why he went on to make feature films himself after entering the business with Mystery.

But this also makes for an interesting double bill. Although Evelyn Nesbit played fictional characters in her films (she's Alice Lindsay in Woman, Woman), her movies were really about showcasing her in films and situations that echoed her real-life infamy as temptress/victim/fallen woman. This is very similar to how Houdini's movies were really about selling the great escape artist in a fictional context. It's also worth pointing out that real movie fame eluded them both.

Houdini and Evelyn would travel side by side through the 20th Century as representatives of the Gilded Age. Both burst onto the scene in 1900; both had biopics made about their lives the 1950s -- Houdini with Tony Curtis in 1953 and The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing with Joan Collins in 1955 -- and both appeared as characters in the book, play, and film versions of E. L. Doctrow's Ragtime. However, Nesbit's name and fame is fading while Houdini has become a household word.

But lets give this one to Evelyn. At one point she was as famous a Houdini, and I've always had a bit of a thing for her...

Houdini's leading ladies: Marguerite Marsh

I'm going to wrap-up my series on Houdini's leading ladies this weekend by looking back at two co-stars from his 1918 serial, The Master Mystery. First up is Marguerite Marsh, who was born on April 18, 1888 in Lawrence, Kansas. At age 30 Marsh played Eva Brent, daughter of the unfortunate Peter Brent and the love interest to Houdini's Quentin Locke.

Here is her biography from Fandango:

According to legend, D.W. Griffith spotted this dark-haired beauty on the beach at Santa Monica, CA, in the winter of 1911. He could hardly have missed her, according to Linda Arvidson, the director's wife, who, with but a tinge of jealousy, later reported that Marguerite had sported "the most modern black satin bathing suit and high-heeled French slippers." Also according to legend, the newcomer did not entirely believe in the possibilities of film acting and when asked to appear on set for a comedy with Fred Mace instead sent her younger sister, Mae. And it was the blond, waif-like Mae Marsh who went on to cinematic fame and fortune, briefly at least, while Marguerite, who used her middle name of Loveridge at the time, drifted north to Niles, CA, and played in Broncho Billy Anderson Western programmers.

By 1914, Marguerite Loveridge, nicknamed "Lovey," was appearing as second fiddle to real-life cause célèbre Evelyn Nesbit (Thaw) in a Lubin three-reeler, Threads of Destiny, when rescued from near-oblivion by rotund comic Fred Mace, who starred her in his own comedies and wanted to marry her in real life as well. Marguerite routinely turned him down, however, a sad state of affair that reportedly caused the comedian's early death in February of 1917, either by suicide or from a heart attack attributed to crash dieting in a last ditch effort to win her back.

Her own screen career uninspiring at best, Marguerite changed her last name from Loveridge to Marsh in an obvious attempt of riding on her sister's coattails. She was briefly back with Griffith at Fine Arts but then drifted from one studio to another, rather aimlessly and earning reviews that ranged from lukewarm to poor: "While slightly amateurish at times, Marguerite Marsh did rather well in a few well-chosen scenes"; "Miss Marsh did the best she could with an impossible theme"; "Miss Marsh glides through her part mechanically." It was not enough to sustain a career, not to mention a rather extravagant social life, and by the mid-'20s, she was finished, professionally as well as emotionally. When she died from bronchial pneumonia in New York in December of 1925, Marguerite Marsh was all but forgotten. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Houdini cozies up to Marguerite in The Mastery Mystery

More Houdini leading ladies:

• Ann Forrest
• Lila Lee
• Jane Connelly
• Gladys Leslie
• Nita Naldi
• Rosemary Therby
• Ruth Stonehouse
• Mae Busch

Houdini on the covers of Ragtime

By far the most well regarded piece of "Houdini fiction" is the 1975 bestseller Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. Houdini is featured in this book alongside several other famous personalities of the age, including Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, and Sigmund Freud. The book has seen many printings and many different covers, but for me the best was this 14th printing paperback from January 1981. Of course, that's because it's the cover that features the best image of Houdini himself.

Here are the only other editions of Ragtime (that I know of) that show Houdini on their covers; the first edition paperback from 1976 (there is also an orange version of this cover) and a 1976 hardcover book club edition.

Click to enlarge

Ragtime -- which went on to be adapted as a movie and stage musical -- is still in print and available from Amazon.com.