Buatier De Kolta One of the greatest creators and inventors in the history of magic, Buatier De Kolta was the envy of England. Born in Lyon, France in 1847, De Kolta was mystifying his friends with his sleight-of-hand skills even as a youth. De Kolta’s first major invention was his fabulous illusion, ‘The Vanishing Lady’. Alexander Herrmann, ‘Herrmann the Great’, called De Kolta’s famous illusion “the greatest illusion in the repertoire of the conjuror”. When Herrmann was asked his reasons for that, he responded: “Because of its simplicity. The great things of magic are always the simple things. This trick has the most transcendent effect when properly produced...and in the hands of De Kolta it was perfection itself. There was nothing wanting in artistic finish."
De Kolta first began performing professionally in 1886 at the Eden Theater in Paris. His “Vanishing Lady” brought audiences by the thousands. By the end of the first summer, De Kolta became the most ‘in demand’ drawing-room entertainer of the day bringing some of the largest fees of the day. Eventually his fame brought him to London’s Egyptian Hall: revered in its day as the “Mecca” for magicians. His fame and success grew until, as sometimes is the case, imitators started popping up “vanishing ladies” all over England. De Kolta was not deterred. As is usually the case with inventive and original thinkers, his new illusions were more baffling and the imitators began falling by the wayside while De Kolta’s fame continued to grow.
It was inevitable that this fame would eventually take De Kolta to America. He first came to the US in 1891 touring throughout the country in it’s many theaters of the day. When that tour ended, he returned to Paris for a very short holiday, but quickly went back to work on his creations. Examples of his fabulous illusions include ‘The Vanishing Birdcage’; ‘The Cocoon’; and arguably one of his most baffling illusions, ‘The Expanding Die’. Magician and author, Will Goldston, said about the Die illusion: ‘Few magicians, even among those who claim to know something of the secret of the Expanding Cube, can give an accurate description of the effect of the illusion. I have heard, for instance, that Buatier de Kolta used to put a small die on his stage, wave his hand over it, and cause it to expand slowly. I have heard also that when the cube was in its enlarged condition the top would be pushed up, and the magician's wife would make her appearance at that spot; in another version of the mystery it was stated that after the cube had suddenly grown to an immense size, it would as suddenly collapse and disclose the magician's wife standing on the stage.”
De Kolta final tour took place in America. After a successful run of performances in New York, he began touring the Orpheum circuit, one of the popular Vaudeville circuits of the day. While performing New Orleans, he contracted ‘yellow fever’ and, since his health tended to be normally a bit weak, he succumbed to the disease in a very short time and died on October 7, 1903. His body was taken back to England where he was buried in London’s Hendon Park Cemetery.
Now, as Paul Harvey says, “the rest of the story”. Magicians tend to be a very paranoid lot for the simple fact that theft is such a common thing. One magician creates, another steals the idea and takes the credit. De Kolta, too, was paranoid...but not for the same reason. He had the unusual habit of wearing three or four pairs of pants at the same time, as well as multiple shirts and vests because he said that he ‘felt safer’ when he wore them! Almost as strange was the fact that his travels to America must have shocked those who knew him best since he was known to have an immense fear of traveling long distances. For Buatier De Kolta...still considered to be one of the greatest minds in magic...suffered from was quite possibly paranoid schizophrenia.
