P. T. Selbit - WikiHQ

P. T. Selbit (1881–1938) was an English magician, inventor and writer who is credited with being the first person to perform the illusion of sawing a woman in half. Among magicians he was known for his inventiveness and entrepreneurial instinct and he is credited with creating a long list of successful stage illusions.

Early life and career

His birth name was Percy Thomas Tibbles and he was born in Hampstead, London. He developed an interest in magic in his youth, when he was apprenticed to a silversmith. The basement of the silversmith's shop was leased to magician and inventor Charles Morritt who used it to develop new tricks and the young Tibbles would sneak in to study these when Morritt was away. Tibbles began doing a coin and card manipulation act under the stage name P. T. Selbit, which he created by spelling his last name backwards and dropping one of the "B"s. He also used Selbit as a pen name, working as a journalist for a theatrical paper, writing a magic handbook and editing a trade journal for magicians.

Between 1902 and 1908, Selbit worked in music halls under the name Joad Heteb. He had deduced audiences wanted something that seemed exotic so he donned greasepaint, robes and a wig to perform as a "pseudo-Egyptian" character. This episode reflects two characteristics that marked much of his magic career: inventive ability and an entrepreneurial desire to keep pulling in audiences with something new. In 1910 Selbit toured with an illusion titled "Spirit Paintings", in which audience members were asked to name an artist and then pictures in the style of that artist mysteriously appeared on illuminated canvases. His next tour featured a trick called "The Mighty Cheese", in which audience members were invited to try to tip over a huge circular model of a cheese wheel, which they found impossible to do because it contained a gyroscope.

In 1919, Selbit staged a séance at his own flat in Bloomsbury in London. The spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle who attended the séance was unaware of the trickery and declared the clairvoyance manifestations to be genuine.

Correspondence with Harry Houdini

Selbit had performed an illusion known as "Walking Through a Brick Wall" at St. George's Hall, London in 1913. The American magician Harry Houdini had performed the illusion a year later at Hammerstein's Roof Garden in New York, 1914.

Friends of Selbit in England stated that Houdini had originally observed Selbit perform the illusion in London and had stolen it as his own. Houdini responded by claiming that he had purchased the rights from the owner of the illusion, Sidney Josolyne. Selbit rejected the claims of Josolyne and stated that he was the originator of the illusion, and this caused a dispute with Houdini.

In Selbit's illusion, an attractive young lady went through the wall. This was different than Houdini's illusion as he had gone through the wall himself. The illusion worked by use of a trapdoor that went underneath the wall.

Sawing through a woman

thumb|280px|P. T. Selbit performing the [[sawing a woman in half illusion.]]

There are many versions of the illusion of sawing through a woman or sawing a woman in half as well as other illusions that are based around that theme. There remains a debate as to the exact origins of the idea, with some suggesting there is a record of it from 1809 or that the idea can be traced back to ancient Egypt. Modern magic inventor Jim Steinmeyer has written that a description of the illusion was published by the great French magician Jean Robert-Houdin in 1858, but Robert-Houdin's idea remained just that, a written description of an effect. Selbit is generally recognised as the first magician to perform such a trick on a public stage, which he did at the Finsbury Park Empire theatre in London on 17 January 1921. In fact, Selbit had previously performed the illusion in December 1920 before a select audience of promoters and theatrical agents at the St. George's Hall to try to persuade one of them to book him to perform it.

Another variant, which owed something to Selbit's original, has been attributed to Alan Wakeling. However Selbit retains his place in history as the first to present a sawing trick, and thus as a figure who shaped popular perceptions of stage illusions for decades.

Revival

In the 1990s, the renowned English magician Paul Daniels performed a homage to Selbit on his television series Secrets. Describing the origins of the trick, Daniels performs the sawing a woman in half illusion in its original form, in the style of Selbit, also including Selbit's development of using panes of glass, giving the effect that the woman also has her head and legs cut off and her body cut in half vertically.

Subsequent career and illusions

Following his court battles in America, which effectively prevented him achieving the same level of success there as he had in Britain, Selbit returned home in 1922. He turned his attention to developing new illusions in the hope of creating something that would repeat the impact of sawing. He is credited with devising Girl/Man without a Middle (1924), Through the Eye of a Needle (1924), The Million Dollar Mystery, Stretching a Girl, and Avoiding the Crush, Selbit's Blocks and possibly also the Siberian Chain Escape.

Published work

The Magician's Handbook (1901)
The Magical Entertainer (1906)
Conjuring Patter (1907)
The Magic Art of Entertaining (1907)
From 1905 to 1910, he edited a magic magazine called The Wizard, which, under another editor, later became The Magic Wand.

References

External links

Plays by P.T. Selbit on the Great War Theatre website