In 1897, stars Alexander and Adelaide Herrmann traveled on their private train car from Rochester, New York, to Bradford, Pennsylvania. Alexander was only 52 years old, a nicotine addict who literally chain smoked: using the stub of one cigarette to light the next one. The night before, he attended a party, offering a number of anecdotes and telling friends, “We ought to enjoy all these things while we are living, because after we die we are soon forgotten.” The morning of December 17, as the train approached Salamanca, New York, America’s most popular magician suffered a fatal heart attack. His name may have faded from the public’s consciousness, but his endearing image has survived—the smiling, goateed magician with the Parisian accent and the graceful bows and gestures of a Mephistopheles. That cliché still survives.
