The story of Isis begins around 1903. That is when its creator, Dr. Cecil Evelyn Nixon, began working on her in earnest. Prior to that, he had been pondering and researching making an automaton that could play any song requested on an instrument. By 1919, Isis was on stage with her zither plucking out the first few bars of the day’s popular music as chosen by the audience.
Dr. Nixon was an eccentric and something of an anachronism. Though most of his life was spent in the 20th century living in San Francisco, he remained a product of Victorian England. His grooming, attire, speech, and manner—at least according to his biographer, Doran Wittelsbach—remained Victorian up to his death in 1962 at the age of 87.
After a stint at the Internal Revenue Service, Nixon became a dentist, a profession he disliked, as well as a ventriloquist, vaudeville magician, mentalist, organ builder (though he couldn’t play the instrument), student of philosophy, lover of the circus, stage actor, art connoisseur, and, it can be argued, artist. He was also a socialite, holding weekly Saturday evening parties for many years—always attended by celebrities—at his Nob Hill mansion. Nixon dubbed the two-story home “The House of a Thousand Mysteries.” Because he never cleaned its windows or maintained the exterior, local children called it the haunted house. All this makes him, Wittelsbach noted, “the most fascinating dentist who has ever lived.”
