Martin Beck (vaudeville)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theatrical manager and
booking agent
Martin Beck | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | July 31, 1868 |
| Died | November 16, 1940 (aged 72) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupations | Theater owner, Theatrical manager and booking agent |
Martin Beck (July 31, 1868 – November 16, 1940) was a vaudeville theatre owner and manager, and theatrical booking agent, who founded the Orpheum Circuit, and built the Palace and Martin Beck Theatres in New York City's Broadway Theatre District.[1] He was a booking agent for, and became a close personal friend of the prominent magician, Harry Houdini.[2]
Martin Beck was born to a Jewish family[3] on July 31, 1868, in Liptószentmiklós, Kingdom of Hungary (now Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia). He went with a group of actors on the SS Elbe from Bremen, Germany, to the United States in May 1884, where he worked as a waiter in a beer garden in Chicago.[4]
He went to San Francisco with the Schiller Vaudeville Company, then gained citizenship in the United States in October 1889.[5] When the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco was bought by Morris Meyerfeld Jr. in 1899, he worked with Morris to acquire more theaters. By 1905, Beck was running the organization.[6]
Influence on career of Harry Houdini
In the spring of 1899, Beck met Harry Houdini, who was then performing at a beer hall in St. Paul, Minnesota. Beck saw Houdini struggling with magic, so he made an offer, Beck telegraphed Houdini when he got to his next stop in Chicago: "You can open Omaha, March twenty sixth, sixty dollars, will see act probably make you proposition for all next season."
According to Houdini's wife when speaking to a biographer years later, this represented Houdini's big break in his professional career as a performing magician.[2] As Houdini wrote at the bottom of the telegram, which she had carefully preserved: "This wire changed my whole Life's journey."[6]
Beck and Houdini became close personal friends. Beck advised Houdini to concentrate on his escape acts, and booked him on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Within months, Houdini was performing at the top vaudeville houses all over the United States, and in 1900, Beck arranged for him to tour Europe.[2]
