Kellar sitting in chair on set of The Grim Game Credit: Arthur Moses Collection
Houdini to Write Kellar’s Biography is the title of an article that appeared on August 16, 1919 in the Motion Pictures News Magazine.
Below is the text from that article:
The oldest of the great magicians of the past who is still living is Prof. Harry Kellar, Dean of the Society of American Magicians, now residing in retirement at Los Angeles. Houdini is a particular friend of the famous conjurer and the latter had decided that the noted escape artist and star of “The Grim Game” shall write his biography.
Houdini is a well-known writer as well as illusionist, and has published numerous books on magic and kindred subjects. He will begin at once adding to his large collection of data on the life of Kellar and will compile this material, adding the facts that he knows and will give to the story the continuity that will weld it into a delightful record of a most remarkable life.
According to Silverman notes, HH completed several hundred pages of the book, which remains unpublished in a private collection, together with some one hundred letters from HH to Kellar.
Just like the Grim Game, this material needs to become public.
The Kellar letters are scattered throughout the diaspora of collectors. Copperfield seems to have many but not all of them. I wonder if the completed pages of his Kellar bio were from HH’s hand or somebody else’s like Oscar Teale.
Very interesting! If someone would make them available, we would know the answer and would also have more insight and information on HH’s relationship with Kellar.
That’s the problem Joe, no one person has all the letters. They’re scattered everywhere. I know that Copperfield has a large quantity and it would be one place to visit in order work on a book about the Houdini Kellar correspondence. I know that Dunninger reproduced some of those letters in one of his magic books. The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas might be holding a few of them. Kellar’s handwriting is not easy to read, about as bad as HH’s, if not worse.
My understanding is that there is a private collector that has several hundred completed pages of the book, along with one hundred letters from HH to Kellar. Yes, other collectors may have letters as well; HH “claimed” he had more than a thousand letters. The completed pages were based on letters from HH to Kellar. The completed pages of the bio needs to become public.
I wonder about the contents of the completed pages of that bio. An appropriate place to publish that incomplete book would be in Gibecire. Some collectors have more of the letters than others. If HH’s claim that he had roughly more than a 1,000 letters from Kellar, that would mean there must be a total of 2,000 letters combined. And they aren’t cheap when they come up on auctions. I still haven’t seen an HH letter sent to Kellar come up on auction.
That biography of Kellar must have come from the information rich letters that Kellar sent to HH, and not the other way around. Kellar would have been in possession of the letters that HH sent to him. And those letters wouldn’t have been of much use to HH for his Kellar book because they only contained HH’s responses to Kellar’s narratives.
Which leaves the question of the fate of those HH letters that were in Kellar’s possession when he died in 1922.
Great question. Not sure what happened with the HH letters to Kellar.
Those HH letters to Kellar seem to have disappeared. I believe Kellar’s family took custody of his belongings after he passed away, and after that, it’s anybody’s guess. They must have sold off his magic props, and illusions. Those letters may have gone along for the ride to some buyer. Assuming they weren’t accidentally thrown away.
BTW: In the book Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer he says the manuscript resides in the Mullholland Library, which today is part of the private collector’s magic collection. I will bet there are also letters from HH to Kellar there as well.
That’s interesting Joe. David Copperfield eventually purchased the Mulholland Library. That nice stack of Kellar letters to HH in the ML went along for the ride all the way to Vegas. When Frank Ducrot owned Martinka, he also sold some Kellar/HH letters in his catalogs. I saw Ducrot’s ad as part of the history of magic catalogs in an old issue of an S.A.M. magazine.
…and furthermore, on page 356 of Christopher’s The Illustrated History of Magic, you can see another photo taken in the same session as the one above. In that photo, HH and the director are looking down at a seated Kellar.
Whoa! That is a nice photo. Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome Joe, and a big thanks to Christopher for writing wonderful books on HH and the history of magic.
Amen to that!