From medieval sorceresses to witches and tarot readers, history is filled with spellbinding women who tapped in to the supernatural.
Now author Kaz Cooke is unearthing their fascinating stories in her new book.
“These women had grit and glamour in tough times,” Kaz tells Woman’s Day. “I couldn’t wait to tell their stories and bring them to life because they’ve all been erased from history in some way.”
Esme Levante’s great escape
Esme Levante was one of Australia’s most famous magicians, cabaret artists and escapologists. Born in 1921, she performed for royalty across Europe from the 1930s to ’60s.
Her career was controlled by her illusionist father Les the Great Levante Cole, who took Esme on tour with him around the world.
She began performing violin recitals and puppet shows when she was just five years old.
Moving into escapology at 16, Esme became famous for escaping a swimming pool while wrapped in thick metal chains. She also regularly escaped from a padlocked trunk.
At 19, she married stage manager Bobby Butt on the stage of Adelaide’s Tivoli theatre, between performances.
“Immediately after the ceremony, Esme’s father did his Magic Kettle act for reporters and reminded them to mention that his show was on at 8pm that evening,” Kaz explains.
“They performed as usual that night, including the act where he impaled her with a bunch of swords. Then Les Cole gave Esme two days off for her honeymoon.”
Esme divorced Bobby in the ’50s and would later marry her magician’s assistant George Hunt. She was 67 when she died in Brisbane in 1989. She has one son, Maxwell Hunt.
Adelaide Herrmann – The Queen of Magic
Famous at a time when magic was dominated by male performers, English-American vaudeville star Adelaide Herrmann became the Queen of Magic thanks to her sleight of hand tricks, legendary bullet catch act and disappearance stunts.
Born in 1853 and nicknamed Addie, she began her career in the 1870s while she toured alongside her magician husband Alexander. They quickly became one of the world’s most popular touring acts.
“I do not intend to be a mystic nor wish to pose as a woman who is in league with the devil,” Addie told The Broadway Magazine in 1899.
“I am but a simple woman who knows a few things about the gentle art of fooling people.”
When Alexander died suddenly in December 1896, Addie began performing her late husband’s tricks and went on to become a world-famous solo magician.
She toured the globe performing illusions such as the Phantom Bride, in which she levitated and disappeared.
Her magnum opus act, Noah’s Ark, involved dogs dressed as birds, as well as leopards, lions, tigers, zebras and elephants.
The Queen of Magic could even make a lion vanish before the audience’s eyes. Addie died from pneumonia in February 1932 at age 78.
The true hidden Houdini
Not only was Bess Houdini great at escaping from boxes in her husband legendary escapologist Harry Houdini’s magic shows, she was also skilled at exposing phony psychic mediums and the tricks they used to fool unsuspecting audiences.
In the first half of the 1920s, Bess and Harry toured the US with their show dedicated to debunking local mediums, who were popular at the time. This led the couple to testify in 1926 at a US government hearing into “spookology”, in support of an anti-fortune-telling bill in Washington DC.
After her husband died in October 1926, grief-stricken Bess turned to the occult to try to contact her late husband from beyond the grave, while also generating publicity for her own illusion shows and films.
For 10 years, on the anniversary of Harry’s death, Bess held seances with her new boyfriend, Edward Saint, in an attempt to contact Harry, but they were unsuccessful.
“They ate at Sardi’s in Hollywood, and he was the master of ceremonies at the last seance, held on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in 1936,” says Kaz.
“The attempt to contact Harry failed, with Bess clutching her pearls. Every year, they used the publicity from the failed seances to promote an act or film project.”
Madame Marie Sibly’s mystic head readings
Purportedly arriving in Sydney from France in 1867, Madame Marie Sibly – whose real name was Marie Element – claimed to be French, but magician and theatrical historian Dr Jo Clyne has since discovered she was only pretending to be Gallic.
Despite the ruse, Madame Sibly quickly established herself as a successful phrenologist and mesmerist. Phrenology was a racist pseudoscience that involved interpreting the shape and bumps on a person’s head to assess their character and abilities.
Marie assessed David Jones, who would later go on to establish the famous department store brand, telling him he should pursue a career in shopkeeping!
She also once punched an audience member for disrupting her show.
But Madame Sibly’s hustle was also a way of getting around laws that made fortune telling illegal.
Along with her mesmerism and phrenology, Marie also created a range of remedies that she claimed could treat gout, rheumatism and neuralgia.
Her daughter Blanche, who was known by her stage name Zel the Magnetic Lady, also toured with Marie before she retired from the stage and ran a store at Drake, near Tenterfield, in NSW.
Madame Sibly died at the age of 64 in 1894.
Spooky Ladies by Kaz Cooke (Simon & Schuster, $37.99)
