Eugene Laurant started
his career on the Chautauqua and Lyceum circuits before rising to
fame as one of America's greatest magicians.
His professional stage career
got its start in the 1880s as "Eugene, The Boy Magician"
in Denver, Colorado, with tricks he learned from Bernier
and from watching other magicians perform at the local theater.
After meeting Leon Herrmann, Adelaide
Herrmann and Servais LeRoy
in 1899, Laurant decided to seriously pursue a career in
magic.
Presenting such
dramatic illusions as "The Witch and the Flame" (a variation
on the Cremation Illusion), it took a mere ten years before he was a
major headliner on the Redpath circuit. His wife, Miss Nella Davis,
performed with him; she was an accomplished impersonator and
wonderfully talented entertainer. On her death in 1910, he suffered
a brief but crippling depression. Ten years later he married again,
this time partnering with his stage assistant Greta Banes.
He enjoyed a
successful career on the circuit for the next twenty years. In the
early 1930s, it was the demise of the circuit that spelled the end
of his grand shows. For the remainder of the 1930s, he was reduced
to booking auditoriums instead of theaters, though he continued to
do well enough financially because of his reputation. He was still
actively performing when he died of a heart attack at his home in
1944.
Eugene Laurant is
buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago. His funeral service was
conducted by Rev. John Booth.
See
one of his publicity pamphlets in full here
See
another pamphlet here
