Servais Le Roy

Servais Le Roy
Born	Jean Henri Servais LeRoy May 04, 1865 Spa, Belgium
Died	June 02, 1953 (age 88) Keansburg, N.J.
Nationality	Belgian

Servais Le Roy (1865-1953) was a Belgian magician, illusion designer and businessman. He is best known for the act Le Roy, Talma and Leon Bosco and as the inventor of the classic levitation illusion Asrah.

Biography

Servais (pronounce Ser-Vay) Le Roy began his career in Belgium but later moved to London, where he established a supply house for illusions and scenery. At one time he performed with German-born illusionist Imro Fox and Frederick Eugene Powell as "The Triple Alliance". However he is best known as a performer for the long-running act he developed with his wife Talma and Leon Bosco. Working as "Le Roy - Talma - Bosco", they were sometimes also billed as "The Comedians de Mephisto Co." or "The Monarchs of Magic".

Servais Le Roy and Talma first performed the Asrah levitation in London in 1914. In this trick, Talma would lie on a couch and Servais would cover her with a sheet. He would then appear to make her rise into the air, pass a large hoop over her floating body, and finally pull away the sheet to reveal that she had vanished. Le Roy is also credited with developing the Modern Cabinet, the Palanquin and the Costume Trunk illusions.

Le Roy later put his own show into storage and accepted a contract from Horace Goldin.

On October 19, 1930, Le Roy was hit by a car walking across the streets in New York City. He was in the hospital with multiple injuries for nine days. He recovered and continued to invent, create and occasionally perform.

On June 6, 1940, at the age of 75, he performed his full evening show billed as "NEVER BEFORE SUCH A MAGIC SHOW" at the Heckscher Theatre in New York City. This was the idea of Sam Margules, who was putting together the annual S.A.M. show. LeRoy was performing for the first time in years with a new set of assistants. Having only single rehearsal with this new crew, the show was a disaster.

References

This page incorporated content from Servais Le Roy, a page hosted on Wikipedia. Please consult the history of the original page to see a list of its authors. Therefor, this article is also available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• News Genii 1940 June
• The Magic Circular, Vol. 47, No. 529, September 1953, SERVAIS LE ROY, by Milbourne Christopher, pages 403-407, SOME NOTES ON SERVAIS LE ROY, by Percy Naldrett, page 408
• Article Genii 1959 November
• Servais Le Roy: Monarch of Mystery by Mike Caveney and William Rauscher
• Bio-bibliographisches Lexikon der Zauberkünstler Edition Volker Huber, April 2002, LeRoy, Jean Henri Servais belg.–USA Zauberkünstler (*04.05.1865 Spa, Belgien, †02.06.1953 Keansburg, New Jersey), page 203
• http://deancarnegie.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-heroes-fall.html