Long Tack Sam

Long Tack Sam
Born	Lung Te Shan (1884-09-16)September 16, 1884 Wuqiao County, Shandong Province, China
Died	August 7, 1961(1961-08-07) (aged 76) Linz, Austria
Other names	Sam Tack Long Tack Sam Long
Occupation	Performance Artist
Years active	? - 1958
Spouse(s)	Poldi Rössler Long
Children	Nina (Ni-na), Neesa (Nee-sa) and Francis (Frank)

Long Tack Sam, was a world-renowned Chinese-born American magician, acrobat, and vaudeville performer.

Biography

Mi-na Long circa 1920

Long Tack Sam, also known as Tack Sam Long and Sam Tack Long, was the stage name of performance artist Lung Te Shan. He was born in Wuqiao County, an area of Shandong Province in Northeast China that is internationally understood to be the birthplace of Chinese acrobatics.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} On most official documents over his life in America, he used Sam Tack Long as his legal name.

His origins in China are a bit murky, what is known is that he joined a group acrobats around the turn of the century called the Tian-Kwai and went on world tour.^[2] Several years later with unrest in his homeland, Long Tack Sam brought his own troupe of entertainers to America.^[6] where he soon found success. His magnificently dressed troupe played went on to play major cities across the globe in the first decades of the twentieth century. Although largely forgotten as a performer today, he was considered one of the "greatest vaudeville acts of the early 20th century". Long Tack Sam was also remembered as a 32 degree Freemason.^[2][7]

His career brought him to the opening act for the Marx Brothers and he even became a mentor to Orson Welles. In 1922 he became a member of Houdini's Magicians Club.

Bennett Cerf once wrote of an incident of theater lore that occurred at the Palace Theatre in New York when entertainer Bert Fitzgibbon became enraged upon learning Long Tuck Sam was billed above him in the night’s card and that he was scheduled to follow the magician on stage. Later that night as Sam was ending his show, Fitzgibbon walked on stage and handed him a bundle of dirty shirts and snarled, “I want these back by Saturday night and go easy on the starch!” As a result of an uppercut, Fitzgibbon had to be carried off stage while the audience roared their approval. It’s unclear on whether or not Fitzgibbon was able to make his appointed curtain call.^[8]

After a great deal of performing and traveling the world, he and his wife Leopoldi (known as Poldi), a native of Ybbs, Austria retired to New York City.^[9] His last performance was at the Roxy Theater in New York in 1958 at the age of 73. He did his famous water bowl trick, in which he does a somersault and ends standing with a goldfish bowl in his left hand.

After a bad car accident he and Poldi went to Linz, Austria, not far from her hometown. Long Tack Sam died in 1961 at the age of 76. Poldi died two years later at Vienna .^[4][5][9]

Documentary film

The greatest source of historical information we have of the performer's life comes from a Canadian documentary The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam.^[10] Written, directed, researched and animated by Long Tack Sam's great-granddaughter Ann Marie Fleming, the story is an in-depth research of the man's life. Through six years of research, and magic historians, Fleming uncovers many missing holes in the historical record of her great grandfather's life.

Illustrated Memoir

In September 2007, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam - an Illustrated Memoir by Ann Marie Fleming was published by Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Publishing. The book expands on the information in the biographical film, and puts Long Tack Sam's life in a more historical context. In 2008, the book won The Doug Wright Award for best book. The book features artwork by Julian Lawrence.^[11]

References

External links

• LongTackSam.com – Bio-documentary produced by Ann Marie Fleming
• Asiasociety.org – Press release of biography
• MetroActive.com – Biography Review