Charles Joseph Carter
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Charles Joseph Carter (1874 - 1936) was an American stage magician, also known as "Carter the Great." A native of San Francisco, California, Carter began his career as a journalist and lawyer. Due to stiff competition from the number of magic acts on the American stages at the time, Carter opted to pursue his career abroad, where he achieved his greatest fame. Among the highlights of Carter's stage performances during his career were the classic "sawing a woman in half" illusion (an elaborate surgical-themed version with "nurses" in attendance), making a live elephant disappear and "cheating the gallows", where a shrouded Carter would vanish, just as he dropped at the end of a hangman's noose.
A fictionalised account of his life can be found in Carter Beats the Devil (ISBN 0-7868-8632-3) by Glen David Gold.
Carter's home in San Francisco was rented by the Sumitomo Bank of California in the 1980s-90s and used as a residence for the Bank's President. Carter used to put on shows in the basement and you can still see occult references in the stained glass windows. The house is in the Seacliff district of San Francisco near the Pacific Ocean. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the "Houdini Mansion". It is now used as a foreign consulate.
