Albert P. Smith served in the Spanish American War and when he got out of the service in 1901, he started on tour with his magic playing in Japan, China, across India and back to the Philippines.
Smith and his wife and chief assistant Olga, mostly played medium sized towns for a week at a time performing several shows a day. After coming back to the United States, he played in moderate size towns for a week at a time. His main publicity stunt was a coffin escape where he was strapped into a straitjacket and locked in the coffin. Normally he escaped in under a minute. He wife and chief assistant, as Madame Olga, did a mentalism act in the show.
Shown above is an example of their good luck scaling card which promoted “Mysterious Smith Company” on the front and a photo of Madame Olga on the reverse inside of a lucky horseshoe and surrounded by Swastika’s, ancient symbol of good luck until the Nazi’s turned it into an image of terror and evil. Possessors of the card were advised to keep it for good luck. This one must have been kept for many years as it is well worn. Still it is an interesting piece of ephemera from another era.
The late magician and author Bob Parrish recalled seeing Smith and Olga at a local theater in Mason City, Iowa and described Smith’s act as follows:
Successive curtains parted, building to the brisk entrance of Smith, a balding, jolly wizard who punctuated his miracles with little cackles of glee. In his opening patter, he explained that it was all done by trickery. “But I am going to fool you,” he said. “and HOW I am going to fool you.
Such applause. They loved Mysterious Smith in Mason City.
In my recollection of this glamorous performance, outstanding features included a vanishing gramophone of antique vintage, including the Edison cylinder (which played hoarsely) and gigantic blossom of a speaker horn, the breathtaking evanishment of a girl in a box (including the box), a rapid sub trunk (“Don’t blink or you’ll miss the trick!), and a version of the Tarbell Rope Trick, which I found utterly incomprehensible. And of course, Madame Olga, who sat berobed and bejeweled upon a throne and dealt authoritatively with the thoughts of her spectators, concluding her response to each query with the ringing words, “Your QUEStion is ANswered.”
According to Bob Nelson writing in his “Mentalism & Things Psychic column in Tops Magazine for February 1965, Smith and Olga performed their mental act on the full evening show of Tampa the Magician who, for a time, toured Thurston’s number 3 show.
At the end of his career, Smith had performed 28,000 shows around the world and around America to great acclaim.
According to Magicpedia, Smith retired around 1935 to become a photographer in Madisonville, Tennessee and sold his show to Howard Thurston's brother, Harry Thurston. He did perform again after retirement in Iowa with an act called "The White Prophet: Do Spirits Return?" which featured a Spirit Cabinet.
His last performance was in Nashville, Tennessee in 1942. He died May 16, 1957. The author has not been able to determine when his wife died. Late in her career, Rose Hester and Walt Hudson came out with a book titled, “Psychic Character Analysis” and so it through the magic magazines. It instructed people how to do “cold readings,” or methods of reading peoples appearances, body language, behavior and other factors to give “psychic insights.” The ad for the book had quotes from mentalists and others who use this method endorsing the book. The very last quote came from Madame Olga and she was none too pleased: “I am appalled at your revealing the carefully guarded secrets we in the business use to earn a living. Now, everyone will be getting into the act.
Tom Ewing
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