05/04/09 - The Life and Times of Emil St. Sherbernaise, Part 1
The Life and Times of Emil St.Sherbernaise, Part 1
The act of staged escape has produced legends of renown and mystery unlike any other performing art. Unfortunately, the shadows cast by such giants as Blaine, Copperfield, and Houdini have obscured many a talent who might once have captured the world’s attention. Too long have the tales of these performers and their wondrous feats been left to the wayside. And chief among them is the story of Emil St. Sherbernaise—the world’s greatest escape artist in an iron lung.
Born Emil Shibbershabberties in 1885, the youngest of seven siblings, Emil’s family moved to America when he was five years old. They settled in Clumpy Creek, a rural community forty-five miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina. Emil’s father, Samuel Shibbershabberties, worked as the proprietor of a cheese shop, while Emil’s mother tried not to have any more babies. With nine children to feed, times were tough around the Shibbershabberties household. After the Cheddar and Havarti Crash of 1896, Emil and his twelve siblings were forced to start working in the tobacco fields on the outskirts of Clumpy County. This job was one of two events that would have a profound effect on young Emil, as he quickly took to plantation work and began a lifelong love affair with smoking and all things tobacco-related.
Then, in the spring of 1900, Emil saw Professor Quigley, stage magician and featured act of the Caufield & McGreevy travelling circus. Dazzled by the Professor’s theatrics, Emil had found his second love. In May of that year, with his father’s blessing, Emil waved goodbye to his fifteen brothers and sisters and ran away with the circus. Starting out as fourth assistant dungboy, Emil showed such initiative that he was quickly promoted to height guesser. Over the next five years, Emil would learn every aspect of the carnival business, and prove an apt pupil for Professor Quigley (all the while building up a four-pack-a-day habit).
Everything thus far was just preparation…Emil loved magic, and he also loved smoking. He longed for the chance to bring these two loves together. October 9, 1905 would see the fruition of that dream—the premiere of Emil St. Sherbernaise, the “Smoldering Sorcerer”.
With the tagline “You’ll never SEE how he does it!” St. Sherbernaise perplexed and suffocated audiences across North America from 1906 to 1909. A proficient illusionist, Emil’s ever-present cigarette and the billows of smoke covering the stage turned off many a crowd. The reason for the show’s modest success was attributed to the mentalist act immediately following (Count von Stessel, the Unfathomable), whom no doubt benefitted from the “lingering ambiance”.
Having saturated the American circuit, Emil found new success in Europe. The act was refined, and the eventual self-imposed limit of a dozen cigarettes per show was a positive boon. It was during this time St. Sherbernaise started adding escapes to his act. It was also during this time that Emil finally found his third love—he married Katya Pechyorkina, a Russian dancer, in August 1912 after a month-long courtship.
With the rise of the Great War in 1914, the European theatrical economy was crushed, along with St. Sherbernaise’s prosperity. With Katya in tow, Emil returned to Clumpy Creek, staying briefly with Emil’s parents (and the twenty-six siblings yet to reach adulthood) before finding their own home in Charlotte. Their only child, Lucas, was born in November, 1915.
One morning in April 1916, Emil opened his eyes, looked around the room, and exhaled smoke into the air. This was most disconcerting, since he hadn’t lit a cigarette yet. After hospitalization and a battery of tests, it was discovered that St. Sherbernaise had the equivalent tobacco intake of all the surviving veterans of the Confederate Army combined. Diagnosed with “a case of indigestion”, Emil was released. Three days later, he suffered massive lung failure and was hospitalized again.
The doctors informed Katya that his survival was at best temporary; eventually, his lungs would stop working and he would die. But Katya refused to give up. Using their life savings, she travelled throughout Europe searching for a solution to Emil’s condition. Finally in October, her efforts bore fruit. In Paris she found a prototype machine that manually prompted respiration— the spirophore, designed by Eugene Woillez. This miracle device would come to be known in subsequent years by a more famous name—the iron lung.
Emil was placed in the lung (which he christened “Lil’ Pedro”) in December 1916, and immediately showed a marked improvement. Within two weeks, he was out of the hospital and back at home. But there were more troubles…medical and travel expenses had dwindled their savings to nothing. Compounding matters, Emil’s absence from the stage had caused him to sink into a deep depression. As before, the solution to these problems would be found in one stroke: Emil St. Sherbernaise would have to perform again.
END OF PART ONE
Look for Part 2 in a couple days,
JG
