Servais Le Roy (Spa, 4 May 1865 – 2 June 1953) was a Belgian illusionist, illusion designer and businessman. He is famous for the act Le Roy, Talma and Bosco and as the inventor of the classic levitation illusion Asrah the Floating Princess.
Visual reference
From Spa to London
Le Roy was born in Spa, Belgium, and began his career there, but later moved to London. There he established a supply house for illusions and scenery, with which he also provided other performers with equipment.
In an early phase he performed with the German illusionist Imro Fox and Frederick Eugene Powell as The Triple Alliance.
Le Roy, Talma and Bosco
Le Roy owes his greatest fame to the long-running act he developed with his wife Talma and Leon Bosco. Talma, whose real name was Mary Ford, was a brilliant manipulator of coins, while the rotund Bosco played a buffoon character.
Although it was a true partnership, Servais Le Roy sometimes received additional billing. According to biographer William Rauscher, the role of Bosco was played by no fewer than nine different performers over the years.
The Asrah levitation
Le Roy and Talma first performed the Asrah levitation in London in 1914. Talma would lie on a couch, Servais would cover her with a sheet, appear to make her rise into the air, pass a large hoop over her floating body, and finally pull away the sheet — revealing that she had vanished.
He also developed respected illusions such as 'Where do the ducks go?', the Modern Cabinet, the Palanquin and the Costume Trunk, and was the first illusionist to take an interest in the piano as a magic object.
A lasting legacy
Later Le Roy put his own show into storage and accepted a contract from Horace Goldin to front one of his touring companies, featuring the then sensational illusion 'Sawing a woman in half'.
He died in 1953 in Keansburg, New Jersey. His Asrah levitation remains to this day one of the most beautiful classics of illusion art.
Servais Le Roy enriched the art of illusion with inventions still performed more than a century later. That same urge to create something lasting and original also drives Sudesh Roman.