Long Tack Sam

Biography

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. On most official documents during his life in America, he used Sam Tack Long as his legal name.

Little is known about Long's early years; 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. Several years later with unrest in his homeland, Long brought his own troupe of entertainers to America. 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 by contemporary audiences, he was considered one of the "greatest vaudeville acts of the early 20th century". Long was also known as a 32nd degree Freemason.

Long's 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 was billed above him in the night’s card, meaning that he was scheduled to follow the magician on stage. Later that night as Long 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 a responding uppercut from Long, 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.

After extensive performing and traveling around the world, Long and his wife Leopoldi (known as Poldi), a native of Ybbs, Austria, retired to New York City. 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 there in 1961 at the age of 76. Poldi died in Vienna two years later.

Documentary film

The greatest source of historical information available of Long Tack Sam's life comes from a Canadian documentary The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam. Written, directed, researched and animated by Long's great-granddaughter Ann Marie Fleming, the story is an in-depth research of the magician's life. Through six years of research, and the assistance of several magic historians, Fleming uncovered many missing holes in the historical narrative 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.