Long Tack Sam
Long Tack Sam was born Lung Te Shan on September 16, 1884, in Wuqiao County, Shandong, China. He was a magician, acrobat, and vaudeville performer. He joined a group of acrobats called the Tian-Kwai and toured the world. When unrest grew at home, he brought his troupe to America, where they became famous in the early 1900s. His dazzling act traveled to major cities around the world, and he even opened for the Marx Brothers. He also mentored Orson Welles and joined Houdini’s Magicians Club in 1922.
A famous theatre story from that era tells of a confrontation with Bert Fitzgibbon at the Palace Theatre in New York after Sam was billed to perform after the magician. The audience cheered as Sam responded with an uppercut, though it’s unclear if Fitzgibbon made his curtain call.
Long Tack Sam and his family later toured Australia and New Zealand, promoting their show with a dramatic skydiving stunt into Bondi Beach offering free tickets. They performed in many top theatres across Australia in the 1920s and 1930s. His final performance came in 1958 at the Roxy Theatre in New York, where he did his famous water-bowl trick, performing a somersault at age 73 while holding a goldfish bowl.
He and his wife Leopoldi (Poldi) Rössler Long retired to New York. Long was a Freemason and reached the 32nd degree. After a serious car accident, they moved to Linz, Austria, where Long Tack Sam died on August 7, 1961, at age 76. Poldi died two years later. They had three children.
Long Tack Sam’s life is documented by his great-granddaughter, Ann Marie Fleming, in The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, including a film and a memoir published in 2007 that won the Doug Wright Award for best book in 2008.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 21:51 (CET).