One particularly colourful bearer of the proud name of Carter was the American magician Charles Joseph Carter, born in 1874 in Pennsylvania and better known as Carter the Great.
Abandoning careers as a journalist and then a lawyer, he took to the stage with the rather more interesting career of bedazzling audiences world-wide with his magical talent.
The highlight of his act was the classic ‘sawing a woman in half’ illusion – with an elaborate and highly dramatically charged performance that involved ‘nurses’ standing by in attendance.
