Martin Beck

Martin Beck (July 31, 1868 – November 16, 1940) was a vaudeville theatre owner and manager, and theatrical booking agent, who founded the Orpheum Circuit, and built the Palace and Martin Beck Theatres in New York City's Broadway Theatre District. on July 31, 1868, in Liptószentmiklós, Kingdom of Hungary (now Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia). He went with a group of actors on the SS Elbe from Bremen, Germany, to the United States in May 1884, where he worked as a waiter in a beer garden in Chicago. When the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco was bought by Morris Meyerfeld Jr. in 1899, he worked with Morris to acquire more theaters. By 1905, Beck was running the organization. As Houdini wrote at the bottom of the telegram, which she had carefully preserved: "This wire changed my whole Life's journey."

Beck and Houdini became close personal friends. Beck advised Houdini to concentrate on his escape acts, and booked him on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Within months, Houdini was performing at the top vaudeville houses all over the United States, and in 1900, Beck arranged for him to tour Europe.

He was voted out of the presidency of Orpheum Circuit in a boardroom coup after it went public in 1923. The following year, he opened the Martin Beck Theater in New York City (renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in 2003).

In 1932 he managed the booking office at RKO. In 1934 he brought the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from London to America. Arthur Hopkins gave the eulogy at the funeral; honorary pall bearers included William A. Brady, John Golden, Sam H. Harris, Lawrence Langner, Guthrie McClintic, Lee Shubert and Herman Shumlin.