William Ellsworth Robinson (April 2, 1861 – March 24, 1918) was an American magician who went by the stage name Chung Ling Soo (Chinese: 程連蘇; pinyin: Chéng Liánsū).

He is mostly remembered today for his extensive use of yellowface in his act to falsely represent himself to be a Chinese man who spoke little English, as well as for his accidental death due to a failed bullet catch trick.

The family settled in Manhattan while James Robinson toured in Charles "Charlie" White's minstrel shows.

Around this time, Robinson learned of a challenge issued by Chinese stage magician Ching Ling Foo.

In a gimmick that was standard for magicians of that era, Foo offered a prize of $1,000 to any person who could successfully duplicate his illusions.

Robinson, who had watched Foo's act when he toured the United States and figured out how his illusions worked, accepted the challenge.

The book exposed the tricks of slate writing and a number of devices that fraudulent mediums would use to pretend to contact the dead.

As "Chung Ling Soo", Robinson claimed he was the American-born son of a Scottish missionary who married a Cantonese woman.

[10] As Chung Ling Soo, Robinson quickly became a popular stage magician in Europe and eventually became one of the highest-paid performers on the vaudeville circuit.

[7][11] Soo accepted the challenge and agreed to meet Foo at the offices of The Weekly Dispatch for a press conference.

Attendants fired the gun at Soo, and he appeared to catch the bullets from the air and drop them on a plate he held up in front of him.

The only known film record of "Chung Ling Soo" that exists today shows him greeting World War I veterans at a 1915 benefit performance.

He soon lost interest in his wife after meeting Olive "Dot" Path (born Augusta Pfaff), who would also become his assistant.

Shortly after Robinson married Path, he met Janet Louise Mary "Lou" Blatchford, an English woman from Plymouth.

Path was angry to learn that Robinson had been unfaithful but the two decided to continue to present themselves as husband and wife for the sake of the act.

While "Chung Ling Soo" and "Suee Seen" continued to tour Europe, Blatchford lived in Barnes, London.

[18] He performed his act without incident until he got to the famous "Condemned to Death by the Boxers" illusion, his version of the bullet catch.

Over time, a residue of unburned gunpowder was able to form in the channel he had made to allow the flash to bypass the barrel and ignite a blank charge in the ramrod tube.

[27] The story of his accidental onstage death is recounted by a character in the Ray Bradbury novel Dandelion Wine (1957).