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This is the transcript of episode 92 of the Magic Detective Podcast, The Other Houdini - Tony Curtis. Listen to the full episode here. The transcript was generated automatically, so expect a few spelling slips.
This is Episode 92 of The Magic Detective Podcast. On this episode you'll hear about the magical life of the other Houdini, Tony Curtis. That and more on this episode of The Magic Detective Podcast. Hello and welcome to The Magic Detective Podcast, your podcast home for magic history. I'm your host, Dean Carnegie. I am The Magic Detective. And this is Episode number 92. I can't believe it's July already. I have been swamped with shows and preparations for a tour, which I am currently on. I had been working on a previous podcast episode, but it was coming along rather slowly.
So that one, which was on John Booth, is going to be bumped for the time being. But I've got a new one all ready to go. And I think you're really going to enjoy that episode. But before I get to that, let me mention the last episode, which was on Tommy Wonder and the accompanying blog article. It was a big hit, really was. The blog article was a transcript of the podcast, but with all kinds of links to the various tricks that I spoke of. And I kind of wish I had added more, as I did leave out some of Tommy's material.
Maybe my favorite routine is one that I left out, which was his version of the bandit trick, or I think he called it Ring Watch Wallet. His method is a real fooler. The trick was invented by Oswald Williams. And by the way, who is Oswald Williams? I've heard this name before, but I don't really know much about him. He is definitely going to be the subject of a future podcast. The original trick, I think, was called Hold Up, as in being held up by a robber, a criminal, a thief, etc.
And as the performer explains what happened, he or she was held up. He or she removes their ring, their watch, and their money in the course of telling this story. And then those objects disappear, and mysteriously, at the end of the story, reappear back on their finger, the watch back on their wrist, and the money back in the wallet. And it's a great routine. And I know that Alan Shaxson of England made a big hit with this in his show, and also Marvin Roy, aka Mr. Electric, did a version of the trick. And that's actually where I saw it the first time, was on Marvin's lecture video. And I thought the trick at the time, I thought, well, this is pretty novel, but it really didn't seem to me to be that much of a fooler, as much as it was just a fun trick that had a funny surprise ending. In Steps Tommy Wonder, and he changed some of the elements. For example, many performers use a devil's hank when they go to make some of the objects disappear.
Tommy used a very small pay envelope to put his objects in, and the vanish of the ring, and the watch, and the money from the pay envelope, it's frankly pretty stunning. It's far more magical than the standard routine, but more than anything, it's a wonderful way to establish yourself as a magician at the start of the show. So I'm sorry I didn't include that in the Tommy Wonder episode, but I encourage you to look that up on YouTube. It's available there.
So let's get into today's podcast.
This man was born Bernard Schwartz on June 3, 1925, and you may know him as a Hollywood actor who
starred in such movies as Some Like It Hot, The Defiant Ones, Operation Petticoat, The Boston Strangler, and Spartacus. But most of you listening will remember him for his unique and defining role as Harry Houdini in the 1953 George Pal-produced Paramount movie, Houdini. The magic consultant on that movie was a magician by the name of George Boston, and in June of 1953, an article appeared in Genii magazine titled "Harry and Bess, a la Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh."
And one of the things that George points out was that Tony insisted in doing all the magic himself. No stuntmen, no body doubles were used. He points out that Tony Curtis spent 12 hours a day practicing and learning the various tricks for the movie. This went on for several months. Now, it never occurred to me before, but I honestly think that this one thing, this one strategy on Tony's part, is what sets that movie ahead of all the other Houdini movies. When Tony does the tricks in this movie, he's actually performing them.
And early on in the movie, we see Tony taking a milk pitcher, pouring some milk into a paper cone, and having it vanish into thin air. And if you watch, the entire trick is shot with one camera angle. The first camera edit isn't until after the milk has vanished and changed to confetti. Then the camera moves to an audience shot. Also interesting, the next lines are the sideshow couple who say, "That magic act has to go. It slows up the turnover," to which her husband replies, "Yeah, but he won't play the wild man unless I let him do those tired tricks."
Interesting dialogue, and somewhat true to the Houdini story of being a wild man in a sideshow, as well as doing magic in a sideshow, but what's more interesting is something I found out recently. Often in a sideshow, the magic act, which was one of the first acts you'd see, was in that early position to make sure that the tent was filled before they were moving down through the rest of the attractions. So the magic act actually had a part to play beyond just doing tricks. As I researched this episode, I came across numerous articles, but in the magic press and in the Hollywood media, that pointed out that no tricks were exposed.
This was said so many times, it's crazy. And compare that to every other Houdini movie, which seems like it's their duty to expose some sort of Houdini trick. Here they stuck to a strict code of not exposing and being sure that Tony could do everything. Now back to Tony Curtis. So he's actually performing this effect, this vanishing milk to confetti. It's not a camera trick. It's not special editing. It's Curtis doing a magic routine for the camera. And I think this is part of the charm of the movie, and why it has such a strong grasp on so many of us, and why it's still popular today.
We're doing a magic show inside of a movie, or within a movie, and it works wonderfully because, well, the stars of the movie, Tony and Janet, have done their due diligence and can actually present these effects and present them well. I told this story before, but the scene with the vanishing milk, it holds special significance for me and my interest in magic. Because after watching the movie, I, as a kid, went and found a newspaper and formed it into a cone, got a pitcher of milk from the refrigerator, and attempted to duplicate what I had seen in the movie.
And come on, how hard could it be? Needless to say, the milk poured out rather quickly out of the bottom of the cone onto the kitchen floor, and that's when I learned my first lesson of magic. There's more to this magic stuff than I realize. A true story. That really happened. The next thing, and there are two of these. There's a feather flower production that Tony does right after the milk pitcher thing, which he gifts to a girl in the audience who turns out to be his future wife, Bess.
There is an effect where she writes her name on a piece of paper, and he burns it, and then the ashes are rubbed onto his arm, and the name appears on his arm. The name Bess appears on his arm. This one is sort of, it's a real life effect. You can really do this thing. Obviously for the movie, he knew it was Bess. It's part of the script, but having the ashes and the word appear on the arm, now that's the magic trick. It's an old classic, and Tony does it really well.
A quick view of the stage setting, and we see a number of things here. We see a card star in the background, a really close examination. You'll see a set of linking rings hanging from a side table. And in the back, there appears to be a bottle and a cube with a flower in it, which is possibly the old passe-passe bottle trick. And I guarantee you that Tony Curtis learned every one of these. So here are the publicity photos for the movie. Tony is seen in various shots.
One, he's holding onto billiard balls, with Bess holding a billiard ball stand. And another, Tony's doing a jumbo rising card effect. There's another photo still of Houdini and Bess doing the jumbo rising cards. Another photo of Tony in a tuxedo with a rabbit in one hand and a top hat in the other. There's also a curious photo of Tony recreating one of the early Houdini promo photos. In this image, he's holding a silk tube with scarves coming out of either side. There's a few side tables surrounding him with many props on both tables.
In the background, there's even an authentic Houdini poster. And it's quite a sight to see Tony Curtis in this particular image. Further research led me to articles that stated that Curtis would often do magic for the press, who were covering the movie. In particular, his billiard ball routine, numerous card tricks, among them pointed out the classic Paul Curry effect, Out of This World. And here's an excerpt from The Linking Ring, Volume 32, Number 8. Magic. Brother, what a shot in the arm magic will get from the movie Houdini.
You should see Tony do billiard balls, cards, and numerous other sleights. And he's hot on the trail of cigarette manipulations, thimbles, coins, and everything else. The fellow is a real magic bug if I've ever seen one and plenty good already. In the George Boston article he points out that both Houdini and Tony Curtis share a Hungarian and Jewish background. He also makes the claim that the real Houdini and Tony Curtis look eerily similar. That one, that one I'm not so sure about. Then he points out the illusions.
And again, he says Curtis, and this time also his wife Janet, rehearsed countless hours to learn the various illusions which appear in the movie. Now for historical purposes, some of the illusions in the movie were not in the real Houdini's show, but some were. Chief among them that were the metamorphosis, which again is actually performed by Tony and Janet. One has one long continuous shot, no edits until the end. There is a slight difference between the real Houdini's metamorphosis and the Tony Curtis one. In the movie version, a line of chorus girls with feathered fans block the trunk from view.
In the real Houdini version, it's a cloth cabinet. But it's essentially the same mystery and done very well. Magician Ray Muse writes in M-U-M before the movie was finished the following. According to our information, the picture deals with Houdini's early life, his speedy success, his love for his mother, and his rise to the SAM presidency. Tentatively, penciled in are scenes in a West Virginia mining town, his success before the Russian court in Moscow, his headlining the Winter Garden and annual SAM banquet in New York City.
And well, and not all of that could make it to the screen. Some was altered, like the Russian court turned
out to be the Kaiser's court in Berlin. If there was any SAM stuff, though, there is an early magicians banquet that says Society of Magicians annual dinner. It's only missing the Society of American Magicians, which historically didn't exist at that moment in the history of Houdini. And I'm not going to give you a trick by trick list here, but I do want to share something about the controversial ending of the movie.
Now, as you know, and if you don't know, the movie came out in 1953, so you've had plenty of time to watch it. It's a true spoiler. Just pause and go watch the movie and then come back. But for everyone else, Houdini dies doing the water torture, or what they call in the movie the pagoda torture chamber. And there are some odd things here. It's called Other Magic. This one is highly edited and quite frankly, for good reason. It truly is Tony Curtis being lowered into the tank.
And there are several establishing shots of this, some close up shots, some far away shots, and even some that appear to be taken inside the tank from Tony's perspective. Bubbles coming up from the bottom of the tank add a great element to this effect. Houdini apparently passes out due to an injury he sustained in his dressing room only moments before. And keep a note of that. Now, what's really going on here is they replace Tony with a dummy and they put in, this is the scene where they're going to break the glass with an axe.
And according to an October 1996 article in Magic Magazine, quote, "The force of the escaping water flushed the dummy onto the edge of the cut glass and sliced it in half." And then you watch the scene where they break the glass in the movie. You can tell it's a dummy very clearly. Now, in December 1976, we find a rather strange note and it comes from the New Tops magazine, the column Magic Around. It says, "George Boston, technical advisor on the movie, once explained to this columnist that the Weiss family agreed to never blame Harry's death on the Canadian student who had hit him in the stomach in order to collect an insurance policy, hence the false and contrived ending."
And this is why Houdini bumps into a sword from a sword cabinet in his dressing room rather than have Whitehead, the college student, punch him in the stomach. The movie premieres. The film premiered in New York City on July 3, 1953. Now, I never gave a whole lot of thought to what the magic world thought about this movie, but given the fact that I'm in the magic world, I assume that many people felt like me, that the story was mostly fictional, but it was very entertaining.
But as I researched this episode, I started reading reviews in the magic periodicals and most said, "You're going to enjoy this movie. It does more for magic than anything has done in years, which I believe to be true. It really put magic in a positive light and exposed it to millions." Most reviewers point out that there are a few historical mistakes, but again, push the fact that it's an entertaining movie. There are showings at magic conventions, special showings for groups of magicians, and one instance, 250 magicians and their wives attended a performance.
Magician Will Rock came out of retirement to do a straitjacket escape to promote the movie. Magician Will Desmond did a hanging straitjacket escape near the Oregon Paramount Theatre to promote the movie. Time Magazine covered the movie with the spread of photos, many of which are not even seen in the movie. Then along came Milbourne Christopher. He also says, "You will likely enjoy the movie," but put down pretty severely the fictionalized aspect of the story. And it's possible he was also upset for losing out the technical advisor role to Dunninger.
Milbourne had gone to Hollywood and met with the producers as a possible tech advisor. Just imagine how different this movie might have been with Milbourne Christopher as the tech advisor. But for whatever reason, they went with Joe Dunninger. One thing that bothers me, though, is all the work that George Boston did to make Tony Curtis into a competent magician and he gets no screen credit. In the book 100 Houdini Tricks, it is said that it was Dunninger who supplied all the tricks and illusions, all of which previously belonged to Houdini.
Okay, the book 100 Tricks is by Joseph Dunninger. And here's another quote. Here's an exact quote. "Recently, Dunninger acted as technical advisor on the Paramount motion picture Houdini. Aside from directing all of the sensational effects, Dunninger trained Tony Curtis to perform many of the escapes and mystifying illusions which Houdini made famous throughout the world. All of the apparatus and tricks used in the picture were the original props which were actually used by Houdini and were loaned to Paramount by their present owner, Dunninger." That is a load of malarkey.
But only a few pages later, in the same book it says, "Much of the paraphernalia used in the movie was at one time the actual property of Houdini." And that statement is slightly more accurate. According to an interview that Tony Curtis did at the Magic Castle in 2009, Dunninger was a blowhard. George Boston was the real tech advisor. And this information came from Wild About Houdini December 18, 2010. Also, many of the illusions used in the movie didn't exist in Houdini's time or were certainly not used by Houdini.
The sawing in half, the ribbon through girl, the broom suspension, the levitation to name a few, and I'm not even clear on the origins of the steel straight jacket to be honest. Here, according to George Boston, adds more to the truth of the props. "The illusions in the picture were either rented from Leo Irby, Renee Monteverde, Aubrey, Jim Connelly, the Hollywood branch of Abbott's Magic, or built by the Paramount Studios under my supervision. And the sub trunk was on loan from Jack Gwynne. And I've seen it with my own two eyes, by the way."
Another review from the Magic Press came from Bob Lund. Bob was a famous collector and would be known for the American Museum of Magic. Here's what he had to say about the movie from the pages of Abracadabra, Volume 22. "An atrocious claptrap of inaccuracy and hokum. It had one of the most lubberly casts of mummers ever assembled." Then he goes on to point out some of the ridiculous pieces of promotion from the studio. And by the way, I'm going to include one of those ridiculous pieces of promotion because honestly, I found it kind of cool.
And here it is. "A set of amazing parallels surrounds the picture. Both Houdini and Tony Curtis were born in New York. Their physical resemblance is staggering. Curtis' real name is Bernard Schwartz. While the man who owned the motion picture rights to Houdini, his name is Berman Schwartz. George Boston, Tony's magic teacher, is married to Janet Boston. Tony's wife is Janet Leigh. Houdini died 26 years ago at the age of 52. 26 is half the count of a deck of cards. 52, the entire deck. Tony Curtis is 26 years old.
Again, half of a deck of cards. And the movie went before the cameras on August 26th. There are three Georges connected with the production. George Pal, the producer, George Marshall, the director, and George Boston, Tony's magic trainer. Finally, Tony's middle name in Hebrew is Harry. That sounds like a Hollywood promotion, and they did get a couple things wrong, but frankly, I thought it was kind of interesting. Now, not surprisingly, Bill Larsen Jr. was a big fan of the movie, and he should be because he's in the movie.
He does the Lester Lake head chopper routine during the magician's banquet, which is strangely, it strangely has a fake ending. When you watch it straight through, he performs the effect right up until putting the blade through the girl's neck. But for whatever reason, they cut to Tony and Janet as a reaction shot. But then when they come back to Bill Larsen, there's a fake head that falls into the basket. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this was, except maybe to accentuate that Houdini is the only one that does real magic in the movie, and everybody else does fake magic.
I don't know. That might be the reason. I have no idea. But I can't help but wonder if there was a huge run on the Lester Lake head chopper after this movie appeared. I kind of wonder about that. Another alternative reason going through the process of getting the girl out of the headstocks takes a lot of time. This way made it much faster. Probably that's the reason. Larry Weeks took advantage of the movie to sell Hamburg 8 handcuffs, the same type that Tony used in the movie.
In the ads for these, he mentions that Tony uses these cuffs in the 1953 Houdini movie. In August of 1953, Russell Holman, Houdini's press agent, this is Houdini's press agent, wrote a piece for the MUM magazine. In it, he mentions the Houdini movie and he says, "One thing about Harry Houdini, however, is certain. If the guy were alive today, he sure as hell would be riding herd on the boys in the 1953 Paramount Publicity Department to use him for exploiting the new Houdini film." I think he might give a special hand to your very handsome Tony Curtis who learned Houdini's tricks so well and whose black eyes on occasion remind me of Houdini's.
I also found this review from Neil Foster in the New Tops magazine. The first time I saw the picture was with Dr. Harlan Tarbell and he wept several times during the movie. I had known the Houdini's intimately and this I thought was a great compliment to Mr. Curtis and Ms. Leigh after the movie. So an actor acts in a movie and by the time it comes out, usually they're deep into their next project. Amazingly, the magic bug stayed with Tony Curtis for a long time. He was so adept at the magic that he would often do it at parties.
And I'd like to point out that George Boston, who taught Curtis, had previously worked with Thurston and with Blackstone. He knew his stuff and he knew how to teach Tony to become a good magician. I found a clip of Tony Curtis on the Rosemary Clooney show and in the scene, he removes a cigarette from his pocket and then he does just like a master manipulator causes the cigarette to disappear and later brings it back from his bare hands. It's very well done. It's a little hard to see though because it's a black and white format, but if you're a Chavez student, you're like, "Hey, that's right out of our course."
I'll try and post it over on the blog if I can get a good enough video of it. But after this sequence, he does sort of a dancing hank, which is not very good. But the sleight of hand sequence with the cigarette, trust me, is done perfectly. Some interesting things happened long after the movie. George Boston gave the straitjacket that Tony Curtis used in the movie to George Davenport in England so George could present it as a gift to the Magic Circle Museum where it still resides today.
In the March 1966 issue of Genii magazine, it states, "Paramount, a few months ago, began preparations with Leslie Stevens on a Houdini series for CBS based upon the 1953 Tony Curtis feature of the same title." I can't seem to find if that ever happened, so I'm going to guess it maybe it didn't. In the May 1967 issue of Genii, there is an obituary for Earl Lockman, an escape artist. In his bio, it stated he provided the props for the Paramount Houdini movie starring Tony Curtis.
So perhaps he, Earl, along with Leo Irby and others, contributed pieces to the movie rather than it being all Joe Dunninger. Incidentally, the milk can used in this movie was provided by Leo Irby, another escape artist. Irby presented it on the show You Asked For It, in which George Boston was the man who lined up all the acts. In 1968, on the Dick Cavett show, Tony Curtis levitated Dick Cavett with the help and consultation of Walter and Litzka Gibson and props borrowed from Clayton Rawson. In a later appearance on the Dick Cavett show, by Tony, Cavett said, "Of their previous illusion, they received a whopping one fan letter."
And I can't find any footage of this, which is likely a good thing as apparently there was a miscue which exposed the method. October 1968, Tony Curtis becomes a member of the Magic Castle in 1969. Curtis gives the Masters Fellowship Award by the Academy of Magical Arts to Richard Cardini. According to the April 1969 issue of Genii magazine, Tony Curtis attended two Houdini seances at the castle with guests. In fact, in May 1969, while on the Joey Bishop show, Tony mentions he needed to leave early to make it to the Magic Castle to attend one of those Houdini seances.
In 1973, Tony Curtis was again a presenter at the annual Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood. This time, he gave Bruce Cervon the award for Best Close-Up Magician. Dai Vernon mentions in his column, The Vernon Touch, that Tony Curtis actually performed an escape act as part of the evening's entertainment. He presented Mark Wilson's frame escape that Mark had presented previously on the Magic Circus TV show. This was actually Harbin's Assistant's Revenge, which was a fairly new illusion in 1973, and by all accounts, Tony did a great job as the amazing Anthony.
Also in 1973, Curtis filled in as host for Johnny Carson. During his few nights as the host, he had three different magicians on the show. Mike Skinner and Mark Wilson were two of the three performers that appeared. August 1974, The Linking Ring states that Tony Curtis is to headline a venue in Las Vegas as a magician. I don't know exactly what became of this, however, if we backtrack to November 1967. Tony did two shows a night for a month in the Hollywood Palace at Caesars in Las Vegas.
Ralph Adams was the main magician, but Tony Curtis presented the head chopper with an audience member each performance, and often a celebrity audience member at that, so think of it kind of like the Rat Pack with magic. Strangely, both tech advisors, Joe Dunninger and George Boston, both died in March of 1975. Also in 1976, Tony Curtis gave Johnny Thompson the Academy of Magical Arts Award for stage magician of the year. Now sometime in the 1970s, and I'm not sure when, Tony Curtis appeared on the Mike Douglas show.
Now he appeared on the Mike Douglas show a lot. He was often the host or co-host of the show. But I remember this vividly, just as if it just happened. He was on the show with another guest who had written a book about stunts that parents could do to share with their kids, and one of the stunts they did was slicing a banana before he peeled it. It was a cool thing, and they demonstrated it and showing how it worked. And then the topic of magic came up and Houdini came up, and Tony mentioned that he did all the magic in the Houdini movie, and he could still do quite a bit of it.
And then he took a playing card and he held it at his fingertips and caused it to vanish. And a moment later he reached out and that same playing card was reproduced. Now, we're all familiar with what this is. It's out of the world of manipulation magic. But on the show, Tony then exposed it and taught it. And normally, I have to say, I would be against such things, but as a young boy, I watched this diligently. I watched every move he made, and I learned it.
So basically, Tony Curtis taught me how to do that move. And years later, a family friend came by for a visit and noticed I had a deck of cards on the table, and he took a card and he goes, "Hey, let me show you this thing." And he went to do that very trick. His technique was pretty poor, but he was not a professional magician by any stretch. You know, it was okay. And then I took the card and I said, "Oh, you mean this?" And I could make it vanish almost instantly and show both sides and even spread my fingers to show it was gone and then reach up and reproduce it.
My friend was duly impressed. But I've always looked upon that particular move as one taught to me by Tony Curtis. In 1977, Tony appears on the Dinah Shore show and along with Doug Henning. And apparently, the theme of that show was Houdini, but I can't find a video of it. I found the opening where Doug performs, but the second half with the interview seems to, whoever had the video, removed it. So that's a shame. January of 1978, Tony Curtis was on Merv Griffin and again did Magic.
March 11, 1978, and another Academy of Magical Arts Banquet, Tony gave the Visiting Magicians Award to Jer Cooper. In 1980, Tony, Julie Andrews, and Walter Matthau filmed a movie called Little Miss Marker on location at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. And yet another Academy of Magical Arts Banquet, Tony Curtis gives Johnny Thompson the Stage Magician of the Year Award again. Then in 1980, working with HBO, Tony hosts a new special called The World's Greatest Escapes. Tony, with his white hat and white coat, hosts the show, and I don't think that Tony was really on the top of his game here.
Maybe it was the way the special was shot, I don't know. My friend Steve Baker was featured in the opening escape, and he's also featured in two other escapes in the show as well. He's also on the show where Dorothy Dietrich with a hanging straitjacket escape. A fellow by the name of Loyal James does an escape. And Carrie Ross does a very comedic straitjacket routine. In 1982, Tony would appear on the Magic with the Stars TV show for NBC. Hosted by Orson Welles, it featured many professional magicians like David Copperfield, Richiardi Jr.
and Norm Nielsen. But celebrities also did magic, including Tony, who did a costume-trunk illusion with Morgan Fairchild. Nicely done. In 1983, Tony did an escape on the Circus of the Stars TV show for CBS. And according to Magic Magazine, May 15, 1991, Tony was set to host a two-hour-long magic special from Japan, tentatively titled The Magic Star. Performers who would appear on the show would also receive a Houdini Award, designed by Tony Curtis. Now, I kept digging. That's all I found on this initially, and then I found a little bit more.
I found out that it was taped on May 21st before a live audience in Japan. And originally, they wanted to present Doug Henning with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Doug was retired, and he wasn't partaking in the show, so instead they gave the award to Siegfried and Roy. Magic included appearances by Juan Tamariz, Rudy Coby, Galina, Dean Gunnarson, the Pendragons and more. And the name of the special was changed from the Magic Star to the Houdini Awards. Apparently, all the acts were good, but the timing was really off on this thing.
And Tony Curtis even had to leave before the whole thing was over to catch a plane, so someone did not coordinate this very well. It was presented mostly in English before a non-English-speaking audience, which just makes it sound like a total mess. Yeah, so let's go to November 2001. The Houdini stamp is revealed by the Postmaster General, and on hand for the ceremony, Tony Curtis and Lance Burton. Lance does a hanging straitjacket escape, and he mentions that he was inspired when he saw Tony Curtis as a kid watching that Houdini movie.
Tony Curtis died September 29, 2010. He died of cardiac arrest in his Las Vegas home. And I know, my friends, I did not get every instance of Tony doing magic on TV. There were other talk shows he was on that maybe only lasted one or two seasons that I don't even have a record of. I know he was on Merv Griffin many times, and I don't have all those instances. I wish I had video of all of it. It would be so cool. The only other thing I have, though, is kind of a personal story, and that is, I went to what we call our last family vacation.
My folks and my brother and I, we flew to Hawaii to have our last family vacation as a family before, you know, I moved away and my brother moved away and so forth. Anyway, I remember walking down the street in Hawaii. I think it was on Oahu and Waikiki, and there was an art gallery there. And as I was walking by, I was like, "Hey, I'm going to step in here for a second." And not knowing, I walked into this art gallery, and I saw this unusual painting, and it was really pretty cool.
And then I noticed it says there was a plaque, and it said, "Paintings by Tony Curtis." And I thought, "That can't be the Houdini Tony Curtis, no." And then I turned, and on the other side there were these sculptures done by Anthony Quinn. And as I looked around, I noticed that all the artwork in this place was all done by celebrities. Those were Tony Curtis' paintings, and I just got absorbed in this whole thing. And it was at that moment when I was there that I thought, you know, when I retire, because I always planned on doing magic full-time, so I thought, "When I retire, I'm going to paint."
Because I was inspired just by this, and if you know anything about me, about 20 years ago, I decided, "You know what? I don't think I can just retire and paint. I don't think it works that way. I think you've got to develop your skill." So I started painting about 20-some years ago. I had already knew how to paint from school, but I had a great ability with art. I won tons of awards and those kind of things. But I began to paint, and everything I painted was magic-related, and some of my paintings have appeared on Magic magazine, and I think there was one inside Genii magazine, a couple other mag-some non-magic magazines as well.
And I know that one of my-I did a commission for a friend who's a screenwriter, so he's got a big Cardini painting in his home, and I've done quite a few others. That whole painting thing came from Tony Curtis, from seeing his work, and then not only being inspired to do magic because of his movie, Houdini, later to being inspired because of his artwork. Finally, I do want to point out one thing very quickly. I made a sort of an analogy when I was talking about the Houdini movie and the fact that it had magic in it, and I said it was a magic show within a movie or a movie within a magic show or something like that, and I thought that was a very clever way of putting that.
And then I was over on wildabouthoudini.com looking at some of the stuff that John had written over there about the Tony Curtis movie, and he actually had those exact same words that this was a magic show within a movie, and he had written it years before that I wrote that, so I don't know if that was stuck in my subconscious or not, but I do want to point out that John wrote it over there first. And by the way, if you want to find out more about the kind of in-depth things with the Tony Curtis Houdini movie, he does a great job on wildabouthoudini, covering some of the things that, you know, the creation of the movie, some of the early versions of Houdini movies that never came about, some of the people that were up for the movies.
I mean, he does just an incredible deep dive into that, and I encourage you to go over there. But I also want to say a big congratulations to John Cox, because he was just announced that he's going to be getting the Ambassador of Magic Award, which is a Milbourne Christopher Award, and he's going to be receiving that in September of this year. Congratulations, my friend. You certainly deserve it, and I'm very proud of you for getting that being nominated, and getting it in the whole nine yards, and congratulations.
My friends, that's going to do it for this episode of the Magic Detective podcast. I'm sorry if this sounds off a little bit. If you know any of the background here, I'm actually recording this on my phone and then transferring it over a computer, because I'm on the road, and I don't have all my equipment with me. So I'll be home in a couple of weeks and be able to get back to normal. But until then, thank you for listening, and please take care, stay safe, and we'll have another episode here for you very soon.
Take care, my friends. [music fades out]
