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On Friday, Oct 27th, the news broke that David Copperfield has plans to make the MOON disappear in February 2024. My Facebook feed lit up like a Christmas tree. I've never seen anything like it. I want to delve into this, but first a little history.
You may remember the time, when annual David Copperfield Specials were the highlight of the magic year. Each year promised new magic, new illusions, and often some new spectacular effect. Some years were better than others obviously. But, not one special went by without some stand out piece, sometimes several.
The Statue of Liberty Special was a milestone. Not just being able to make it vanish, but the symbolism that was behind it. If you don't know, there is a story behind this vanish. During the planning stages, David and his manager went to visit famed movie director Frank Capra. They thought he might have a unique take on the presentation of the vanish. And sure enough he did. In the book, Smoke & Mirrors by Rick Marcelli, he shares what happened. Frank Capra heard what Copperfield had in mind, then went into deep thought. A few minutes later, he slammed his hand down on the table! He had it! He told David, "YOU must FAIL at this illusion. You must give it your all, but in the end you must fail. Becuase even the greatest magician of all time cannot make LIBERTY vanish from America!, Capra said. Whoa. Rick Marcelli thought the idea was brilliant. I frankly had goose bumps the first time I read it. David wanted nothing to do with it. He HAD to make the Statue vanish. And in his defense, when you say you're going to do something and then you don't that gives critics an opportunity to eat you alive. I still think it would have been brilliant.
I only bring up this Statue of Liberty though becuase around that time, I had first heard of the Vanishing Moon idea. I believe it was an Andre Kole idea. For the life of me, I cannot locate the quote. I've looked high and low and I know it was written up in a book. But also, David Copperfield did a piece on Oprah, back in the day and he mentioned on her show that his next big thing would be the MOON.
But if you look even closer, you'll see the Moon crop up often in the world of David Copperfield. In 1992, during the Flying Special, David did one of his interactive tricks. (remember when he was THE ONLY ONLY doing those?)
His interactive trick dealt with destinations and the final outcome was that you would end up on the MOON!
Then there was David's version of the Water Levitation. In the background, a big glowing moon! It perfectly fit the magic happening in front of it.
Fast forward to one of the most unique David Copperfield Specials, the one that was shot in Memphis TN in the round. There was a routine that he talked about the Moon and high tide and low tide. It culminated with the producttion of a glass filled with LIFE! Watch the video below.
At this same time, in David's touring show, he did an interactive routine with the entire audience. Everyone was given a sheet of paper that could be torn into rectangles. One of those rectangles had an image of the moon, I believe all the others were blank. Despite mixing and shuffling, the majority of the audience ended up with the Moon card as their chosen image.
Clearly this fascination with making the moon vanish has stuck with David all these years. I heard that they had created multiple ways to do the effect. One would expect no less from Copperfield. Speculation on the internet, at least some of it leans towards it being like the Statue of Liberty in methodology. I disagree. Many of the mega trick concepts have been exposed on youtube, both magics biggest friend and enemy. I believe the reason we have no seen this trick is David and his team were looking for something that had never been done before. That's my belief at least. And beyond that I'm not going to waste my time trying to think about 'how it was done' before they even do it. I sincerely hope it fools the hell out of me! If it's that strong, I don't want to know!!!
David Copperfield, back in the day was known for this type of thing. In case you're not familiar, here are a few things he did: Levitated a Ferrari On Stage, Made a Lear Jet Vanish while surrounded, Caused The Statue of Liberty to Vanish, Walked Through the Great Wall of China, Made the Orient express train car weightless and then disappear, Made a Large Boat Vanish and Reappear in the Bermuda Triangle, He Flew on stage, not only solo but with a spectator in his arms as well. I'd say the one mis-step was the Tornado of Fire, which was more a David Blaine sort of stunt. There is no need to go that route when you're already KING.
If I might quote a famous line from a movie, it's from Star Trek the Wrath of Kahn. The dialog is between Spock and Kirk, Spock says, "If I might be so bold, it was a mistake for you to accept promotion, commanding a starship is your first best destiny, anything else is a waste of material." I feel this way about David Copperfield, this type of thing, the Moon Vanish, THIS stuff is your first best destiny. It's what we all loved, it's what put you on the map. It's what we expected from you. That isn't say that David Copperfield isn't talented in other areas. OMG, he's brilliant in so many ways, and surrounds himself with super talented people. But lets face it. We've been waiting for this return. It's the most exciting thing in the world of magic that I can think of in ages.
Remember that expression, "Shoot for The Moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars!"Like NASA in the 1960s , for David Copperfield, it's always been about The Moon. Mark Your Calendars!
Dirk Arthur, long time Las Vegas Magician died in his sleep Monday Oct 16, 2023. He was the last of the magicians to use Cats, as in Tigers and such. 20 years ago, in October of 2003 famed Illusionist, Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy was attacked on stage by one of his tigers. The event left him partially paralyzed. It was the end of their careers.
It also signaled the end for many acts that used exotic animals. One by one, those who had been using tigers in their shows, were moving on. The industry was making demands of those who did have tigers and lions to try and prevent further accidents. In one case, the Fercos Brothers had to put a large chain link barrier up in between the stage and the audience to prevent the animals from going among the people.
Dirk Arthur was the last hold out of all of these acts. He retained his animals and did his best to continue performing with them. Though venues became harder to come by because of the negative effects of Roy Horn's accident and constant protests by animal rights activists.
By all accounts, Dirk Arthur had great passion for his animals, took excellent care of them. The height of his career came in the 1990s when he made several appearances on NBCs Worlds Greatest Magic Specials produced by Gary Ouellett. Arthur was a Las Vegas staple for many years. He was preparing to purchase a theater in Branson MO, to start a new show out there. Dirk Arthur was 63 years old.
Websters Dictionary lists the definition of MAGI as, "A Persian Priest or wise man, another definition is sorcerer, or related to magic. Cesareo Pelaez was born Oct 16th, 1932, he was destined to be a magi from the start. He would fulfill that definition being a wiseman, sorcerer, the kind related to our magic.
Cesareo was certainly many things to many people: teacher, professor, instructor, coach, director, mentor, friend, magician, and magi. I'm sure he was other things as well. He was leader of sorts to a 'rag tag' group of individuals who got together in the late 1970s to pool their resources to buy a theater. What? Yes you read that right, buy a theater! And again, whether they realized it or not, their next endeavor would be working creating, building and then performing in a magic show, a theatrical magic show, a must-cast magic show unlike anything that has been on the stage for 50 years. If you are a newbie to the world of magic, the theater that was purchased was The Cabot St. Cinema Theatre, the show they created was Le Grand David and his own Spectacular Magic Company. In time they would purchase a second theater, The Larcom Theater, and produce a second completely different show, Le Grand David in Concert. And though the show was his idea, he wasn't even the STAR, he turned that over to David Bull, who would be Le Grand David. Cesareo chose the stage name, Marco the Magi.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, this show of theirs continued for 36 years, up until the year when Cesareo passed. He died before the Season was over. But the company chose to finish out the season in tribute to their leader and friend.
It takes a special person not only to come up with such things, but to motivate others, outsiders, to pick up that dream as well and run with it. That was Cesareo.
He was one of two people I met in the world of magic that had a life-changing affect on me. And oddly, it wasn't so much the magic that had anything to do with the life change. It was just something he said to me that seemed to clear out the fog and cobwebs of confusion. I know if it wasn't for Cesareo, there would be no blog today. Without his encouragement, I wouldn't have started painting again. At least not as soon as I did. Without his encouragement, I wouldn't have begun to write.
So today I say, Happy Birthday to my friend who left us back in 2012.
In 1998, actor Johnathon Schaech took on the role of Harry Houdini. It was his first lead role in his career. The movie debuted on the TNT network Dec 6, 1998. I remember it well. I recorded it onto a VHS tape, which I still have. I've watched the movie many many times. Though not perfect by any stretch, I thought Johnathon did a fine job as Houdini. Interestingly, a young Mark Ruffalo would play Theo Hardeen in the movie, long before becoming The Incredible Hulk.
The opening of this movie is one of my favorites of all the various Houdini movies. It opens with Houdini's 1906 escape from the Old DC Jail and the cell that once held the assassin of President Garfield, Charles Guiteau. That scene really delivers Houdini in a way that others didn't.
There is much to like about this movie. The fact that Johnathon Schaech portrays a different side of Houdini than previous movies is to me refreshing. This Houdini is strong, ready to take on the world, much like the real man. But the movie makes one fatal error, and I'll leave it up to you to figure out if you see it. But suffice to say, it's not the fictionalized ending the movie, which I will admit I didn't mind at all.
I recall that after his portrayal of Houdini, Johnathan got invited to attend one of the Official Houdini Seances. I'll have to see if I can dig up anything on that for my next podcast.
Recently, I stumbled upon a TV show where Johnathon talks about his experience AFTER making the movie. Specifically, the night of the movie's premier at the Austin Film Festival. Apparently, that night did not go as well as he or anyone else hoped. But rather than go into his experience, I'm going to post the video below.
He does consult a psychic medium, and think of that what you will, but suffice to say, hearing his story and how it affected him personally is sadly emotional. I think he's carried this weight of not doing a good job in his portrayal. I can say, as a Houdini Historian, his was one of the better portrayals, and though the movie, like many, has it's fictionalized moments, I still enjoy watching it. I think he did Houdini right and if ole Harry would have anything to say, he would shake Mr. Schaech's hand and thank him for a job well done.
Maurice Fogel was to Europe and Great Britain what Dunninger was to the United States. He was the first solo-mentalist in Great Britain. But he took his act in directions that others dare not go. Where some magicians attempted the very dangers Bullet Catch, Fogel did it with a firing squad of 6 marksmen and caught 6 bullets in his mouth!
That might seem like the ultimate of sensational routines, but Fogel didn't stop there. Later in his career, he took the Bullet Catch in a new direction, this time making it a Russian Roulette Routine. Again, often 6 marksmen, 6 rifles. But one rifle was empty. The weapons were spun on a carousel so no one knew which was the empty rifle. The marksmen were instructed to shoot at a large target containing china plates that was directly behind Fogel. ONE marksmen was chosen to shoot straight at Fogel's forehead! 3-2-1 FIRE! and plates would come crashing down, and Fogel would be unharmed.
OR so you might think. On several occasions things went bad and Fogel was actually shot. Once in the head, once in the chest. And one time, he avoided death because the marksmen refused to shoot his rifle, which as it turned out, was actually loaded.
A final sensational piece of showmanship came from a routine he developed called Cheating the Gallows. In this, four rope nooses were inspected and proven to be real. A fifth was shown to have a break away section, so that if you put that one on, it would impossible for someone to hang, due to the section that would break. Cardboard tubes were placed over the section where the 'break' was located on each rope. They were mixed up and a committee chose single rope. If it was 1-4, Fogel would hang himself in from of his live audience. If it was number 5, the rope would break and he would be safe. The rope was hung from the gallows. Maurice Fogel stood on top of a chair and placed the noose around his neck. 1, 2, 3, Fogel jumped from the chair....
the rope...
broke! and Fogel dropped to the stage safely! No record of this ever having gone wrong, thankfully!
I love the movie, HOUDINI, with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. It's a very fictionalized version of Houdini's life. Yet, even the fictional stuff has a grain of truth to it. But my one single issue with the movie, comes early on. It's very bad edit in the movie, and the only one of it's kind in the whole film.
Houdini and Bess are in bed, it's their wedding night. Houdini is working on a new trick. He gets Bess to climb inside a box. She sticks HER legs out one her face and hands out the other side. Houdini closes the lid. The camera doesn't cut away. He steps out of the room and back in carrying a large saw for cutting lumber. Keep in mind the camera doesn't cut away. . Tony Curtis lifts the saw and begins to cut, he is about HALF WAY DOWN. Janet Leigh screams! The saw is about to her waist. She screams! THEN
there is a very abupt edit.....And now the blade is apparently through Bess/Janet light.
Now, one of the reason's I love this movie is that Tony Curtis preforms most of the magic himself. In the opening scene, he performs a vanishing Milk pitcher routine. He follows with an ashes routine. Later he does an escape from some Hamburg 8 cuffs. He and Janet Leigh actually present the Metamorphosis routine. They do a broom suspension routine. There is a clip of Tony levitating a woman, another clip of Tony shooting a ribbon through Bess. Tony does a wonderful Steel Straight jacket escape, there are other routines that were filmed but that got cut from the movie. There are still photos of Tony doing effects that never made it into the movie. Surprisingly, there is even a still photo of Tony making an Elephant Disappear. It appears as a photo from the cover of a newspaper.
Some of the routines are presented straight through. Some routines have multiple edits. But ONLY the Sawing routine has a very abrupt edit. I often wondered if something happened during the filming and maybe that was why they cut. I also wondered if the reason for edit was they faked the scene. But as it turns out, the only thing that happened visually was the blade moves upwards suddenly and then back down. Perhaps there was an audio issue which was it was cut the way it was.
And then the solution or the answer. It was found in the trailer for the movie. The entire cutting/sawing scene is there, with no abrupt edits. And you can see for yourself there is nothing unusual that happens except for the sawing going high and then back down. It's clearly the same shot as the movie because a dark section of the front board, matches the one from the scene. BUT it wasn't the only time they shot the scene apparently. The promo photo at the top of the page is from the scene, but a different take. On this take, the front panel that Tony saws through is different. This is the sign that the scene was reshot or that there were multiple shots.
Well, after much delay (on my part) the Official Magic Detective T-Shirts are available to purchase. I'm very excited to be able to offer these to my readers of the blog and listeners of the podcast. I teamed up with a fellow who knows a great deal about the printing business and does an excellent job in his branding business, Billy Diamond from Branding for Entertainers. He will be printing these awesome looking tees.
I think this is just the first t-shirt of a series. I'm considering doing a run of my artwork on t-shirts. And I may be offering other 'swag' down the road. For now, your purchase of the shirt helps me to cover the cost of producing the podcast as well as helps me add more books to the library for future podcasts!
Today we are talking about Tommy Wonder, which was the stage name of Josef Jacabus Maria Bemelman, who also went by the name Jos Bema for a time. He was born November 29th, 1953 in Holland. At the young age of four, Jos saw his first magician. The event is chronicled in the 1994 issue of Magic Magazine. He saw a magician set paper on fire inside a pan and cover it and when the cover came off, the pan was filled with cookies. A prop commonly referred to as a Dove Pan, but frankly is more of a utility device today. His enthusiasm led him to grab a newspaper, some matches, and a frying pan from the kitchen and attempt to create this miracle himself. His results were much the same as mine back when I tried to recreate the vanishing milk from paper cone illusion after having seen Tony Curtis do it in the Houdini movie. Suffice to say, his frustration, led his mother to explain that it was a magic trick. And thus was Jos’s first exposure. His interest would sway back and forth for a number of years, but by aged 10 he found his first magic book. Most of the biographical articles give age 10 as his official interest, but I think we can see it was aged 4. And then by 14 he joined a local magic club and really began to learn and study and grow. He entered contests and was showing himself to be quite the remarkable magician. From early on, Jos had this ability to work on creating his own effects. Yes, he would take things that already existed, but he would put his own ideas and own way of thinking into the routines.
I went to Tommy Wonder’s website for more information on this period of his life. But suffice to say, his site is gone. But because I ‘know things’ I was able to dig it back up from the netherworld. not be be confused with the Netherlands, and was all excited to read his biography page. And sadly, not one word of his formative years. In fact, his biography was quite short.
In an article an article Max Maven wrote for MAGIC Magazine, and which is also in the opening of the Books of Wonder, he reveals that Tommy began to win contests from age 14 through high school. And he developed the famous trait that is the bain of all a performers existences, he began to get cocky, which is an exact quote. But Tommy soon discovered his cockiness and his abilities as a magician did not automatically lead to fame and fortune. That’s generally the lesson the follows cockiness. So he applied and was accepted into the Academic door Podium-vorming in the Hague. This was a performing arts school in which he attended for three years. According to his website, “Then he worked for 2 years with the theater company “De Haagsche Comedy” where his theater experience enlarged.
The MAGIC Magazine article mentions that for a time Tommy Wonder teamed up with fellow Hollander, Dick Kornwinder. Together the two of them pitched a small item based upon the old mouse pitch. It was a bright colored piece of fabric that seemed to come to life and run through and over the performers fingers and hands. I don't seem a mention of them in the magic magazines of the times, other than appearing at conventions together, but no mention of what they are doing or even selling. No doubt one item they could possibly be selling would be the Card Finding Miniature Car that Dick Kornwinder created in the early 1970s and later sold to Ken Brooke. Ken, was the only authorized dealer, but before long they were being sold by many different makers. In the 1980s, Juan Tamariz made a splash on American TV when during a Thanksgiving timed Magic Special called The worlds greatest Magic, he presented the Card Finding Miniature Car. It was a huge hit in Juan’s hands and soon the phones rang off hook again for this amazing tiny car.
IN 1977, Tommy had created a stand up manipulation act. Fortunately for us, this was recorded on and is available to view online. The show was a talent contest called Plankenkaus and it appeared on Dutch TV. The act, highly original material, though still it was still card manipulations, and billiard balls. The thing was, the card manipulations were unlike what anyone had seen. For example, a deck of cards is removed from a box and fanned out. A second later, the card box vanishes. It’s discovered in the other hand, with the cards BACK in the box. This is repeated several times with variations.
Next he does a diminishing card effect, with again, his own original method. After this a ring and rope routine and then the conclusion is a billiard ball routine, where balls appear, change color, multiply, vanish and then a huge giant ball is produced. The methods and techniques during the billiard ball are mostly original with a touch of some standard moves. But the overall impact is amazing. If you watch the video, this appears as if it might be a magic convention, as Fred Kaps is in the front row watching Tommy’s performance. the magic is fantastic, the burlesque stripper music is a tad annoying.
And then he came across Henning Nelms book, Magic and Showmanship. Reading the book and looking at his act, he quickly understood that this type of act was NOT who he was. Further, Tommy was soon to discover, that manipulation magic, as much as he enjoyed it, didn’t have much of a commercial audience, or if there was one, he didn’t know how to sell his act to them. Now, close-up magic, that he could sell and he did. Tommy’s creation for the close-up artist are incredible. In fact, he excels in this area, as much as he did in his stage act.
In 1978, I found the first mention of the name Tommy Wonder. Jos Bema was announcing at the end of his lectures that this would be his new name. And to anyone else, I would say, ‘its a terrible name, too easy to make fun of”. But for jos Bema, aka Tommy Wonder, it was the perfect name.
In February 1979, Tommy appeared in the pages of Pabular with his presentation of Coins Across. By the way, I’m going to put a transcript of this episode on my blog, TheMagicDetective.com and I’ll be posting the various videos that show the effects I’m speaking of. Tommy’s clever take on the Coins Across was his solution to not have to count and recount the coins from hand to hand every single time. With a small change in the plot, and the addition of a ‘magic coin’ unusual things happen. Please check out the video.
By the way, later in 1979, Tommy wrote an article for Pabular magazine about Standing vs. Sitting in a Close-up performance. This was a new way of thinking. If you recall, popular close up artists who came before him: Dai Vernon, Tony Slydini. Ross Bertram, Al Goshman, and others routinely were seated. Even today, Dani DiOrtiz, Juan Tamariz, David Roth have a tendency to sit, though they will stand on occasion. If you watch Tommy Wonders videos, you’ll see that during closeup routines. sometimes he sits, sometimes he stands, whatever works best for the routine. In his Magic Ranch routine that he describes in his Books of Wonder and which is also available online, standing is most important to the routine. In his essay, he makes some brilliant points about standing, one of the most important is the fact that the tallest object in the room gets the eyes. IN his words, “Being higher than the audience bestows a more important appearance and gives you added authority, making it easier to command the situation.”
Sometime in the mid 1980s, Tommy received a request from a restaurant with a medieval theme. They wanted to know if he could create a custom show for their restaurant. Now this was not your typical restaurant gig, where you stroll from table to table doing magic. This was a stage production. It took Tommy six weeks to develop the material. It was so successful that he stayed at that restaurant performing for 5 years. His original contract was for 50 weeks of work. And this material became his new stage act. In 1988, he took time out of his schedule to perform at FISM and won the 2nd place prize for General Magic. And according to Magic Magazine August 2006, he proceeded to throw-up everywhere after the competition. The nerves and the stress got the better of him. He vowed that would be his final FISM entry.
This restaurant gig really forced him to delve deep into his theatrical training.
If you consider his stage act, it is presented as a period piece, quite theatrical in nature. There is a whole story going on there from start to finish if you pay attention. Quite different from what other magicians of the time were doing. It was very standard practice to go from trick to trick, sometimes connected, sometimes not. But in Tommy’s stage act, one magical moment leads to the next, in a logical progression. At the conclusion of a very non-standard cups and balls routine he ends up with a lemon, an egg, and an orange. He then attempts to make them vanish, starting with the egg, but a bird in a cage that is sitting on a high stand on stage, begins to make a commotion when he picks up the egg. This leads to him covering the cage with his cummerbund, and more noise from the bird. The cage rattles around leading to yet another magical moment, and another and another. Brilliant. Tommy is dressed in some sort of colonial period costume, yet his table is very modern and thin and does more to help sell the visual illusion of impossibleness than anything. Clearly nothing is hidden in the table!
One thing I found unusual when I first witnessed his Cups and Balls, the stage version was the fact that two cups were the same size and one was same design but larger. Well, I discovered in the Linking Ring Magazine, Sept 1987, where Tommy mentions that in the medieval times, they used two cups of the same size and one different, this was based upon paintings he had seen of Cups and Balls performers. And from an August 2006 MAGIC Magazine interview with Tommy Wonder, I learned that Richard Ross, the great manipulator, help Tommy with his stage act.
Somewhere among the years, I saw Tommy Wonder present his Vanishing Bird cage. This is a personal favorite of mine. So many performers have used this prop and all with different degrees of success. Probably no one more recognizable with the cage than Harry Blackstone Jr. He would walk out on stage holding the red ribbon covered brass cage. After uttering the line, “IN a moment this cage will vanish from my fingertips and you’ll not see where it goes!” And then, a second later it was gone. He’d go backstage for another cage and ask for more volunteers to help him on-stage. This time the volunteers, all children, put their hands on various sides of the cage and as he is instructing them, their hands collectively fall into each other because the cage vanished.
Next we have Billy McCombs hilarious version with the mouse who EATS the cage whole! He stuns his audiences at how the cage vanishes in slow motion. Unreal.
Then there Jonathan Pendragon, who had his sleeves rolled up and didn’t seem to move and the cage instantly vanished. Finally, there was Tommy Wonder’s. He doesn't start holding the cage. He picks it up and it seemed to be solid, not flexible or moveable. His sleeves rolled up……and without any movement, the cage just vanished!!!! A site to behold..or not behold! as it were.
Tommy now had an award winning stage act, an award winning close-up act, and he wasn’t finished. In 1996, he wrote, along with Stephen Minch, and published through Hermetic Press, his two volume Books of Wonder. I recall when these became available. I went straight to Denny’s Magic Shop to buy my copies. I was most curious about his vanishing birdcage, but then I quickly was caught up in all his articles on the theory of performing, or perhaps it’s better to call them his philosophy of performing. The Books of Wonder recently have been reprinted and are available through various magic shops online. They are a must have.
In May of 1996, Tommy Wonder appeared on the cover of The Linking Ring with a short biographical article. In June 1996, he appeared on the cover the Genii magazine, but this time, a short piece by Jamy Ian Swiss talks about his first exposure to Tommy’s magic and later meeting and getting to know him. This is followed by 4 articles directly from The Books of Wonder.
In 1997, Tommy won the Performers Fellowship award from the Academy of Magical Art
Maybe you are wondering, what was he like? What was Tommy Wonder like in real life? From the research I just did, and from the videos and through a couple interviews I’ve read, I think I can safely say he was a man who truly believed in magic. He felt we all had our own inner magic and needed to discover it for ourselves. Though he wrote 2 of the greatest volumes on magic, he would not consider himself a teacher. He didn’t think people could be taught magic. They had to find it for themselves. That might sound strange, but what Tommy was speaking of was much deeper than knowing how to do a magic trick. You can teach someone to do a trick, sure. But I believe, and he certainly believes, there is much more to magic than just knowing how a trick works and even being able to perform it. There are levels to a magic trick that we cannot even fathom until we have performed it many times. Only then can we begin to understand the magic, and only then can we tweak it and twist it into the ultimate mystery. You’d think with the Books of Wonder that Tommy was satisfied with his magic, that many of the routines in the book were completed works. But the opposite is true. He was always working to improve, perfect, alter his works. A great example is a routine called was a trick called Elizabeth. In the books of Wonder, it’s called Elizabeth III. It began as a dealer item sold by Davenports of England called Elizabeth’s Fantastic Joker. It was a card prediction that used a piece of apparatus to create the magic. In the Pabular magazine, a magician named Wally Boyce published Elizabeth Second, which was his version of the effect, streamlining things. Tommy chose to take things even further and thus the name Elizabeth the Third. But it didn’t stop there. When L&L created the Tommy Wonder videos, Visions of Wonder, it includes a routine called Elizabeth the 4th, so again, Tommy was working to make the magic better and better, even after having published his great two volume set.
This is another trait of his personality. Passion. Clearly he was passionate about magic and about the process of magic. He thought about it on a deeper level than a lot of people do. I recall on the Visions of Wonder videos when Tommy does his Next of Boxes routine and Max Maven is watching and commenting, he is totally blown away by the methods and the thinking that went behind it. For Max to have this opinion speaks volumes.
In November of 2005, Tommy Wonder received a diagnosis from his Doctor that he had lung cancer. Initial treatments seemed promising. But then, things began to take a bad turn. In the September 2006 issue of Genii Magazine, Stephen Minch, co-author of The Books of Wonder, tells the story of traveling to Holland, along with Max Maven, to visit Tommy in his last days. It's a difficult read because he shares his fondness for the man, how their friendship developed, and knowing this trip would likely be the last time they saw Tommy. The visit clearly cheered up Tommy. Visits by other friends would barely last two hours, but on this visit, Tommy was awake alert and engaged for 6 hours. He felt revigorated. They spoke of magic and friends in magic. They avoided the topic of his illness, as there was really nothing more that could be said.
On June 26, 2006, Tommy Wonder, Jos Bemelman, passed away at the young age of 52.
As I worked on this particular piece for the podcast, I feared I wouldn’t find enough material to make a full episode. Besides a couple biographical articles in Magic and the Linking Ring, there wasn’t much out there on his life. But I kept pushing forward, kept watching his magic, kept reading the Books of Wonder.
Then I came across this interesting ‘letter to the editor’ in OPUS Magazine. Tommy was speaking about something he had read in an article by Ian Keeble. It was something he disagreed with and wanted to add his opinion to the discussion. A couple months later, Terry Seabrook wrote a piece in Opus about Tommy’s letter and basically said, “I disagree with everything he had to say.” Let me also say I think they all were entitled to their opinions and I think a case could be made for each opinion being correct...
The basic point of it was Tommy disagreed with the idea that you should do things your audience wants to see. Give them what they want! In other words. Terry Seabrook put it pretty bluntly when he said, ‘Tommy considered himself a magician, while I consider myself an entertainer’. and at the end of the day it is easier to pay the bills as an entertainer because I’m giving my audience what they want, a laugh, a smile, a few minutes to forget about life and be entertained. Yep. that makes sense.
In Tommy’s letter he says, “He has learned that it’s better to do what you love to do. Audiences in the end want to know about You, and by doing what you love it reveals more about you.” A radical way of thinking in the 80s when he wrote that letter. But now, all these many years later, in the 21st Century, I’m reminded of how many people say that we should reveal ourselves in our shows. Let the audience get to know us. Reveal something about us. Hmmm, was Tommy Wonder onto something?
Tommy also points out in his letter that Vincent Van Gogh, could have painted like all the other painters of his time, and likely sold a bunch of paintings. But he had his vision and he painted what he wanted. Sadly, this meant he sold a whopping 1 painting while he was alive. But since his death, his paintings have brought in millions upon millions of dollars. It’s a risk an artist in any field has to be willing to take.
My favorite thing I learned about Tommy Wonder came from an interview he did with carlos Vaquera. Tommy is asked, “If you had to choose a single word that represents magic for you, what would it be?” And Tommy’s response. Beauty.
In that I think we learn all we need to know about Tommy Wonder. A man who truly lived up to his name.
(this is a transcript from Ep 91 of The Magic Detective Podcast)
I had the honor of visiting my buddy Wayne Alan this past weekend. Wayne is the owner of the Old North Theater in Danville VA. He is also a semi-retired illusionist and very busy magic historian. I don't think he considers himself a collector, but man does he have some crazy cool stuff!
For example, the photo above are sections from the Old Keith's Theater in Washington DC where Houdini did a hanging straitjacket escape in 1922. Wayne also has the air grate that was in Houdini's hospital room in Detroit.
In addition, he has documents, audio recordings and artifacts that will make your head spin. And I'm sadly, not at liberty to divulge. I got to see and touch and item that belonged to a very famous magical artist from yesteryear. Again, can't say yet who it is because Wayne plan's to do a big reveal at some point.
If all the Houdini stuff wasn't enough, Wayne has some Doug Henning items. He owns the Lion's Bride Cage, and he owns a sawing in half that was Henning's. Apparently, some claim it's not Henning's but Wayne say's it is. I saw it. Label is clearly from Owens Magic to Doug Henning. Stencil on the side says The Magic Show. And inside is a Sawing in Half. There are two cases for it.
There must be a story that goes with this, as it's not the Sawing is featured in the promotional photos. But it is without a doubt a Sawing in Half, that Henning owned and does have 'The Magic Show' stenciled on the case. Plus, the case is appropriate for that time period. We did not put the entire thing together, but it was cool to see.
Wayne is intending upon building a Museum of Magic next to his theater and he has a building that is perfect in which to do it. I can't wait to see the finished thing, it's going to be spectacular.
February 7th, 2000, Doug Henning passed away. He was only 52 at the time. It came as a huge shock to the magic community for several reasons. For one, he was way too young to pass away. But secondly, he had started to get back into magic just prior to this. He had been spotted at several different magic shops and had some communications with old friends in the magic world. Some even speculated that maybe, just maybe, he was going to make a come back.
But that was not to be.
Magic was very different 23 years ago. Ok, maybe not VERY different, but different enough. I guess I'm thinking of when Doug was around and performing. New strides in the world of Illusion were happened, they started with Doug and then when he left, they continued with David Copperfield primarily. The man behind those innovations was Jim Steinmeyer. But he wasn't the only one, Andre Kole was creating incredible illusions, as well others.
Just this past weekend, I began to explore the world of one of the guys who worked with both Doug and David, his name is Doug Bennett. I recalled the name, but wasn't aware of this many contributions. In fact, as I type this, I have a friend working on a jumbo version of a trick Doug Bennett created called The Criss Cross Deck. Doug featured it on one of his TV specials.
Doug Bennett is probably best known of his Bewildering Effect, that Doug Henning featured on a Tonight Show spot with Johnny Carson. And there is another effect he created called FireTrap, which again, Doug did on a TV spot. It was cool to discover that Mr. Bennett is still working in the magic world. as a consultant. HIs latest commercial item was a Floating Selfie Stick, ala. Dancing Can....brilliant. If you'e like to learn more about Mr. Bennett, check out http://www.dougbennettmagic.com/magicconsulting.php
And please take a moment or two to remember Doug Henning and his unique brand of magic.
Here it is, selling off my collection! Wait, no. LOL. I'm only selling a few items that I have extras of. Fortunately, I have a lot of duplicate items and in some cases several additional of a particular thing. I'm putting up magic history books, ephemera, posters, brochures, bobbleheads, magic figurines.
Right now there is a vintage Virgil & Julie Poster which will likely sell in two days. I have another one that I haven't posted yet. I've got a couple Raymond items I may put up. Get them while they last.
There was a time in the 1980s when this duo, Penn Jillette and his partner Teller, where known as the Bad Boys of Magic. By all accounts, they were like anti-magicians, exposing tricks and infuriating the world of magic while making cockroaches and snakes and who knows what appear all over David Letterman's desk!
They didn't do the ordinary coin tricks, stage illusions, or anything regular magicians did. Oh, well they did the Cups and Balls....and then exposed it brilliantly after performing it. No, they conjured with BEES, BUGS, BLOOD, all manner of craziness. They did magic upside down. They did magic underwater!
They've had a long career. And then 30 years ago, on Jan 14th, they began to perform in Las Vegas. They are now the longest running comedy act in Las Vegas History! They may just be the comedy act that lasted the longest. Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, and others all broke up. Penn and Teller, still together!
In Oct 2022, Teller, took a break from the show to undergo bypass heart surgery, no small feat for a young person, but Teller is 74. He came through with flying colors and if I might add, I think it proves he is indeed a YOUNG 74! On Jan 14, 2023, Penn and Teller once again united on stage of the RIO Casino in Las Vegas to continue their stellar run. And get this, they opened with new material and announced they would be debuting more new material.
This is one of the reasons Penn and Teller are so magnificent and so incredibly GREAT for the World of Magic. They do not rest on their laurels. They continue to put out new material. And their stuff is killer. They have more original routines than probably any magic act around. And I've not even mentioned their TV Show which is the greatest platform for great magic, EVER!!!!
