David Bull, One of the True Masters of Magic

There is a magician who in my opinion is one of the great performers of the 20th and 21st century. But he is often overlooked and that is a shame. His name is David Bull, but you probably know him better by his stage name Le Grand David. He was the star of the Le Grand David Magic Show in Beverly Mass, along with Marco the Magi and a big cast of fantastic fellow performing artists.

The Le Grand David Show was the longest running resident magic show in the United States. They began back in 1977 and ran the show every year until June 2012. This fall was the first time in the history of the company that they did not return for a new season. The patriarch of the company, Cesareo Pelaez passed away in 2012 and it's clearly been hard on the members of the group. And frankly, they more than earned a break.

But it's David Bull I want to talk about. Here is a fellow who got into magic basically from a conversation he had with Cesareo. Now Cesareo would later become his mentor, but it's David who put in the hours and hours of practice and rehearsal to develop incredible magical skills. I think he's one of the best, if not THE best manipulator I've ever seen. His skill with Billiard Ball manipulation is breathtaking. But he's also just as adept at coin manipulation and dove productions and his Linking Ring skill is among the best there is. Then there is David's take on the Zombie Ball, I mean what can you say really, it's perfection.  He handles apparatus magic better than anyone out there and his skill as an illusionist is first rate. He does it all with a style that is rarely seen today.

I remember trying to put my finger on David's style a few years ago. I ran down the list of attributes and then it dawned on me, David exhibited from the stage pure confidence. Not arrogance, not a prideful or boastful attitude, just plain confidence and he was pleasant and friendly the entire time. There was also a playfulness about his on stage character at times and other times a seriousness to his performing. He commanded the stage when he was on it but could easily share the stage with fellow artists and performers and had no problem with letting their light shine as well.

As I mentioned, Cesareo Pelaez was David's magic mentor and he was also the creator of the show as well as director. I often wonder if Cesareo had someone in mind that he wanted David to be like when he was helping David along, or if he just showed David what tools he needed and let David himself shine. Ah, and there is the answer, Cesareo was letting David's personality shine on stage!

It appears that one chapter of the Le Grand David saga is over. I was fortunate to watch that first chapter unfold. A new chapter awaits. The pages are blank and I hope that David returns to the stage, along with his fellow artists and performers. Who knows what the future holds for them?  For over thirty years they did what countless others only dreamed of, they did miracles. I think whatever they decide to do, it will be enchanting!

Carnegie, David and Denise April 2012

Harry Kellar's Spirit Cabinet Pt1

Harry Kellar, the Dean of Magicians was well known for his Spirit Cabinet trick. In fact, Kellar worked for a time for the Davenport Brothers, the creators of the very first Spirit Cabinet illusion. When Kellar went off with William Fay to perform on their own, they kept the effect in their show. When they traveled throughout Mexico, rather than carry that bulky and heavy piece of equipment with them, they left the Cabinet behind at each location and had a new one built for each new town they played. So there should be Kellar Spirit Cabinet's all over Mexico!

Houdini coaxed Kellar into coming out of retirement for one more Farewell Show at the New York Hippodrome in 1917.  Kellar gave his Spirit Cabinet to Houdini at the conclusion of that event. This Spirit Cabinet was a 'new' cabinet and not the one he toured with years before. The Kellar Book by Mike Caveney and Bill Miesel says so on page 498. Later, in the New Conjurer's Magazine Vol 1, in 1945, Hardeen ran an ad selling off a number of the Houdini/Hardeen equipment, at the top of the list was the Kellar Spirit Cabinet. The ad even says it had been used by Frederick Eugene Powell and also by Hardeen.

Patrick Culliton mentions this ad in his Nov 1993 Genii article called "Where The Magic Went". He states that no one knows what has happened to The Vanishing Donkey and the Black and White Illusion that were also listed in that advertisement. However, there is no mention of the Kellar Spirit Cabinets whereabouts.

I have found a record of the Hardeen/Kellar Spirit Cabinet, I'm calling it that to differentiate between it and others. It was sold to Dr. Carl S.Frischkorn of Norfolk, Virginia, known as Karland the magician. This appeared in the April 1945 edition of the New Conjurers Magazine. I also found out that Dr. Frischkorn was a member of SAM Assembly #32 in Lynchburg. Norfolk and Lynchburg are NOT close to each other by any stretch. There is also an IBM Ring in Norfolk that at one time was named after Dr. Frischkorn, but apparently they have since renamed it. OK, big question, where is THAT cabinet today??? I'm still hunting and perhaps it resides somewhere between Norfolk and Lynchburg, or perhaps it was sold to a collector? Don't know yet, but I'm searching.

Kellar's 'Original' Spirit Cabinet that he used in the U.S.  would have been sold to Howard Thurston in the big sale. And Thurston only kept a couple of the Kellar pieces in his show, one was the Floating Lady and the other was The Spirit Cabinet.

Here is an interesting twist to the story. In the Sept 1923 issue of The Sphinx on page 195 a magician by the name of Walter Ross, professionally known as Nazami the Mentalist claims to have had in his possession the ORIGINAL Kellar Spirit Cabinet. According to the little blurb it says the cabinet weighed over 600 lbs and Ross intended to start a tour of Vaudeville with the prop. Hmm, did Thurston sell the cabinet or is this another 'original'?

Now I vaguely recall reading that Joseph Dunninger owned a Spirit Cabinet belonging to someone famous, but I want to say it was the Davenport Spirit Cabinet, though I could be wrong, it very well might be where the Kellar cabinet wound up.

But my big question is, does anyone know where Kellar's Spirit Cabinet resides today? Have any of the Mexican Spirit Cabinets ever showed up? I think I might know...stay tuned for part 2.

Influenced by Magic History

It is no secret that I love magic history. I've noticed a lot of folks who enjoy magic history are not performers or are former performers. My friend Denny Haney once told me that you could tell a performer who read magic history books from those who did not simply by the way they perform. In my case it's more than that. I take quite a bit of inspiration from many parts of magic history and I'd like to share one of them with you today.

One of my all time favorite magicians is Charles Mattmueller, better known as Karl Germain. I've never written about him before on this blog, but I think it's time to start including him. One of the things that fascinates me about Germain are his posters. He often used a black/red color scheme in his posters. Though it's very striking visually, I would image part of the reason was because it was cheaper to do than full color.

The poster at the top of the page lists him as 'The Master of Magic' but most often he was known simply as 'Germain the Wizard'. In this day of magician, illusionist, mentalist, mind reader and so forth, I kind of love the simplicity of WIZARD. There are only two wizards people know of today and they would be Harry Potter and Merlin, so it's not bad company to be in.

A few years back I needed a new poster and I decided to look through the many posters that other magicians had done in the past. This is not a new thing. Countless magicians have copied the Kellar/Imps poster. Escape artists and magicians who do escapes love to copy what Houdini has done. IF they don't copy his posters they very often copy the poses he struck in photographs.

I thought, the color scheme of the Germain posters was still appealing and so was the simplicity of the images. But I wanted something to make them more contemporary as well. My solution was to add the various names used by magicians, words like illusionist, conjurer, manipulator and so forth. I put all the names I could think of and used them in the background of the poster.

Then I decided to use the same font that Germain used in his name for my name, and just for fun I used the word 'WIZARD' rather than my usual moniker 'Artist of Mystery'. One other thing I did was add a quote about me by a well known source, The Washington Post. The end result, I think, is a very cool looking poster that gets it's inspiration from the past and yet looks quite modern at the same time. I hope you like it.

NEXT: Coming next will be an article about Two South American Magic Families.