Oz, The Great & Powerful...Magician

A new movie debuts today called 'OZ, The Great and Powerful' and is a prequel to the popular movie The Wizard of Oz.  The story began as a book, The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (1900) by Lyman Frank Baum.

L.Frank Baum was born May 15, 1856 in Chittenango NY. He had been a life long lover of theatre and tried unsuccessfully to have a career in theatre. His writings did much better for him, though he did take his story The Wonderful Wizard of OZ and turn it into a theatrical play called The Wizard of OZ.

In the original story, the Wizard is a traveling magician who works for a circus. Through a freak accident on a balloon ride, the wizard finds himself in the land of Oz. His full name was Oscar Zoroaster  Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmanuel Ambroise Diggs which abbreviated spells out
"O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D", he shortened it further to simply OZ.  He becomes the ruler of OZ probably because of his magical abilities and his name OZ written across his hot air balloon.

During the same period of time, the preeminent magician in the United States was a fellow named Harry Kellar. He had been a world traveling magician, but after the deaths of the English magician Robert Heller and the European magician Herrmann the Great, Kellar had the title all to his own.

Heinrich Keller (Harry Kellar) however was born here in America, in Erie PA on July 11, 1849. He was not a circus magician, but he certainly was a traveling magician. He apprenticed under the Fakir of Ava, then went out to manage the famous Davenport Brothers. He left the Davenports and took William Fay with him and they started their own act, traveling through Mexico, South America and beyond. However, on their way to Europe, the ship they were on hit rocks and sunk, taking all the money Kellar and Fay had made on their trip, as well as their costumes and props for their show and leaving them at the bottom of the sea.

Bad luck would not plague Kellar forever and he eventually came into his own. In 1900, the year the Wonderful Wizard of OZ was published, Kellar was the #1 magician in the country.

I've heard it said that Kellar was the inspiration for the character of the Wizard of OZ. Mike Caveney, the well known magician and magic historian has said this in interviews. But I checked his book called "KELLARS WONDERS" and I didn't see any reference to it (though it's possible I missed it).

The connection is mentioned in the Gail Jarrow book on Harry Kellar called "Harry Kellar Great American Magician", although she says that readers of the book 'The Wonderful Wizard of OZ' will recognize the wizard as being like Harry Kellar.

I recall watching the movie 'The Wizard of OZ' as a kid and remembering fondly the character played by Frank Morgan, the Professor Marvel character and later the Wizard. The movie character always stuck with me and when I later got interested in magic and came upon Harry Kellar, I wondered if Kellar was like the Professor Marvel/Wizard character that I had seen in the movie. But honestly, Frank Morgan while in the character of Professor Marvel in the movie looks more like the magician Dante (and Dante was a very popular magician at the time the movie was made).

I am not sure where this idea that Kellar inspired the WIZARD character came from. Though I vaguely recall the idea of the connection was attributed to Martin Gardner. I think it's highly likely that Kellar could have been in the inspiration based on the fact that Baum was a huge theatre buff, Kellar was the big name at the time and the illustrations by William Wallace Denslow are a dead ringer for Kellar. If nothing else, perhaps the illustrator Denslow was inspired by Kellar and that is why the pictures look so much like him. I even have a photo somewhere of Kellar wearing a white jacket like the one on the Wizard illustration, but I can't seem to find it right now. I do believe that Kellar figured in there somewhere during the creation of the original book.

There is one other thing to consider and that is the word WIZARD. Magicians of that time were calling themselves: magicians, conjurers, manipulators, illusionists, escape artists, professor, and similar names. The word 'Wizard' was more commonly used in the mid 1800 with folks like John Henry Anderson known as The Great Wizard of the North, and John Wyman Jr. known as Wyman the Wizard. In the 20th Century there was one wizard that I can think of, Germain the Wizard. Perhaps one of these men also played a part in the inspiration of the character!

Finally, look at the poster below, it kind of looks like something out of the Wizard of OZ with flying monkeys and munchkins!

UPDATE: WildaboutHoudini.com has an article on the Houdini connection to the OZ movie which is excellent as always.

Wyman the Wizard...MORE

Wyman the Wizard

I wrote a blog article about Wyman the Wizard back in August of 2011. In that article I mentioned that 'the hunt was on for his grave'. Several magic books mentioned where he died, but there was no mention of where he was buried. I'm glad to report it's been found, sort of. I had narrowed down the cemetery to one in Fall River Mass, called Oak Grove Cemetery. There were several in that area and I had a hunch this was the cemetery, though I could not get definitive proof. I tried contacting some govt. officials in that area with no answers. And then I received an email from fellow magic historian, Gary Hunt. He had discovered a paragraph in an old Sphinx Magazine, which gave the exact location of the grave and sure enough it was in Oak Grove Cemetery! So now, I've got to travel up to that area later in the Spring and get a photograph of the grave so I can post it over at my deadconjurers blog. A HUGE THANK YOU to Gary Hunt for sending me the article with that information!

(from John Hopkins Unv. Library)

But I wanted to write more about Wyman and I began digging again. Milbourne Christopher mentions in the book Panorama of Magic that there were at least two songs dedicated to Wyman the Wizard. I just found one of them and it's called "Keemo Kimo Schottisch" by James Bellak and according to the cover was composed and dedicated to Wyman the Wizard. I do not play music, but if there is anyone interested, the entire sheet music is downloadable here https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/2534

 Wyman seems to be a man of firsts. MAGIC-A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theatre says that Wyman was the first Americian born magician to do a full evening show of magic. The book, Annals of Conjuring says that Wyman was the first U.S. born magician to attain prominence. And the Illustrated History of Magic says that "he was the biggest money maker of the period.". Those are pretty decent accolades.

Peale's Baltimore Museum (photo by MKelly1990)

He apparently began his professional career performing at Peale's Baltimore Museum. From there he played a lot of small town school houses. His act consisted of marionettes, ventriloquism, memory feats and magic. The magic included the Aireal Suspension & Gun Trick he purchased from John Henry Anderson, the Inexhaustible Bottle, Egg Bag, Coin Magic, the Sphinx illusion and many other popular magic routines of the day. 

Wyman performed what were known as 'Gift Shows', which meant after the performance everyone in the audience was to receive a gift. He was known to provide nice gifts. No bait and switch for Wyman, if he promised a nice item, that is what he gave out. I'm wondering if one of the smaller gifts he gave was a 'Wyman Coin' because I have seen several images of his coins on the internet now.

Some books mention that Wyman only played 'small dates' but I'm not sure he could have become the biggest money maker of the period, only playing small towns. In fact, I know he played Richmond VA, Charleston S.C., Boston MA, NYC, and Washington D.C. among many places. So he clearly played all over. But he was around before the days of Vaudeville, so the types of venues would have been somewhat different.

Born January 19, 1816, John W. Wyman Jr. was known as Jack by his friends. He apparently wrote several books, one of which was called "Jokes & Anecdotes of Wyman, TheMagician & Ventriloquist" which was published in 1866.

His performing route consisted of areas east of the Mississippi River and also into Canada. I've seen a number of newspaper articles on Wyman that appeared in Virginia papers, so he was well known in the South as well as the North.

He died on July 31st 1881 and was buried in Fall River Massachusetts in the Oak Grove Cemetery.  I will post a photo of the grave later in the Spring.

Magician Statue 1

Among the many things I collect are statues of magicians. The one in the photo is a reproduction of a popular statue. I'm not sure of the originator, nor am I really sure about who did the reproductions. I just know that Bill King told me the way to spot an original versus a reproduction was the shape of the bottom of the hat. The originals had a slightly rounded bottom on the hat, whereas the reproductions have a completely flat bottom to the hat. Otherwise they are identical as far as I know.

Mine arrived unpainted, and truth be told, my first one arrived in about a thousand pieces thanks to U.P.S.. but luck was on my side and I was able to get it replaced. It arrived unfinished in an unpainted state.

I don't have any photos of it in the unpainted stage, but as you can see, I took it upon myself to paint it. I've seen several others and most of those have the magician wearing a black coat. But I wanted to give the statue a unique look so I went for browns and earthier tones.

In his left coat pocket he has a bouquet of flowers and in the right pocket are several silk scarves. There are also two cards sticking out from his vest which are difficult to see in the photo.

I'm not sure who the magician is modeled after, perhaps Charles Bertram. But I think he looks more like the actor John C. Reilly.

By the way, there is one of these statues available on ebay at the moment, though there is only 18hours left on the auction. Act fast!