A Piece of Doug Henning Memorabilia

Thanks to my friend Michael Stroud, who is a fine magician and also a big fan of Doug Henning and Le Grand David, I now have one of the canes from Doug Henning's Cane Cabinet in my collection. The Cane Cabinet as presented by Doug Henning was called Backstage With A Cane Cabinet and it was the creation of Jim Steinmeyer.

The origins of the trick go back to U.F. Grant and can be found in a number of different magic books including Tarbell.  The U.F. Grant version used Steel Bars and an upright cabinet. Jim's creation was basically the same cabinet with some subtle alterations to the method and with canes rather than steel bars. It was introduced into Doug's show in 1984 according to the book, Spellbound, by John Harrison.

The routine borrowed liberally from Dante's Backstage With The Magician presentation, with a painted backdrop that looked like the audience. The illusion was performed facing that backdrop, so it appeared to the real audience they were getting a view of an illusion that wouldn't normally be seen.

In the course of the illusion, the magician, sneaks out of the cabinet (in full view of the real audience of course) and goes underneath a covered table-like structure. A large quantity of wooden canes are shoved into the now apparently empty box. Once all the canes are in, one of them mysteriously begins to move, the assistants quickly jump in and remove all the canes. At the conclusion of the illusion the magician is found  having vanished underneath the table and is yet again inside the Cane Cabinet. It's a wonderful effect, part penetration, part transposition. Doug later performed this on The Tonight Show w/Johnny Carson.

In October of 2014, Jim Steinmeyer's column in Genii Magazine called CONJURING, featured another take on the cane cabinet, this time called The Petite Illusion. That version doesn't have the 'backstage' feature but does offer another 'sucker' like ending.

To my knowledge the only other person to present The Backstage with a Cane Cabinet was Lance Burton. I remember seeing the illusion featured on one of Lance Burton's TV Special's and I think he also performed it on the Tonight Show, but this time Jay Leno was the host. I am pretty sure I saw him perform it at his fantastic show at the Monte Carlo Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. At the bottom of the page is a video of Lance's Cane Cabinet in action.

The photo above/left shows the cane once owned and used by Doug Henning. I am actually going to have it mounted on a board with a photo of the cane cabinet, but I have to locate a photo of Doug presenting the illusion first. The Cane Cabinet owned by Doug Henning was purchased at the Southern California auction of Doug's props by a magician from Hollister, CA, William Wizard. My friend Michael purchased the illusion from Mr. Wizard at a later date.  Michael held onto the illusion for a while but it's size became an issue for storage so he eventually sold it to an eccentric collector in California. However, Michael kept the canes and now one of those canes is in my collection.

If you enjoyed this, I'll have another Doug Henning article later this month!

Memorabilia from Kalanag

I first encountered this name 'Kalanag' when I saw his photo in Milbourne Christopher's book, The Illustrated History of Magic. I found him very interesting as I read his story. His real name was Helmut Schrieber and he was born in January 23rd, 1903 in Stuttgart Germany. During WW2 he was a movie producer and amateur magician. There is a lot of controversy surrounding Kalanag, from his connections to Nazi's and the Third Reich in Germany, to his blatant stealing of Dante's catchphrase,
Sim Sala Bim, which Kalanag claimed as his own.

I remember hearing Siegfried from Siegfried and Roy talk about Kalanag and how he was inspired to become a magician from seeing his show. He related the story of how Kalanag made an icecream cone magically appear. As I recall, there was a video of Kalanag doing that very trick which accompanied the dialog. That goes back to one of those old History Channel documentaries on Magic from the late 90s. 

Kalanag's life story deserves more time than I am going to devote to it right now. There is a new book out by William Rauscher about Kalanag called, Kalanag Magician of The Third Reich, which I need to pick and and read. And there was an old Genii article that I need to dig up that was about Kalanag. For now however, I want to share with you a small item I picked up at an auction recently.

The item is a small pin, which Kalanag personally gave to Cesareo Pelaez. I probably overpaid for the item, but I don't really care. It's interesting to me on two fronts and that is what matters. I don't know the whole story of how/where Cesareo met Kalanag, and it's not likely I'll ever find out. I did ask one of my Le Grand David friends, but he had not recollection of any Kalanag stories as told by Cesareo. I have an old email from Cesareo where he mentions Kalanag in passing, however nothing specific. But as Rick said, he spoke more of Okito, FuManchu and Richiardi than of anyone. Still, this is a great piece of magic history.

The Great KIO, Russia's Greatest Illusionists

Years ago when I visited the American Museum of Magic for the first time, Bob Lund told me about this fellow named KIO who was the most famous magician in Russia. I'm not sure why that stuck with me, but it always did. Ten years ago, when I had my own little museum inside The Underground Magic Theatre, one of KIO's posters was featured on the walls. I actually have two KIO posters, one of them is above which wonderfully captures their Cremation illusion. The other is in storage but I found an image of the same poster online which can be seen here. The truth be known, I don't really know much about KIO. But I'll share what I've been able to dig up.

There were three KIOs. The father was Emil KIO and the star illusionist of the Moscow Circus. He was born Emil Teodorovich Girshfeld-Renard April 11th, 1894 in Russia. He died December 19th, 1965 in Kiev Ukraine. Upon his death, his youngest son, Igor Kio took over the show.  The eldest son, Emil Jr. was also an illusionist, worked with the Union of Circus Artists of Russia. Emil Jr. is still alive but retired.

Igor Kio

Igor had quite the career after he took over for his father. He appeared in the U.S. at Madison Square Garden with the Moscow Circus back in 1967 and later toured the country. He performed on TV and had a number of his own Television specials in Russia. A rather unusual note to his career, was his marriage in 1962 to the daughter of Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev. Galina Brezhneva was 32 and Igor Kio was 18.  The marriage made Igor famous but the marriage only lasted 9 days. To make matters worse, Galina had been married to a circus acrobat at the time she met Igor and quickly divorced him to be with KIO. When word reached Leonid Brezhnev of his daughter's new marriage he sent to KGB after them. Apparently, the though the two were separated initially, they continued an on again off again affair for 3 years.


Like his father before him, Igor Kio was a circus illusionist which meant besides being part of the circus his shows were performed mostly surrounded. It has been said he performed "more shows per year than there were days." I saw estimates between 500 and 600 shows a year. He performed mainly with the circus, but also in theatres, sporting arenas and on television.  Igor KIO passed away August 30th, 2006 in Moscow. He has one of the coolest graves of any magician I've seen. Maybe only Houdini's grave is better. He is buried, along with his father and mother in Novodevichy Cemetery Moscow Federal City, Russia.

One of the featured illusions in the KIO show, presented by father and sons, was a spectacular Cremation illusion. An assistant would stand on a raised platform. A circular paper tube would cover her whole body and then it would be set on fire. The assistant would later appear elsewhere in the audience. Another popular illusion was the Lion's Bride, where an assistant, in this case, Igor's mother, would climb inside a large cage, which then was covered by a cloth, and a moment later, the cloth whisked away to reveal she had changed into a lion. There is a video of the father, Emil, performing the Lion's Bride, also some sort of Flyto Illusion, and several other effects, here.

Below is a video of of several of the KIO illusions, presented by both father and sons. There is also some footage of what I assume is the KIO warehouse where the illusions are stored.

Finally, I found this Russian documentary of KIO that is absolutely fascinating. I watched the entire thing and have no idea what was said (I don't speak Russian). But I did get to see a number of the illusions. There are interviews with Emil Jr and other family members and cast members. There is archival footage of Igor as well. The KIOs were clearly very famous and very loved by the public in their country and beyond.

The KIOS used many different posters to promote their performances. Back in April two KIO posters showed up in the Potter and Potter Auction. The description gives them as being for Igor Kio, but I'm certain they are his father's posters. There were a lot of KIO posters and it's hard to know whose was whose, except when they had an image of the particular person like the one on the below/right. There are some great posters for sure! I've been able to find at least 15 different posters online, and one which is similar to my poster at the top of the page except it is not framed in red.