Bancroft Prince of Magicians

This poster above belonged to a magician named Frederick Bancroft. This poster is beautiful to be sure. And apparently it was also humongous. This was either a 28 sheet or 16 sheet poster. In other words, its a HUGE poster. I'm not even sure where you'd be able to hang such a poster. It clearly is for the side of a building. But how many buildings had free space for this monster? In 1925 this poster and another similar one were for sale at the price of 10 cents per sheet. It also came with a stand for an additional 50 cents. Imagine that.

Seeing this poster you might think that Bancroft was one of the greatest magicians to ever live. Well, let me tell you about Bancroft. His name was Frederick Bancroft.  He was born in 1866 in Winona Minnesota.  At a young age he saw Alexander Herrmann and decided he wanted to become a magician. Not only did he see Herrmann, but it appears he became a bit of a groupee following around from town to town for a period. Maybe he was more of a stalker! lol. 

Bancrofts first foray into magic was under the name DeCastro and it was a disaster. He was an enterprising individual who got into many different businesses.* He moved to St. Paul MN. where he married and had a child. He also speculated in real estate and sold insurance. He spent $30,000 or about $777,000 in today’s money. By all accounts he had purchased top of the line posters, top of the line brochures, top of the line draperies, scenery and even hand carved tables. Almost every mention I could find of Bancroft mentioned his elaborate and beautiful stage settings. What he didn’t spend the money on however were the latest magic effects.

In 1896 Bancroft set out on his own.  The magic in his show consisted of smaller platform style magic and it was very old, one article called it hackneyed. Other seasoned performers could take the same material and make it shine but Bancroft simply did not have the strong personality that Herrmann did. Alexander Herrmann had been performing since the days of the Civil War, and had coaching in the early days from his very popular brother Compars. Bancroft struggled. He had huge a 5 part show, with 3 parts devoted to smaller magic. 

Also in 1896, The Great Herrmann died. And Bancroft, being a smarter businessman than he was a magician, hired Herrmann’s agent, E.L  Bloom. Bloom helped to reshape the Bancroft Show, and I  included at least one illusion in this new version. Dr. A.M. Wilson in the Sphinx mentions that Bancroft was the inventor of The Lions Bride, using Black art. I’d never heard this before. But sure enough there is a poster of Bancrofts that advertises an illusion called LEONII, using an 'untamed lion' named Wallacker. So now Bancroft had a feature to his gigantic production!

E.L Bloom booked Bancroft into a theatre in Charleston, SC on Sept 26th, 1897. Bancroft came down with Typhoid Fever and died. Much like our friend Maro who was featured in Podcast Ep 11 he too died to Typhoid Fever. 

WHAT HAPPENED TO the show following Bancrofts death? Good question. It seemed that it was acquired by Henry A. Dixey, who was managed by Edward Bloom (Bancrofts former manager). Dixey would later debut in NY in his new role as magician in early 1898. By July of 1898, Mahatma Magazine says “Henry Dixey, the comedian who succeeded the late Bancroft, as a magician, has given up magic."

Dorny said of him, “Bancroft had one of the most lavishly mounted magical shows on the road? And a very promising career was cut short by his untimely death”

You might be familiar with the story that Houdini would tell about his early years of struggling, so he sent letters to Maskelyne, Kellar, and Herrmann, inquiring about possible work with them. Well, you can add Bancroft to that list because apparently Houdini had contacted him too, according to Dr. A.M. Wilson in a Dec 1922 Sphinx magazine column. 

Here is a piece also from the Sphinx,

"The spontaneous familiarity of Herrmann and the quiet yet not austere dignity of Kellar gave to their entertainments a fascination never equalled by any other magician on the American Stage. Bancroft could not follow Herrmann. Dixie could not succeed Bancroft. Thurston is not filling the place left by Kellar. Not that Bancroft, Dixie, or Thurston were and are not qualified magicians..."

So it puts into perspective the challenge of taking on someone like a Kellar or a Herrmann. Even with Bancrofts massively beautiful sets and stage decor, it wasn't enough. He did not have the personality to win over audiences. Yet at the same time, his advertisements were so grandiose that it appeared to fool someone like Houdini into thinking that Bancroft was one of the leading performers of his day.

Bancroft lasted barely two years before he died. And many people suggested that over time, Bancroft may have grown into the role that his advertisements portrayed, that of a GREAT Magician. But his premature death ended that.

*There were a couple corrections made to this article. One, originally I posted that Bancroft went into Denistry, but apparently this was not so. This is a mistake that was recorded a couple times in magic periodicals and books. I also mentioned he was born in St. Paul, MN, but he was born in Winona MN in the year 1866. He did later move to St. Paul however.

(Library of Congress Photo)

Edwin Brush The Mystic

I'm so happy to be able to include Edwin Brush in my podcast roster. I knew very little of his life before I started and he has turned out to be a fascinating individual. He was born Edward M. Brush on March 21st 1873 in Garden Prairie Illinois. He grew up on a farm so unlike many kids who were in the city, he had no way of seeing magicians. His first exposure to magic came from a neighbor kid who showed him some small pocket magic tricks. Brush was amazed and began to learn some pocket magic himself.

When he was 16, Alexander Herrmann came to town. Herrmann was really King of the Magicians at the time. Not only was he famous in the U.S. but he was famous all over the globe. Herrmann had a wonderful personality, was known to be quite funny, and an excellent sleight of hand artist. Brush took in all that he saw and decided on that day that he would one day become a full time magician.

Brush was smart, first he went to college to learn business and then he came out and got a real job working for a clothing manufacturer. He used magic as a sales tool to loosen people up, break the ice as it where. But the pocket tricks also had another effect, people saw that Brush was a fine magician and began to request if he could work at their events. Brush was well on his way to becoming a full time magician.

I cover the life of Brush quite well in podcast 17 of the Magic Detective Podcast, but I wanted to share one more thing with you and that is a photo of Brush's iconic mustache. It is clearly NOT growing that way on it's own. He must have had a ton of wax on that thing to keep it down

What possessed him to think that mustache looked good is beyond me? But then again, it was a great marketing too because once people saw it, they could not UNSEE it, lol.

Strangely, Brush continued to sport the crazy mustache through out his entire life. Even in his 80s and 90s he still have the wild mustache, though he did cut it back slightly.

Besides his mustache, Brush has a very positive career in the world of magic. After looking at some of the comments by his fellow magicians, I see that Brush was very well respected by his peers.

If you'd like to learn more about the magical life of Edwin Brush, please check out my latest podcast at  https://magicdetectivepodcast.com/e/ep-17-the-magical-life-of-brush-the-great/

Review of the book: Powell Master of Magic and Mystery

Alright, I'm just going to come out and say it. I gave this book a standing ovation! Seriously! I love this book, Powell, Frederick Eugene Powell Master of Magic & Mystery by Thomas Ewing.

I will be honest, before reading the book, I didn't know a lot about Powell. I had written a couple paragraphs about him on this blog, but nothing very extensive. Then along comes this book, and not a minute too soon.

Who was Frederick Eugene Powell?" Really! Well, Tom Ewing answers the question and many more.

Powell was a gentlemen, he respected magic. He cared for his audiences. He wanted to deliver a great show now matter where he was playing, no matter if it was before a crowd for 4000, or a small group at a school. Powell had a high opinion of magic. He didn't care for the exposure of magic. Yet, Tom Ewing points out, one of his first exposures to magic were tricks taught in a magazine for children.

Powell was a big believer in knowing your magic history. He spoke of Robert Heller and finding Heller's grave in disrepair. Sadly, many years later, so did I. Frederick Eugene Powell was a big hit with Mexican audiences because he spoke Spanish and had knowledge of the culture. He was actually performing in Mexico when the Mexican Revolution broke out. He was also in Mexico when they got hit with some pretty fierce earthquakes.

Powell continued to perform in his 60s and 70s. After all, a showman is born to perform, and Powell was clearly a magnificent showman.

The author uses a combination of newspaper articles, magic magazine articles and correspondence that Powell shared with various magicians, as his source material. And I must say, it is a rich history that is delivered. I also love the fact that Tom Ewing occasionally adds some historical perspective in regards to events happening in the world, while the activities of Powells' life are playing out.

The reader also gets to see quite a few of Powell's props that are today in private collections. In fact, one that is pictured is the umbrella for Powell's Cone and Flower production. In fact, the box of Powell's Spring Flowers is also in the book. Well, below I'm going to post a video of Powell performing his Cone and Flower mystery!

But before I do, I want to encourage you to pick up this excellent book on one of magics most beloved artists and one who has been mostly forgotten to time. You can purchase the book from 1878press.com , although truthfully many magic dealers are carrying the book, so find it somewhere and get a copy. You'll be glad you did!

The Three Early Pioneers of Mind Reading

John Randall Brown

I must reluctantly admit that I do not know as much about mind readers as I do other areas of magical entertainment. I know of some of the bigger names: The Zancigs, Dunninger, Alexander, Annemann, and others, but as far as it's origins, I am not as knowledgeable. This brings me to the subject of my latest podcast, Episode 15, The Early Pioneers of Mind Reading.

Stuart Cumberland

It appears that things center on three people: John Randall Brown, Stuart Cumberland, and Washington Irving Bishop. The only name of the bunch I was aware of was Bishop and I didn't fully grasp his contribution. It turns out though that things begin with John Randall Brown and a technique he developed which would become known by a number of different names: Contact Mind Reading, Hellstromism, Psycho Physiological Thought Reading are just a few names it was given. For my podcast, I used the word CMR technique to simplify the name.

The technique in it's simplest form involves holding the wrist of a spectator and apparently having the vibrations of their thoughts pass from touch into your brain. (Magicians will understand what I'm saying). What I didn't know was this was once considered very close to the real thing in regards to reading someone's thoughts, because it used no props or gimmicks of any kind. On top of that, this technique could be used to reproduce many different types of effects in mentalism. And it turns out, this was the technique used by all three of the pioneers of Mind Reading mentioned above.

John Randall Brown's initial test with the technique was to have someone hide a pin, and then he

Washington Irving Bishop

would locate the hidden pin by holding the wrist of the person who hid it. Moments later he would walk right to the object that was very well secreted away. A simple test and effective. It reminded me of modern day mentalists who have a spectator hide a coin in one of their hands and they are able to devine which hand contains the coin with 100% accuracy. It's also the same as the stunt Kreskin has done for years where someone hides his check and he finds it.

All three of these early mentalists used the Pin Test. They were each tied to one another in some way and they all did the same basic act. What made them different was their individual personalities.

I did find researching this podcast to be more difficult than others due to the lack of information on mind readers. Granted, there may be some excellent books on the history of mind reading that I do not own, but I have a pretty extensive library so I don't know if I'm missing much.

They also are all connected to spiritualism. These three all presented Spiritualist exposures in their programs. But other performers who would become iconic in mentalism were more closely tied to spiritualism, like Anna Eva Fay and Samri Baldwin. It's as if the earliest mentalism had to deal with the spirits telling the secrets of members of the audience and then that changing to the mentalist telling the secrets of members of the audience, aka mind reading. In a similar way, escapology has it's origins in spiritualism as well. The Davenport Brothers being examples of very early escape artists, and other performers following suit.

Of the three early pioneers, Stuart Cumberland seems to be the most prolific having written a biography of his exploits. Washington Irving Bishop was likely the most famous and suffered the most tragic death. To find out more, please check out episode 15 of The Magic Detective Podcast.

Remembering Doug Henning 19 years later

Doug Henning passed away 19th years ago on Feb 7th, 2000. It doesn't seem like that long has passed. I decided that I would put up some of my own recollections of Doug in the latest episode of the Magic Detective Podcast. I didn't want to do a biographical piece, at least not this time around. Rather, I just wanted to share some of my own thoughts. 

Doug was influential in my interest in magic. Over the course of my own career and development it seems I have done around 40 Henning tricks in my own shows. Now, I didn't always do them like he did, but they were material that I first saw Henning do. They range from close-up magic to stage magic to grand illusion. Doug was the first person I ever saw do many tricks. For example, Card Warp, I first was exposed to this on one of his specials. The Mental Photography Deck is another that I saw Doug do for the first time. Granted a lot of this stuff was already out there in the magic world, but because I was a kid at the time, Doug Henning was the first I saw present them.

He was the first I saw do The Needle through Balloon, the Al Wheatly One Cup routine, and he was the first to do Rubics Cube magic on TV! Talk about a trailblazer! Illusions, let's see, Shadow Box, Zig Zag, Mismade Lady, Microphone Suspension, Sword Suspension and more. All of these things I've listed are things I have since done. And of course, so have thousands of other performers as well. 

One of my favorite routines came from the 4th TV Special. It was a Monte Effect that boggled my mind when I first saw it on TV. Then later I saw Doug Henning perform it live several times. Years later, my friend Denny Haney would tell me where I could find that routine, it was locked away in a booklet, and thankfully I obtained it and learned it. I then wrote a script that was original to me and it became a signature trick in my own show.  In my show I tell the story of Houdini meeting a very young Charlie Chaplin for the first time, and the routine takes off from there. 

My podcast on Doug is the longest one I've done so far, almost an hour long. And I realized something after I finished the podcast. Doug's TV specials were great, but some were hit or miss. And it's hard to judge him from just the TV specials. However, in LIVE performances he was fantastic. He was charismatic and likable and he won over everyone with his joyful exuberance. He was a breath of fresh air and there has never been another like him since and there certainly wasn't anyone like him prior.  

Let's all remember Doug Henning on his day. What effect did he have on your magic? He paved the way for so many magical artists.  We were lucky to have him in our world.