Kirkham Magic: Kirk Kirkham and James Hamilton

Welcome to the Calvacade of Magic Presented By Kirk Kirkham

My Father was the Magician known professionally as Kirk Kirkham, his real name was Charles and many folks called him Chuck. He lived from 1926 to 2001. He was an active professional performer from the time he was sixteen years old. Magic was the only living he ever had. He toured with the USO after World War II, did the spook show circuit and television extensively in the 1950's, did thousands of club dates, school shows, and more television in the 60's, continued performing in the 70's but also became a well regarded prop maker who produced equipment for other magicians and attractions around the country.

Currently, David Copperfield has the largest private collection of illusions in the world, but prior to his success and collection, my father may very well have been the previous holder of that title. He owned parts of Thurston's Wonder Show of the Universe and Mysteries of India. He acquired much of the core of his collection from Will Rock back in the early 50's but continued to add to it the rest of his life. He knew and worked with Harry Blackstone Sr., Percy Abbot was a mentor to him. Dante was a personal friend, and he owned famous illusions that belonged to all of them.

My goal is to keep his legacy alive here in cyber space, and provide some historical context to the Southern California Magic scene in the 60's and 70's. I have had virtually no contact with the Magic world since my Mother passed away in 1994. My Dad suffered from Alzheimer's in his last years and he could not write the book that he always said he would get to someday. I don't know enough about magic to write competently concerning history, practice and technique. I can however provide an historical context for my Father, a man who knew almost everything about magic during the 20th Century. He had a huge library, subscribed to dozens of magazines, and had met every important magician of the second half of the century. He was consulted by many of the experts that now make up the intelligentsia of the magic community. He was also a mentor to many fine magicians and scholars of magic. I hope to hear from some of those people as a result of this blog.

Welcome to the Magical World of Kirk Kirkham.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Kirk Kirkham and James Hamilton

Kirk Kirkham and Jim Hamilton circa 1970

Of the many magicians that befriended my Father, James Hamilton was one that I was on the most familiar terms with. He was one of the original Long Beach Mystics, and I knew him when he went by his real name which is Polish or Ukrainian and nearly impossible to say much less spell. Jim worked in many of the big shows we did in the late sixties and seventies, he also helped in the last big shows my Dad did in 1986 at Long Beach and Pasadena.

Some time in 1973, I got to return the favor. Jim was doing a big show and needed an assistant. I was asked to help and was happy to do so. The theme of his act at the time was oriental and we rehearsed several times at the apartment of another Southern California Magician, Bob Wagner. His sister Pat Kass also worked the show with Jim and I. My memory is not as sharp on the performance as it is on the lead up to it, I think the show was at Plumber Park in West Hollywood. I had a great time and it was nice to be able to help Jim out the way he had helped my father so often.

Many years ago Jim relocated to San Francisco, and he has been very active in the Magic business there. He does a parlor show that is a salute to Alexander Hermann. I have only one photo of Jim working on stage, and interestingly enough it was taken by another friend of my Dad's who is a follower on this blog, (Hi Ron, do you remember taking this shot?)

A year after my Mother passed away, my Dad was living with us in a new house in a new town. I don't think he knew most of the time who we all were but he loved playing with the dog and shooting baskets in the backyard with my daughter Amanda who was six at the time. I needed to go up to San Fransisco to help a friend of mine and Jim offered to have my Dad stay with him for a day or two while I was there. Dad seemed to remember Jim and enjoyed their visit together. I think they even went to the movies and saw "Dumb and Dumber".

I haven't talked to Jim since then, but he very kindly shared some memories in the article that appears in the current "Magic" Magazine. He said some wonderful things about Dad and he was right in saying that my Dad knew everything about any prop. Somewhere I have a great shot of Jim on stage with my Dad, acting as waiter for a little decanter trick that he would do in front of the curtain while the next illusion scene was being set up. I will add it to this post when I locate it.

Of course I am trying to focus on magic themed posts here but I remember Jim best as a guest at my parents home. He was there for many holiday dinners and Sunday afternoon visits. He was one of the few magicians that my wife got to meet when we were over at my folks place. Sitting next to Jim at the dining room table in my parent's apartment is one of her fond memories of my parents. I know she shared some jokes with him about the Kirkham family dynamics in the kitchen. I don't remember if he was there when my Mom tried oyster dressing for Thanksgiving, but she does mention occasionally how she and Jim laughed together when Mom and Dad were struggling with a Prime Rib which had not had the bones broken and cut. Our meal almost ended up on the floor and they were both cracking up. I'd like to thank Jim for his friendship with my Dad over many years.

This last photo also features film producer Bill Self, a friend of my Dad's friend Ron Pascu. Ron informs me that he recently passed away. They all looked like they were enjoying themselves don't they?

2 comments:

BillCNovember 17, 2017 at 2:09 PM
Last foto is Ormond McGill, a good friend of mine as was your Father, with James again who sadly has passed on.
My stage name was William Wizard, did meet Phyllis and was at your apartment a few times. Greatly respected Kirk's magic knowledge. Kirk was famous for totally impromptu effects one in which he apparently made a semi truck vanish...Remember some hand-made vanishing candles?
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PHONESNovember 6, 2022 at 6:18 AM
James Hamilton was an angry spiteful petty crook who cheated his dying aunt our of her savings. Nasty and mean in his personal life. A pathological hoarder needing help.
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A Life in Magic: Here in Southern California

As a kid, I’d imagined myself following in my father’s footsteps and becoming a performer. I had magic kits, and puppets and a variety of equipment readily available. What I lacked was discipline. Someone once told me that the difference between your current status and expertise in a field was 10,000 hours of hard work. When I got to high school I discovered girls and debate, and suddenly, spending time on the technical craft of performing magic seemed less desirable to me. My father was never disappointed in my choice. He allowed me to stay a part of his world even though that part was on the sidelines. He was one of those people who understood the level of dedication that was required to be really good at your craft.

From the time he was a kid he wanted to be a magician, and that is what he worked his whole life at doing. He practiced and performed and read and dreamed. He talked with everyone who was interested in magic about everything connected to performing. When I was young my friends thought it was strange that my dad would still be asleep at ten or eleven in the morning. They did not understand that some people simply thrive at night. When he came home from a show or an evening with his friends in magic my father did not sit in front of the television; he read. He was a sponge when it came to magical knowledge. He listened to friends like Percy Abbott, Harry Blackstone, Bill Larsen Sr., and Dante tell stories and share secrets. He sought out magicians of all stripes to answer questions and to ask them. He acquired books and articles and lectures and blueprints and anything else he could lay his hands on, that dealt with magic and performing. When we needed funds to provide for his care in his last years it pained me to have to sell his library: I knew it was one of the most unique in the world.

He was more than just a fountain of knowledge though; he was a performer. Being on stage is where he came to life and made his mark. While he was an accomplished illusionist and a talented close-up performer, my father’s greatest strength lay in interacting with an audience. He loved having the little kids come up from the audience to do the hats and pants routine – just playing a silly, wonderful game. When they laughed and smiled, he was in his element. Lots of magicians do a guillotine trick, but Kirkham did ten minutes of audience participation, comedy and drama. The trick was the climax of the segment but it was hardly the highlight. His byplay with the two brave boys who volunteered to be onstage was where most of the fun was. When the curtain opened and an illusion was performed, my dad was as good as anyone else. In front of the curtain, setting up the scene or doing a small effect with patter he was better than everyone else.

We worked all kinds of shows and venues. Club dates at nightspots, corporate picnics in parks, high school auditoriums and legitimate theaters for full evening extravaganzas. When he did TV, I always felt special and made sure to tell my friends to watch ABC on Saturday night or CBS Wednesday afternoon. My older brother worked on my father’s show, along with my mother, for years before I was much help.

From 1965 to 1975, I went on all the state fair shows and company Christmas parties. My younger brother was in the act as well but by the time he was able to do some of the things I got to do my dad had slowed down a bit, so I can safely say that I was the only reason he could offer $10,000 to anyone who could prove he used two girls in the Thurston sawing a woman in half act. And so I got to discover that the smell of sawdust did a lot to minimize any claustrophobia I might have experienced as a kid. Speaking of sawdust, one year my Dad and my older brother, Chris, ran away with the circus; when it came to town, my younger brother, Kirk, and I joined for a couple of days – Kirk sold programs alongside the kid in the circus who was a fantastic juggler – so Kirk and I got the experience but did not have to caravan in a trailer for six months like Chris and Dad did.

In the fifties Dad and Mom worked in Vegas with Orson Welles. In the sixties Phyllis Diller asked Dad to come to Vegas and work with her. He had lots of chances to be a pioneer in sin city prestidigitation, but after all the issues he had with my troubled older brother Dad thought that relocating to Vegas, which was not the corporate tourist friendly spot it is today, was not a good idea. With two young boys at home, he sought a more traditional upbringing. We were kids of the suburbs, but show business and Hollywood were the office that Ward Cleaver went to each day instead of the insurance company. We got to meet movie stars and eat in fancy restaurants. We saw the eccentrics on Hollywood Boulevard before it filled up with drug users and homeless people. And then aside from the mundane Hollywood insanity, there were all my parents friends.

We had close friends who practically lived with us and helped out with the shows Dad was putting together. There were young performers from the Long Beach Mystics who came and milked my Dad’s brain for information and exchanged time working in the show for all of the encouragement they got. We had old timers from vaudeville sit down at the dining room table and regale us with stories of the past. Business associates visited, ate and became our friends as well as our parents friends. We had the star of the Moscow circus, at the height of the Cold War, sharing secrets even though he spoke little English. One time my Dad got into a fistfight with another magician in Baja California while we were down there to see a magic show. My mother had to go out and pay off the cops in the middle of the night to get him out of custody, leaving my younger brother and I at the hotel. Later, he and the other magician became friends again and did business together on several occasions. So while we had the trappings of a fifties family, the reality was often far different.

My Dad was always up for a confrontation, so his relations with some of the other elements of the magic world in Southern California were terse at times. I don’t know what feuds and rivalries were important and which were minor. I just know he loved the life he led in good times and tough ones. When my Mother passed away in 1994, we lost all connection to the magic world because my Dad needed her to keep track of his memory. His decline was accelerated by her absence. Those of you who knew my parents know how much that was true. Those of you out there who are meeting them for the first time through this article, welcome to the real history of magic in Southern California. My family would like to thank everyone involved in putting this material together. It is good to have a legacy, but it is better to have friends who remember you fondly.