Jumbo Sized Lobby Pictures/Thurston and Dante

My Dad had hundreds of posters and pictures at one time of classic vaudevillian magicians. He acquired some of them with his purchase of part of  the Thurston show from Magician Will Rock. Other items he managed to buy at actions or get from friends. Here are some of those photos that were large sized so the could be displayed in the lobbies of the theaters where the magicians performed.

 

My Dad had hundreds of posters and pictures at one time of classic vaudevillian magicians. He acquired some of them with his purchase of part of  the Thurston show from Magician Will Rock. Other items he managed to buy at actions or get from friends. Here are some of those photos that were large sized so the could be displayed in the lobbies of the theaters where the magicians performed.

 These first two are the older pair, they may have been from the Thurston show but they seem to focus in an Indian themed section. I wish I could say for sure, It does not look like Howard Thurston in any of the images, it may be some other performers relics. This is my younger brother Kirk, standing with the photos circa 1985.

 These two photos I know feature Dante. He was a personal friend of my Dad's and they may have come from his ranch out in the Valley in what is now Northridge. None of these is in my possession today. They were all sold to private collectors at one point or another. I especially liked the last photo featuring Dante's magic words (and the name for his show) Sim Sala Bim. I had to move it out of the way everytime we went to the garages my Dad rented for years in South Pasadena.

A Pause Not an End

I am still working on material for the blog. It has been a while since I posted and I just want to reassure anyone reading that there is more to come. Thanks.

Sea World 1973-1974

Some time in 1973, Dad agreed to produce a show for Sea World. The show was to feature penguins and sea lions in the stadium that their existing performances took place in. He needed to work out details for the show with the animal trainers and there were also rules to follow created by the park itself. For instance, nothing could appear to put the animals in jeopardy. That meant no swords, saws, guns, electricity or any other concept where it might look like an animal was threatened. Many illusions are designed to create a sense of danger to the subject that of course is not really there, so this eliminated a lot of possible options. The park clearly wanted to avoid any public perception that the animals were being maltreated.

In case you have not guessed, it is pretty much impossible to train a penguin to do anything but walk in a particular direction. So they cant be expected to operate a hidden device or respond to a command that would bring them out of a secret chamber. Sea World did need the penguins to be part of this show, and I remember how frustrated Dad was, he said they can only do two things "Walk and crap".  A production of the penguins had to involve them walking, they could not be pulled out of a tube or box or be handled like they were a dove or a chicken or duck in the usual way of a magicians use of live birds. The solution was to produce them our of a giant sized hat that was really a production box on casters. I don't remember exactly how the routine went but ultimately, two or three penguins walked out of this hat.

The concept that was developed, made one of the sea lions the "magician", and he would wave a wand or pull a foulard off of a prop and then "perform" the illusion. Of course the sea lion had to have the help of the trainers and there was a patter that was created to make their interaction funny. Three main illusions were created for the Sea Lions to use in the show. One of these was a version of the dove thru glass effect that my dad did for a full evening show. I saw a similar prop being offered by other manufacturers and I think I may even have seen it done on a TV show where a girl penetrates the glass.

My Brother Chris playing the part of a sea lion .

Chris providing some scale for the glass penetration as it was being completed

 My brother Chris worked with my Dad on this project quite a bit. It required two men to move and operate some of the effects so his being there was very helpful. I remember cutting and painting the gold trim on the props, and I also helped cut the plexiglass mirrors for this so I know we were all on the project together at one point. Some of the other props I had a little less to do with. I don't remember doing anything on the drum suspended production and I only helped a little in painting the levitation stands. I suspect most of this work was done in the fall while I was an high school classes.

Creating a table with a slide for a girl to be pushed thru a glass wall is relatively easy compared to trying to do the same for a sea lion. That was one of the many issues that had to be worked out with the park and the trainers. The prop on the other hand was straightforward and actually pretty clever.

Earlier I said there were three big effects, but as I looked at the photos I remembered that there was a appearance of a sea lion in a previously shown empty drum. The drum was moved over the water, and at the right moment, the sea lion would burst through the side and dive into the water. This was one of the tricky parts of the show because the sea lion had to load itself into the drum and then wait for a signal to make an appearance. My Dad spent quite a bit of time working with the trainers on this effect. He was down at Sea World in San Diego several times to help in the process. I remember spending a day with him and the trainers going over the cues and mechanics of the prop. One of my personal fond memories of dad was going to a seafood restaurant called the Jolly Roger on the way home late one Saturday night. My Dad was not a fan of seafood but he let me choose the place we stopped and I remember having crab cakes for the first time, while I think he ordered a hamburger at a fish place.  You can see the base the drum sat on in one  of the  shots above, at the moment i do not have a complete version that includes the drum but I am sure it will turn up at some point.

The sea lion magician would also levitate a sea lion assistant. This was basically a modified version of a Super X suspension illusion.  The animal would lay still on a surf board and the supporting brackets would be removed leaving the board and sea lion suspended in the air. This was another effect that was complicated because the trainers had to do things that the sea lions could not and that meant that the show had to be tailored a bit to accommodate the humans as well.

The design on the brackets feature some very pretty seahorse figures. I don't remember if we made these but it seems like something my mother could have drawn. I don't know where else they would have come from.


The final main illusion was an escape from a steel cage that the sea lion would do under water. This was an effect that created some problems because it suggested that the animal might drown if it could not get out. During the process of production, my dad and the trainers went around and around on this. When I saw it performed, the cage was not entirely submerged and that may have been the compromise that they finally worked out.

One of my favorite stories about my brother Chris involves this prop as it was being moved back and forth from our apartment to the workshop in Pasadena. They had the cage on a flat trailer bed and at a stop light, my brother rolled down his window and asked a little boy about eight or nine if he had seen a tiger in the area. The kid looked at the empty cage and screamed. Chris told us this story and I remember vividly the voice he used and the expression of worry that he put on his face and then the same kind of description of the kid's response.

This was an especially big project because the show was being produced for all the Sea World parks. In addition to all the completed illusions for the San Diego Park, we were building props for Orlando Florida and a pack in Ohio. Unfortunately during the time we were in the process of staging the show down in San Diego, the guy who was the entertainment producer for the Sea World Parks was killed. I think his name was Larry Sands (I hope I am not conflating it with the TV show character). He was scouting locations for a TV show or movie and his helicopter crashed. I remember it being on the news and that was how my Dad found out about it. He was heart broken because Mr. Sands was a friend and a long time business associate. Sea World took delivery of the props but as far as I know never finished them or produced shows at the other parks. The death of Mr. Sands let the wind out of all the sails on this show. I do remember that Dad and Mr. Sands had to show the park blue prints of the props Dad was going to build. Dad told Larry that he usually did not do blue prints until he had actually constructed a prop to begin with since he constantly had to make adjustments as he went along. The park was adamant and Dad, who did have some training in drafting, put together blue prints as part of the pitch for the shows.

I don't know what happened to any of these props. If anyone out there acquired any of these effects and you come across this post, please let me know your story. This last photo is a grouping of the props in progress at one point.

You can see two sets of mirrors and two drum bases in this shot. I know we did a total of three for the three Sea World Parks.

On-line Comments about Kirk Kirkham

This blog may be a little too personal for general historical purposes. I do not pretend to be objective, after all, Charles Kirkham was my father and I knew him on a personal level not just a professional one. I have dug around on the internet a little bit and every time I find a reference to him, I try to hold on to it. This appears to be an on-line forum for magicians and they were talking about acts they would like to see that were no longer around. You can read the rest yourself.

 Some nice comments from guys who remembered my dad. If you have anything to share, please send it my way. I have slowed down a bit because there is more to dig out and I have been busy, but I am going to continue to update these posts.

Orson Wells Update

OK, it is not really an update when he has been dead for twenty seven years and the events I have pictures for are from nearly thirty years before that. I just did not want these other pictures to be lost in the previous post.

This photo is signed to my parents by Wells, as the names he called them during their run at the Riviera.  That is my Mother on the broom suspension and my Dad in the white jacket behind wells and to the left. Dad always said working with Orson Wells was a good experience but a pain in the neck. I was reminded of this by a note I received just a day or two ago from an old friend of his, Don Bice. Mr. Bice had some very kind things to say about my Father but he also shared some background on a prop and story that I wrote about earlier.

Another young magician shared this story with me in an e-mail a few months ago
"Orson Welles did a magic illusion segment on the Carson show in the 80's (?) I believe,

and he performed this same Throne Chair illusion. If you can find a back issue of Magic Magazine - with the story on Welles - there is a nice contemporary photo of him with this prop, from that appearance." I wrote about the prop primarily because I had a picture of my Mom sitting in it and then I found a clip on line of Blackstone Sr. doing the illusion. That post is linked here.

Don Bice shared this info with me...

"the throne chair.
 
I was the magic coordinator for the Tonight show
appearance.  The chair belonged to John Daniel.
Orson had used it years ago on the old Jackie
Gleason show working with John Daniel.
 
Orson called John and wanted to use the prop on
the show, but John didn't want to work with Orson
again. The big O can be difficult as your father had
told me years ago.
 
John said OK if I worked with O, and I jumped at
the chance. I called Mike Cavney and a friend
of Johns, Dennis Parr to assist on camera.
 
The prop is now owned by Jim Steinmeyer and
at the last collectors convention in LA, they 
showed the clip from the tonight show."

I told Mr. Bice that I am not surprised that the illusion went through many hands,

my Dad traded props, bought back props and sold them again many times. John Daniel

was a close friend to my Dad at one point and although they went back and forth with their

friendship, they never let it get in the way of business. 

Anyway, it is a little more info on the business dealings my Dad had with Orson Well and

assorted others in regard to magic.

Tops Magazine Article

 The picture that is the masthead for this blog is a publicity picture used by may dad and featured on the cover of Tops Magazine in October of 1964. Tops is the magazine published by Abbott's Magic, the largest magic manufacturing company in the U.S.. Percy Abbott was a personal friend and mentor to my dad when he was a young magician growing up in Battle Creek Michigan, just a few short miles from Colon Michigan where Abbotts is located.

 This article was written Will Rock, one of the old time vaudeville performers, who had acquired most of the Thurston show before the war and then toured it for several years before deciding to retire from show business.  I have some nice photos of Will Rock from his touring days and from when he came and visited us in the early 1980s.  If you click on the pages, your photo viewer should allow you to scroll in and read the complete text. It is very complementary and has some details that fill in some blank spaces here and there. For instance, there is a reference to Vampira and Bela Lugosi which makes me feel more confident that the IMDB credit on Plan 9 was in fact referring to my dad. I'm not sure that is much of an honor, but it is sort of interesting to me.

 There is some additional background on TV and movie credits, as well as some proposed stunts that never came off. I would like to have seen the Indian Rope Trick at Dodger Stadium myself. Will Rock clearly believed the legal claims to many effects that my Dad asserted over the years. The controversy over the stretching a woman illusion appears to have some basis in the deal he and my Dad made when he gained the rights to the equipment. I am sure most of this will be of little interest to magicians these days since they all have their own battles to fight, but it might show that string of conflict that has existed from the ancient past right up to the present time.




As a kid I remember showing off the article to my friends and I think I even took it to school for show and tell one time. Most of us could not grasp all the material that was being referred to but I did like that my name made it into the article along with my Mother and brothers. 

Kirkham auf Deutch

Found this listing when I was looking around on-line a few weeks ago. It is probably a summary of an English language page, but I appreciate that someone in the world is bothering to be a completest.

It's Magic 1967

My Dad was close friends with John Daniels at one time. They were in fact like brothers. I have heard several times that they had fall outs with one another like clock work. I saw that John Daniel passed away a year or so ago, it sounded like he went through some of the same issues my Dad had at the end of his life. I spoke to John after my Dad passed and he purchased a few items from the collection back in the mid 1990s.

While they may have run hot and cold, I know my Dad tried to keep a warm spot in his heart for his old friend. One way I know that is he saved a review of It's Magic from 1967. The second half of the show was entirely John Daniels revue. Here is how it appeared in the Times:

It seems to me that he saved it for twenty five years because he was proud of his old friend.

A Couple of Old Friends In the Kirkham Magic Album

It has been a while since I have posted regularly. Just busy, but I did not want to go too long without an updated post, so here are a couple of quick pictures and Stories.

David Alexander

 David was one of those young guys that my Dad encouraged and he became friend with. I remember him visiting us at the house in East L.A. and driving an Opel, which looked a little like a shrunken Corvette. He seems to have been an outsider with the L.A. Magic community a bit like my Dad. I came across a not so nice note reprimanding him for some incident that was embarrassing to Bill Larsen Jr.  I have no context but it seemed as if they wanted to drive him out of the Magic Castle over it. That sounds like some one my Dad could get along with. I do know  that like most of my Dad's friends, there were a couple of times when they were on the outs with each other, but they usually got over that. I had tried to contact him when I started working on this blog, but he passed just a couple of years ago. I remember speaking to him on the phone after my Dad had died, and he told some great stories. He encouraged me to write about my Dad. I wish I had started all of this earlier so I could check in with David for the inside scoop on some of this.

 This is a postcard he sent to my folks when we were living in Alhambra in the Midwick Track. He was one of the early performers to work regularly on cruise ships. As you can see, he was on a Mexican Cruise when he sent this note. I appreciated that he sent his best to my Mom and us as well.






Piet Paulo

I think I have mentioned Piet before. He was a regular at my folks apartment in the 1970s and early 1980s. We built a Mismade girl and a Zig Zag for him in that time frame. I remember going with him and his girlfriend at the time, down to the Sports Arena to see the Ice Capades show we had built. Later on, he married another girl that worked with him in his act, her name was Lexie. At one point he was working at Knotts, doing a show and they left their sleeping baby in the car when they went in to pack up their equipment. It turned into a big deal because someone saw the baby in the car and called the cops. It was night time, and they were only gone a few minutes but it was a big stink. Now a days, everyone is much more conscious of those kinds of potential dangers, when it happened (1981 or 82) we thought it was much ado over nothing. This shot is in front of my folks apartment, around the bicentennial. I had that flag up on the wall of the room I shared with my younger brother. After I moved into the other bedroom, we put the flag out on holidays. I don't have it anymore but I do still have the flag my Mom put out on a pole at the front of the building. I don't know what ever became of Piet, I did get a card or two after my parents were gone, but as to his career, I have no idea where it went.

Joel McCrea and the Kirkhams

I don't really know any background on this shot. It appears to be a publicity shot from an MGM event. My parents were working behind the scenes on an MGM movie back in 1949, so it is possible that they were at an event on the studio lot. This is a photostatic copy of a glossy 8 x 10. The glossy is somewhere out in the shed and it would take me days to find it, but I saw that Joel McCrea is the Star of the Month on Turner Classic Movies for May and I wanted to get this up in time for that occasion. As you can see in addition to being a big star, McCrea was a big man. He also happened to come from the town my grandparents and parents settled in when the came to Southern California, South Pasadena. My Dad worked on a great number of movie and television projects but neglected to have the foresight to always a have a camera with him. If the smart phones of today had been available in their time, I would have some great pictures to share of Howard Keele, Ann Miller, Dick Van Dyke, Jimmy Durante, Diana Ross and many more. I like this shot because both of my parents are in it and they are not really posing so much as performing. My friend Ron, who was very close to my parents, shared a piece of info about the picture above. It appears to be on the set of "Stars in Your Crown", a Joel McCrea film from 1950. Ron says my Dad was a technical adviser on the film. I looked up the movie and there is a magician character featured in a traveling medicine show in this Civil War era Western. So Dad probably provided props, training or maybe an insert for the show. I was saddened to read that the actor who played the Medicine show magician actually died the week the movie was released. The movie is available as a Warner Brother's custom burned DVD, so I will be looking for it and watching it soon.

Kirk Kirkham Tribute Poster

I will be doing a post down the road about the fantastic poster collection my Dad once had. His old friend Norm Nielson, has a terrific business in posters and many other copies of those posters we that we once owned are available on his site. I just happened to notice a bump in visitors to this blog, and when I followed the links, I ended up on Norm's site. He has put together a beautiful commemorative poster of my Dad's magic career. Norm offered some very warm memories and some sad ones in the recent article about my Dad in "Magic Magazine". I was told he wanted to put a poster together, but I did not know it was done. I must say that it is far beyond any expectation that I had. I want to thank Mr. Nielson again for his friendship, and I would encourage any of you who read this page to visit his site. I have linked the page here.

Orson Wells and Kirkham Magic

In response to the last post, featuring what turns out to be the Nicola Throne Chair, as once owned by Blackstone Sr. and Kirk Kirkham, I received an e-mail note that one of the readers seems to recall seeing this illusion performed by Orson Wells on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, sometime in the early 1980s. I went in search of a video for such a performance and came up empty handed. If Wells did present it, there is a good chance he rented it from my Dad, I don't think Wells kept a collection of large illusions.I was reminded however that we had a couple of contacts with the Great Orson Wells during his lifetime.

At the time that was mentioned in the email, I remember my Dad digging out some props that Mr. Wells was interested in using. One was a large wooden barrel that had some kind of gimmick to it that I was not familiar with. The barrel had warped in storage, and my Dad put it in the swimming pool at the apartment building to try to get in back in shape. I don't think it worked, and the attempt to get a large water soaked oak barrel out of the pool was something for a Laurel and Hardy movie. I remember that Wells came to the apartment but I don't think he even got out of the car. He and my dad had their meeting in the parking area in front of the building.

My Father had history with Orson Wells and that was probably one of the reasons we were contacted. Back in 1956 or 57, Wells did a Magic act at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. My Father was the technical adviser, which meant he supplied a lot of the props, played the role of assistant and did general show work for the run of the performance. I don't think that they worked more than a few weeks in the nascent gambling mecca. I do know that my Mom was with them because of the following physical evidence.

I originally saw this picture in Magic Magazine, shortly after my Mom passes away in 1994. She was given a nice obituary and this photo was featured at the end of the magazine. I have misplaced the copy I have, but when I was looking for the Orson Wells Video on the Carson show, I ran across this photo. Wells looks a little worse for wear, but Mom always seemed great on stage.

Blackstone Illusion

Harry Blackstone Magic From Fantasma Magic - Funny video clips are a click away

So I found this clip on line one day, and it seemed to me very familiar. I was too young to remember meeting Harry Blackstone Sr., but my Dad told me that he did bring me to see the great man when I was little. The prop here is what looked familiar. I was sure I had moved it a few times in the years when my Dad stored equipment at rented garages around town. I remember that every time he needed something for a show, it was usually at the back of the garage and we would get covered in "Illusion Dust" and I'd sneeze for hours after. Both my Dad and I developed a distaste for black widow spiders at this time as well. They seemed to like to make their home in the storage areas near the props. We never found one in a prop, if we had I would probably have never gotten into the Dollhouse, tip-over box, death basket, Thurston sawing or a dozen other props again.

Any way, as I said this prop looked familiar. I remembered a photo of my Mom sitting in it when she was relatively young. I don't ever remember doing a show with the prop, but that is not a surprise since my Dad often collected illusions not for the purpose of performing them, but for studying, owning and ultimately re-selling. I finally found the photo I remembered and you can see it is indeed the same illusion that Blackstone performed in the above clip. I don't have a name for it, if you are reading this and know what it was properly called, please leave a message and I will post the information and be happy to give you credit. Someone out there probably still has this in their own collection.

Sometimes videos don't load properly, so here are a couple of screen shots of the video clip for comparison.

I received this info since I posted the comments originally. I have edited the author for his privacy, but the comments are very applicable....

the Blackstone illusion: it was originally owned by Nicola, and we called it the Nicola throne chair illusion. Nicola sold it to Harry Blackstone,Sr., after that your father bought it. I am not sure if your father bought it from Blackstone or George Hippissly, as Hippissly owned a number of Blackstone props. I had corresponded with Hippissly during the early 70's so I know this to be a fact. Hippissly also told me he had a "trap" cut in his living room to do a vanishing lady. As to what happened to the throne chair performed by Blackstone in the video...

National Magic Company

The name "National Magic" belonged to an old and well respected manufacturer of magic equipment back in the 1930 and 40s. I don't know the history of it very well so anyone out there who is up to speed on this could please add some comments and help me get this right. At some point it became the brand name of Joe Berg, the magic dealer in Hollywood who was such a big part of our lives when I was a little kid. My Dad loved to hang out at Berg's Magic Studio. When he first arrived in Hollywood he worked as a demonstrator/counterman at the Abbot's store in Hollywood with Louis St. Pierre who later formed Hollywood Magic just a few doors away from Berg's studio. So he knew what magicians liked when they came into a store. At some point in the early 1980s, Berg's closed it's doors and sold the name rights and much of their inventory to my father. He used the name for his manufacturing business and when he went to conventions and set up shop in the dealer's room, he referred to his company as National Magic.

He had hundreds of parlor props and decks of cards and notes on effects for sale. He would take a selection with him to a convention, pay for the smallest space available and then have the widest selection of items in the showroom. He of course could not resist making trades either, so as often as he would come back with cash, he would also come back with more material for his collection.

I believe that the photos below, represent the stock he took to a local convention. It was a small selection but it had a nice variety of common items and hard to find materials. He also took with him a selection of posters from the Thurston Show that he acquired, and sold them. I will have another post on posters themselves, down the road a bit.

Today, the name of the "National Magic Company" is owned by my Dad's friend Gary Frank. I don't know that he ever uses it, but I do know that he carries on the tradition of performers like my dad, working at entertaining others and finding new ways to keep the art of magic alive. If I'm not mistaken, my Dad first met Gary at Joe Bergs, which should come as no surprise since magicians have been establishing connections in magic shops since the days of Merlin.

Stretching a Woman

This was an illusion that was a signature part of my Father's illusion show. He performed it on most of the convention shows we did, and he did it on television several times as well. This was one of the props that he acquired from the Thurston show via Will Rock. In it's original form it had a large spider on the facade and it looked quite old fashioned. When he did the illusion on the Hollywood Palace, he reconditioned it and gave it a contemporary look, featuring a black background and purple infused silver piping that gave the  appearance of  a series of infinity lines stretching out to the sides of the stage.

I know that many magicians are proprietary toward the illusions that they perform. Some of them created the effects and then saw others copy it and perform it under a different name. There were several times in the 1960s that my Father had attorneys send cease and desist letters to magicians that were doing an illusion like this. I suspect that one of the reasons he was on the outside of a few magic circles had to do with his confrontational style in pursuing such claims. In the 1970's, a magician from Atlanta I believe, had purchased one of the several versions of the Thurston prop that my Dad owned. Dad probably tried to obtain every version that had been associated with Thurston as a way of protecting his claim. So if Tampa or Dante had had a version of the stretching a woman, my father probably owned it at one time. Anyway, my Father's agreement with the magician from down south had been that he would not perform it in the Western region where my Dad still hoped to keep it exclusive to his own show. This performer was invited to be a part of the annual "It's Magic" and he wanted to bring the prop and do it as part of the show. Once again, lawyers were invoked, but I seem to remember that it was all handled quite amicably in the end, with the acceptance by both parties that this would be a one off booking and that the previous agreement would continue. Of course I was not in on all the wrangling so maybe I have this wrong. (The magician from the south was Abb Dickson).

There is a nice shot of the illusion featured in the Magic Magazine article that came out last month. In that performance my Mother was the woman who was stretched to incredible lengths. She was usually the victim or partner that was used in the presentation of this trick, but she was not the only person who took part. The performance on the Hollywood Palace show featured Phyllis, but not Phyllis Kirkham, instead it was Phyllis Diller. She was of course the groundbreaking female comedian, who had the wild hair and cackling voice. In the presentation on national television, she improvised a lot of lines and prompted some improvisation from my Dad as well.  She was a good sport and apparently really enjoyed working with my Dad. She invited him to work with her in Vegas but he turned down the opportunity. He had done Vegas with Orson Welles back in the 1950s and I guess did not want to get dragged into a similar situation. My older brother Chris was 15 when they did the Hollywood Palace, I was eight and my younger brother was four. Dad did not think living in Vegas for several months at a time or permanently was a good idea for a family like ours. It must not have offended her, in the DVD documentary that came out about her a few years ago, this presentation with my Father was included.



The English Invasion band Herman's Hermits was also on the show that week and my Brother Chris got to meet them at the height of their career. I have a pictures of him backstage with the band  and when I lay my hands on it I will add it to this post. He got to work the prop on TV and that is pretty neat. If you watch the video of the performance, you will see him pretty clearly. The Hollywood Palace was a West Coast version of the Ed Sullivan show, it featured singers, dancers, comedians and assorted variety acts. It was produced by Bing Crosby's company and rather than having a single host, The Hollywood Palace had rotating hosts, some of whom hosted once and others hosted several times. The show aired on Saturdays and it was on the ABC network. The stairs that are seen in the video are at the end of our bed right now, to allow the dachshunds access.

In December of 1971, I had my turn to be in the act with this prop on stage at Magic Mountain. We did the main stage for two weeks during the Christmas season. The stage where we worked was called the Showcase Theater, and I think that the idea was that Magic Mountain would try to have Celebrity performers on a regular basis. The marque of the theater is featured in "This is Spinal Tap" where the band is listed as supporting the puppet show.  The park was brand new at the time, opened only for about six months. Since the admission policy was unlike Disney, once you were in the park you had access to all of the attractions. I had a great time riding the roller-coaster and the log ride as much as I wanted between shows. I remember that my Dad tracked the exact mileage to the park everyday and that it was fifty four miles one way.

We worked with three celebrities during the run of the show. Shari Lewis was the first, she had Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse doing their bits and then came out and was the woman who was Elasticized by my Dad in his part of the show.  The second week we worked, the celebrity act was Tim Conway and McLean Stevenson. They did a comedy routine. I knew who Tim Conway was but this was right before Stevenson was cast in the TV version of M*A*S*H. I can't remember anything about their act except that it was funny. Tim came out and he became the Elastic Man for the rest of our run in the show. In order to make it funny and to keep his feet clear on the prop, he wore a pair of florescent orange socks. Of course I had a pair as well and I always referred to them afterwards as my Tim Conway socks.

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?

Nino

Nino and Tihany

One of the pleasures of this blog is remembering old friends. I have heard from several former associates of my Father since I started the blog but also since the article in Magic Magazine appeared. My Dad collected friends and adversaries with both hands. Sometimes they even switched hands. One person who was always on the "Friend "side was the magician known to me only as Nino. I'm sure he had a last name but we never used it and although we worked with him on many big shows, I never saw him billed with any other name.

Nino was a disciple of the great Senor Frakson, a Spanish performer famous for his cigarette magic.  Nino did many of the same cigarette effects and he used doves and silks in his very polished act. My Dad took me to his house once in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, we must have been delivering something, but I can't remember what. Nino was always at the house helping out with some project my Dad was involved with. This is a picture that I found that is really only magically based because of the two subjects. There is no prop and I have no specific story. I just know that when Tihany was in town, Nino sometimes helped him navigate the L.A. area. Here are the two of them in what is simply describable only as a moment of exuberance. That may be Nino's truck and they were picking up something from my Dad. This is in the parking lot of the warehouse on Chapel in Alhambra.

One of the people who I have heard from since the article came out is Connie Keeler Mcleod, she worked many big shows with my Dad along with her husband Bill. She told me that Nino was still around and that she speaks to him on occasion. I hope this picture will bring back some fond memories for him if he gets a chance to see it, I know it brought some back for me.

The Amazing Phyllis Kirkham

Those of you who knew my parents, know that my father's common sense came from the woman he was married to for 47 years. They were High School Sweethearts at Battle Creek Central High. She worked with him in his entire professional career. My Father could be impulsive and short-tempered at times. He was also pig headed about a lot of things, yet if it was needed, my mother was there to calm him down, point out something that he was unwilling to see before, or back him up like a tiger. They were a team. Most professional magicians have the spotlight while their spouse moves in the background. It always seemed to me that my Mom got as much attention as she ever wanted from us, but she did step out front and center on occasion.

Houdini did a straight-jacket escape from tall buildings to draw attention to his upcoming appearances. My Dad must have thought it was a great idea, but he was an innovator and somehow managed to get my Mother to do the escape bit when they were touring around. I can't say for sure how many places they must have done this but in the early years before my older brother was born, they traveled extensively in the Western U.S. and this probably was featured in any town that was of sufficient size. 

Here she is at street level, this may have been in Battle Creek because the older woman here looks a lot like my father's Grandmother. I can't say for sure, and I don't know who the little girl would be. They may simply be bystanders who stopped to pose with the daredevil  woman.

In the late forties and early fifties there may not have been enough tall buildings in small towns to have the dramatic effect that Houdini would get from hanging off a skyscraper, so the next best thing appears to have been a hook and ladder from the local fire department. I can't imagine the red tape you would have to go through these days to pull a stunt like this. Back then, you might only have needed to ask at the fire house and get the chief on board.

If you watch the video above, you will hear some very dramatic music being played to heighten the sense of danger. From my point of view, hanging upside down fifty feet above the asphalt of the street intersection would be plenty dangerous enough. I wonder if there was ever a band or recorded music used at these events. Now a days, there are so many graceful performers working in places like Vegas, high above the stage and audience, we may get a little jaded as to how truly dangerous this stuff could be.

This shot gives me just a bit of vertigo by looking at it. You can see that there is some dramatic flare in the presentation with her arms outstretched once released from the jacket. My Mother must really have loved my Dad to do this kind of stuff. She comes from a family of five sisters who were all amazing in their own ways. The oldest sister, my Aunt Reba,  in in her late eighties and still plugging along. She is the last in the series of Lines sisters to be with us, but I have multiple cousins and second cousins that I have never met, who will know how my Mom could do something like this because they have met Aunt Reba. The Lines sisters were not shrinking violets.

Somewhere else in my dozens of boxes, I have a photo of my Mom standing with several other Magicians, getting ready to escape from straight jackets as part of a Hollywood promotion of the movie "Houdini " starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. When I find it I will add it to this post.  The producers of "You Asked For It", which my parents appeared on several times, might have been horrified to learn that my Mother was pregnant with my older brother Chris when she did this stunt on their show. How is that for being a trooper?

Magic Magazine Article by Gary Frank

http://www.magicmagazine.com/2012/february/contents.html

Here is a screen shot of the article listing on Magic Magazine's Website. The article just came out and I have already received a couple of notes from magicians on the contents. I am a little jealous because I have not seen the Magazine yet, I should be getting a copy any day now. Gary worked tirelessly to put this together, and he has done it only for the sake of his love of my Father and our friendship. I was happy he got started on the idea because it forced me to start going through material that has basically just sat in boxes for fifteen years or so. This blog page got started because I was inspired by the effort that Gary was making. I know there is not enough room in a magazine for all the material that I have so I will continue to share on these pages. Again, I hope any of you who come to the site will feel free to post stories or corrections that you think might be appropriate. I would like to also thank Stan Allen the editor of Magic Magazine for publishing the story. I remember Stan from when I was a kid working in my Father's show. He was very kind to my Dad and Mom in their last years together and always made sure they got their copy of the magazine. There is a link above to the magazine web-page, if you don't already have a subscription, you can go there and order a copy of the magazine. Looking forward to more magic memories.

Thank you all, Richard Kirkham