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.