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.